(L to R) Abby Quinn as Natalie, Dan Levy as Nicky, and Taylor Ortega as Morgan in Episode 108 of Big Mistakes. Courtesy of Netflix Logo text Weeds, the Mary-Louise Parker-fronted dark comedy from Jenji Kohan, is generally remembered as one of those Showtime shows that were great until they became stupid and then lasted longer as “stupid” than they did as “great.” Seriously, there are at least a half-dozen of those.
Personally, I enjoyed a number of those increasingly silly seasons of the show, in which Nancy Botwin’s criminality expanded past the point of plausibility and became unsustainably ludicrous. As Showtime shows that lasted far too long go, I preferred Weeds to most.
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Big Mistakes
The Bottom Line Broadly funny, occasionally suspenseful and not particularly deep. Airdate: Thursday, April 9 (Netflix) Cast: Dan Levy, Taylor Ortega, Laurie Metcalf, Jack Innanen, Boran Kuzum, Abby Quinn, Elizabeth Perkins Creators: Dan Levy and Rachel SennottThat’s why it’s strange I’ve barely considered that one of my favorite TV genres of recent years — dark comedies about ordinary people forced into intense criminality by the vagaries of capitalism — was at least partially Weeds-inspired. I keep comparing series like Peacock’s Killing It, Hulu’s Deli Boys and Hulu’s recent Sunny Nights to each other, when the truth is that they’re all the children of Weeds, and that if I’d just said so, there’s probably a big audience that would have flocked to them.
That streak of obliviousness ends here. Netflix‘s new comedy Big Mistakes, created by the powerhouse duo of Dan Levy and Rachel Sennott, is surely a direct heir to Weeds and one that will probably at least interest viewers who watched Killing It and Deli Boys and Sunny Nights. I made the connection easily in this case in large part due to the presence of Elizabeth Perkins, nominated for multiple Emmys for Weeds, but also because while Weeds started off perceptive and pointed and then evolved into something generally chaotic and, yes, stupid, the latter state is pretty much the starting point here.
Big Mistakes has a very good cast, often clever dialogue and (if only because nothing really makes sense) frequent surprises, so it all comes down to how much you’re willing to suspend your disbelief while watching a generally unsubstantial comedy.
Set in New Jersey, the story follows an ethnically and religiously confusing family fronted by hardware store owner Linda (Laurie Metcalf), who decides after the death of her mother to run for mayor of their midsized town. The series isn’t about her, except for insofar as Metcalf is so reliably great in everything that everything she’s in turns out to be about her on some level. But it’s easiest to start with her.
Linda’s mayoral campaign is being managed by Natalie (Abby Quinn), one of her three kids. But the series isn’t really about her, either. Big Mistakes is about Linda’s son Nicky (Levy), a priest or reverend or pastor in a Christian denomination that allows clergy to be gay but not to be in gay relationships and thus has to keep his relationship with contractor Tareq (Jacob Gutierrez) a secret; and her daughter Morgan, an aspiring actor turned elementary school teacher who’s in a loveless long-term relationship with Max (Jack Innanen), who has the mustache of a spineless man and a mother (Perkins’ Annette) with vast financial reserves and an interest in local politics.
For reasons that only make sense if you don’t think about them for a single second — no seriously, STOP — Nicky and Morgan go shopping for a gift for their dying grandmother and end up at a tchotchke shop managed by Yusuf (Boran Kuzum). When Yusuf won’t sell them a necklace that they want, Morgan shoplifts the piece, which turns out to be important to a group of Russian gangsters fronted by Ivan (Mark Ivanir). Before you know it, Nicky and Morgan are deeply embroiled in a criminal enterprise that puts their lives in regular jeopardy.
Levy hasn’t written or created enough shows for me to justifiably make this generalization, but I shall make it nonetheless: He likes to start off in a place of exhausting broadness and then dial back once audiences have proven they’re willing to go along for the journey. Or at least that’s what happened with Schitt’s Creek, which started off so broad that I checked out after six episodes and didn’t return again for three full seasons after I was assured that once it had mellowed a bit, it became far better. Those assurances were, in that case, fully accurate.
There isn’t exactly a point at which I could similarly assure you that Big Mistakes begins to improve, because unlike Schitt’s Creek, this is a show based on plot mechanics and not particularly on character.
Nicky is a pastor or whatever, but after he gives one or two sermons that we recognize are about his narrative plight, there isn’t a single detail about the character that has anything to do with faith or spirituality, and Morgan’s former acting aspirations are more important than her reluctant job as a teacher. Morgan’s tumultuously dead-ended relationship with Max is more interesting than Nicky’s blandly predictable relationship with Tareq, which helps make her more of a developed character than Nicky is. But she’s initially far broader as well, which seems to be the basis for why these siblings bicker so persistently.
Incidentally, I kept forgetting that there was a third sibling, which is odd because Quinn is fairly funny, even if there’s no discernible reason why she’s doing anything she does.
In fact, there’s no discernible reason why anybody does anything they do in Big Mistakes, from Nicky and Morgan to Yusuf the Turkish store owner working for a criminal organization to the organization itself. I can put some of that on the truth that all of them are, by design, very bad at everything they’re doing (with the possible exception of Nicky’s ministering, which is why it might be sad that he cares so little about it).
But regardless, doing a crime comedy where the across-the-board motivation is “poorly considered happenstance” is a choice, and not a smart or emotionally investable one. Weeds, Killing It, Deli Boys and Sunny Nights all have organic load-bearing economic desperation, while Big Mistakes has a writers’ room. And a great writers’ room! Scribes include Mad Men veteran Erin Levy (no relation to Dan) and several other creators of well-regarded series. Which makes it all the more peculiar when, after eight episodes, Big Mistakes builds to a big revelation that is built around either the coincidence to end all coincidences, or a deeply complicated plot that nobody had the time to properly seed throughout the season.
Big Mistakes suffers from what physicist-television critics refer to as the observer effect, insofar as the process of closely examining the show makes it markedly worse than the process of simply watching it. There’s nothing under the surface, but it’s an entertaining surface.
If you embrace the catty and cute dialogue, rather than being annoyed by it, it’s easy to get caught up and entertained courtesy of the tight direction (starting with Dean Holland on the first two installments), editing that leaves no room for breath (or for fully realized characterization) and a score from Peaches and Nora Kroll-Rosenbaum that shifts into a Run Lola Run gear of pulse-pounding intensity when it wants you to be distracted by the implausibility of the circumstances. You might be annoyed by Big Mistakes, but you won’t be bored, and that’s something.
Morgan being the more defined character lets Ortega effectively anchor a lot of the series, which she does with an endearingly insufferable vulnerability. Levy arcs his character’s growing exasperation in a way that’s funny, if somewhat limited. I’ll say again: Why make your character a man of the cloth if you really don’t want “religion” to be a meaningful part of the narrative?
Kuzum plays a different shade of escalating exasperation, one tinged with danger. But just when it seems like the character is going to reach a breaking point, he vanishes for a while, and any interest I had in Yusuf dissipated entirely. And Metcalf? When she’s given more to do than just shout, she’s a marvel. Even when all she’s given to do is shout, the show is broad enough to contain her.
The thing about the climactic reveal, as logic-defying as it is, is that it made me think that the second season might be fun. But if Big Mistakes even aspires to reach the heart-filled emotional place that Schitt’s Creek found when it became about more about relationships between characters than about formerly rich people being spoiled in a town with a funny name, it surely isn’t there yet.
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