Rutherford Falls
Rutherford Falls
I don't think I knew what to expect from this, but it's a new Mike Schur show so I was of course going to check it out.
It's actually not a Mike Schur show, though. It's co-created with actor Ed Helms, and notably, with Sierra Ornelas, a Native American (Navajo) writer whose past credits include Happy Endings and Superstore- two of my other favorite comedies. The writing room is advertised as being approximately half Native American writers. There was major effort here to make this a #ownvoices exercise in storytelling that is pretty unusual for a major network sitcom.
The result is incredibly striking. In the mold of both Parks and Recreation and Superstore, this is a show where nobody is the bad guy, but everybody is capable of hurting other people both inadvertently and advertently. This lets them tell really difficult political stories in a way that is shockingly gentle, yet insistently pointy, by making them personal stories about characters we care about.
It's a story about a small New Jersey town established on (the fictional) Minneshonka tribe's land, and adjacent to a Minneshonka reservation. The town celebrates a whitewashed (but generally factual) version of its history, and nobody is prouder of that history than the great-great-etc. grandson of the town founder, played by Ed Helms, who runs a town history museum. But Helms's character finds himself in conflict with his best friend, a Minneshonka woman who runs the tribe's cultural center in the casino, as they debate the way the town should present its history going forward.
The Ed Helms role, Nathan Rutherford, is a thorny topic. If anybody else played that character, the clueless white guy sticking up for his ancestors' place in American history, it would be just about impossible to like him, but somehow Helms has the charisma and humanity to mostly pull it off, with the help of skillful writing. He is consistently emotionally supportive of his best friend, Reagan, while remaining blithely clueless about the ways in which he hurts her with his white privilege. But he accepts callouts and rethinks his positions and is generally way less obnoxious and more enjoyable to watch than I expected.
Still, one wishes he weren't one of the show creators- the show would be more interesting if he weren't being centered. The highlight of the show, and by far the best performance, is Michael Greyeyes as Terry, the casino CEO. He is a self-identified shark who glories in capitalism, but is aware that his position is tenuous and depends on the support and community of his tribe, and he is aware that capitalism is just an end to his personal goals of supporting his family and his community. It's an incredibly complicated performance that Greyeyes makes sympathetic even when Terry crosses moral boundaries. The evolving relationship between Reagan and Terry is for me the heart of the show much more than the evolving relationship between Reagan and Nathan.
I hope, at least, that we get more seasons. This is a show that really could have benefited from the space a 22 episode season could have given not just the principal characters but also the supporting cast, which is full of good turns in small roles- the casino cleaners who have their finger on the pulse of the tribe, Terry's rabid lacrosse mom wife, the drunken college professor writing a book on the history of the town, the clown of a Harvard-educated lawyer, the assistants to the mayor and the casino owner...
In general, I felt like the presence of assistants pointed to one of the ways the show improved on Parks and Rec. It felt closer to Superstore in its portrayal of the tenuousness of life for lower class, a connection highlighted in a mid-season episode where they successfully pulled off a scene like the magnificent breakroom scenes in Superstore- a dozen people in a room doing a really hilariously terrible job of a having a serious conversation about race and representation.
But another way the show feels richer than Parks is that from the start, there is more than just one character who loves their home town. In different ways, everyone in the show is engaged in the project of government, because they recognize how government impacts their lives and affects their community. Nobody needs to be told that local government is important. That investment in community is something Parks had to earn over many seasons because they came at it from the wrong angle initially, but Rutherford Falls feels it from the first moment.
This emphasis maybe goes too far, though. There is maybe not enough focus on systems, because the show is so interested in individuals. The multinational corporation founded by Nathan's family (and no longer under their control) is the only faceless institution we see, and it's hard to see how broader institutions shape the characters lives.
And it remains funny throughout, and joyful, and emotionally resonant, and I really do hope we get more of it. This entry was originally posted at https://seekingferret.dreamwidth.org/379663.html. Please comment there using OpenID. There are
comments.
