She looks at him and says, "You're a grenade." He looks at her, briefly, and sneers, "Then maybe you should handle me carefully."
Dialogue that bad is just good. Bring it on, please.
American Gothic (Wednesday, CBS, Global, 10 p.m.) is ridiculous and ridiculously good fun. We are now into the heat of summer network TV, a joyride of trash, mostly – and boy, do we need it. This series, which could be wrapped up easily in six hours with commercials, goes on and on for 13 episodes. Something to look forward to, and relish.
There is a lot of rage, anger and horror out there in the world. Every week brings more, it seems. After you've tired of escaping reality by making fun of the hairstyles of top European soccer players at Euro 2016, you need something else.
The premise of American Gothic – not to be confused with the excellent, short-lived series from 1995 about a fascist small-town sheriff, or indeed with the iconic 1930 American painting – is that a super-rich Boston family of overachievers and egotists might harbour a serial killer. The killer, called the "Silver Bells Killer," terrorized old-wealth Boston between 1999 and 2002 by murdering six of them. He or she strangled them with a belt and left behind a small silver bell.
So, meet the Hawthornes, a posse of handsome people led by a patriarch dad (Jamey Sheridan, who could do this type of role in his sleep) whose fortune was made in the construction racket. In time-honoured tradition, being in the construction racket can put you in the hands of the mob. So, you know, the guy can't be as clean as he looks. Mom (Virginia Madsen) is cool, calculating and, under the smooth exterior, vicious.
And then here's mayoral candidate Alison (Juliet Rylance), who just wants to get elected and be powerful. Her brother Cam (Justin Chatwin) is a cartoonist and recovering drug addict. Also, probably, a bit psychotic. Her sister Kerry (Canadian Meghan Heffern) is trying to get pregnant and hence is off the meds which, usually, keep her in a zombie-like state of sanity. Meanwhile, enter brother Garrett (Antony Starr), who has been hanging out alone in the woods of Maine for 14 years, for reasons that allegedly aren't explained until several episodes in.
Take note that Garrett vamoosed right at the time the murders stopped. He's also the guy who is described as "a grenade." But these are not palookas. These are rich, ambitious people. And when certain parties discover a box with a belt and several silver bells on the family estate, things get gnarly. Like, who among them could have been the killer?
As mysteries go, and based on the evidence of early episodes, American Gothic is trash of the highest order. Listen, it makes a change from the invading aliens who often populate summer TV, and European soccer stars, as benign summer escapism. It is brainless and silly and, as such, in this summer of angst and death, highly recommended.
For summer high jinks of a more indirect and dryly ironic kind, take note that HBO's excellent Veep has expanded its fun boundary.
If you've been watching Veep, and I hope you have, you will know that a running joke is that Catherine Meyer (Sarah Sutherland), the dopey teen daughter of President Selina Meyer (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), is making a documentary about life at the White House and her mom's beleaguered presidency, after a tie vote made her election as President somewhat unclear. Well, the show has now established a website for Catherine's documentary, Kissing Your Sister: The Story of a Tie, which includes hilarious extra scenes from Veep.
It is a stroke of genius, this thing. The site establishes Catherine as a serious filmmaker of a certain type.
"Catherine Selina Meyer is a multi- and interdisciplinary artist whose work addresses issues like environmental degradation, the bitter legacy of colonialism, animal rights and the stubborn prevalence of the discredited gender binary. After majoring in film at Vassar College, where her dance piece (Silent Crimes//Keystone Pipeline) was a runner-up for the Mary Parks Mortimer Prize, Meyer interned with the pioneering documentarian Laura Belzman (Cry Sandinista!, Cancer Spike, A Boy Called Wendy) until illness forced her to return home to Washington."
It is all a sort-of delicious dessert to follow Veep. It's not trash in the traditional sense. But it is deeply ironic, sometimes ridiculous and a cock-eyed commentary on life at the top in American politics. We could use some savage farce in that vein, too. Especially since the reality of the U.S. presidential race beggars black farce itself.