brendan halpin

First things first: yes, some big names are on board, but this show is trash. But that’s never stopped me from enjoying a tv show before, and it didn’t stop me this time!

Brittany Snow moves with her family from Boston to Texas and falls under the sway of Malin Akerman, Queen Bee of her fictional Texas town. Also there is a murder. And lots of scandalous sex.

So let me say first of all that the murder mystery is handled extremely well. Every episode after the murder had me convinced a different person was responsible. But here’s where we come to the problem with the show (no spoilers yet!)—it’s ultimately less interested in the murder than with Sophie’s character arc. Which is too bad because Karen Rodriguez as Salazar is a great detective character, and if the show had focused on her solving the murder (oh yeah, and the two disappearances), I think it would have been better.

But the biggest problem with the show is, ultimately, that it’s trying to do too many things and therefore winds up not doing any of them as well as it could have. Here come the spoilers!

Is this a satire of evangelical Christian hypocrisy? Kind of! Is it a satire of gun culture? Also kind of! Is it a satire of wealthy people? Again, kind of! But the satire never really hits because the show is interested in how Sophie is seduced by Margo, and so the satire doesn’t really hit.

Particularly chickenshit is the fact that the show avoids the white supremacy at the heart of the right wing evangelical culture of the show. Yes, Jed (or maybe Jeb, who cares) says some vaguely racist stuff in his campaign speech, but Margo has a Black friend! And so does Brad! So they can’t be racist, right? And Salazar faces no sexism or racism from her white co-workers and boss, so they can’t be that racist, right? I don’t know anything about Texas, but my suspicion here is that the creators felt like we wouldn’t sympathize with Sophie’s integration into wealthy Texas society if said society was openly racist. This is a missed opportunity because let me say a LOT of East Coast liberals are pretty racist—it’s just a polite, discreet racism.

And then there’s Sophie. Is she a good person who is led astray, or is she a horrible person whose true nature is revealed by encountering Margo? It seemed like they were trying to maintain our sympathy for Sophie all the way to the last scene even when she does some pretty horrible things. The flashback to her meeting Graham seemed designed to show us that she’s a manipulative, opportunistic POS, but, again, it’s not hit as hard as it might be.

Finally, I understand that Hollywood is always going to cast 25-year-olds as high school students, but in this case it felt irresponsible. Because people in their 30s and 40s being in sexual relationships with 25-year-olds is one thing, but these characters are supposed to be 18. Cast some actual 18-year-olds who look 18 would make the sexual relationships with these characters disturbing. Instead, the creators play it for titillation.

So yeah, I guess I’m complaining that a trashy soap opera wasn’t a razor-sharp satire. What can I say, it’s very hard for me to enjoy things uncritically.

Special shoutouts to Karen Rodriguez and Chrissy Metz, both of whom give authentic, compelling performances. It’s almost like they were in a different and better show. I hope they get more chances to show what they can do.