I don't think I knew what to expect from this, but it's a new Mike Schur show so I was of course going to check it out.
It's actually not a Mike Schur show, though. It's co-created with actor Ed Helms, and notably, with Sierra Ornelas, a Native American (Navajo) writer whose past credits include Happy Endings and Superstore- two of my other favorite comedies. The writing room is advertised as being approximately half Native American writers. There was major effort here to make this a #ownvoices exercise in storytelling that is pretty unusual for a major network sitcom.
The result is incredibly striking. In the mold of both Parks and Recreation and Superstore, this is a show where nobody is the bad guy, but everybody is capable of hurting other people both inadvertently and advertently. This lets them tell really difficult political stories in a way that is shockingly gentle, yet insistently pointy, by making them personal stories about characters we care about.
It's a story about a small New Jersey town established on (the fictional) Minneshonka tribe's land, and adjacent to a Minneshonka reservation. The town celebrates a whitewashed (but generally factual) version of its history, and nobody is prouder of that history than the great-great-etc. grandson of the town founder, played by Ed Helms, who runs a town history museum. But Helms's character finds himself in conflict with his best friend, a Minneshonka woman who runs the tribe's cultural center in the casino, as they debate the way the town should present its history going forward.
The Ed Helms role, Nathan Rutherford, is a thorny topic. If anybody else played that character, the clueless white guy sticking up for his ancestors' place in American history, it would be just about impossible to like him, but somehow Helms has the charisma and humanity to mostly pull it off, with the help of skillful writing. He is consistently emotionally supportive of his best friend, Reagan, while remaining blithely clueless about the ways in which he hurts her with his white privilege. But he accepts callouts and rethinks his positions and is generally way less obnoxious and more enjoyable to watch than I expected.
Still, one wishes he weren't one of the show creators- the show would be more interesting if he weren't being centered. The highlight of the show, and by far the best performance, is Michael Greyeyes as Terry, the casino CEO. He is a self-identified shark who glories in capitalism, but is aware that his position is tenuous and depends on the support and community of his tribe, and he is aware that capitalism is just an end to his personal goals of supporting his family and his community. It's an incredibly complicated performance that Greyeyes makes sympathetic even when Terry crosses moral boundaries. The evolving relationship between Reagan and Terry is for me the heart of the show much more than the evolving relationship between Reagan and Nathan.
I hope, at least, that we get more seasons. This is a show that really could have benefited from the space a 22 episode season could have given not just the principal characters but also the supporting cast, which is full of good turns in small roles- the casino cleaners who have their finger on the pulse of the tribe, Terry's rabid lacrosse mom wife, the drunken college professor writing a book on the history of the town, the clown of a Harvard-educated lawyer, the assistants to the mayor and the casino owner...
In general, I felt like the presence of assistants pointed to one of the ways the show improved on Parks and Rec. It felt closer to Superstore in its portrayal of the tenuousness of life for lower class, a connection highlighted in a mid-season episode where they successfully pulled off a scene like the magnificent breakroom scenes in Superstore- a dozen people in a room doing a really hilariously terrible job of a having a serious conversation about race and representation.
But another way the show feels richer than Parks is that from the start, there is more than just one character who loves their home town. In different ways, everyone in the show is engaged in the project of government, because they recognize how government impacts their lives and affects their community. Nobody needs to be told that local government is important. That investment in community is something Parks had to earn over many seasons because they came at it from the wrong angle initially, but Rutherford Falls feels it from the first moment.
This emphasis maybe goes too far, though. There is maybe not enough focus on systems, because the show is so interested in individuals. The multinational corporation founded by Nathan's family (and no longer under their control) is the only faceless institution we see, and it's hard to see how broader institutions shape the characters lives.
And it remains funny throughout, and joyful, and emotionally resonant, and I really do hope we get more of it. This entry was originally posted at https://seekingferret.dreamwidth.org/379663.html. Please comment there using OpenID. There are
comments.