For more than a quarter of a
century I have been one of Marcia Gay Harden’s greatest admirers. One of the
great character actresses of our time, she’s had far more success than far too
many of them in her craft. In a rarity for the Oscars, they absolutely made the
right call when she won Best Supporting Actress for Ed Harris minor masterpiece
Pollock. In what would be the first film in Clint Eastwood’s late career
renaissance Mystic River, she was just as brilliant as Tim Robbins’ incredibly
strained wife who suspects her husband might be capable of murder. Like so many actresses, she has migrated to
television not long after, every so often touching the brilliance she shows film
and stage. In the second season of Damages, she very nearly stole the
show from Glenn Close and Rose Byrne as Claire Maddox, a lawyer for an energy
company just as skilled as Patty and Ellen, and far more sexual. I’ve never
forgotten how well she wore a garter belt.
She was one of the few genuinely solid performers in Aaron Sorkin’s The
Newsroom and was superb in the cancelled too-soon ABC sitcom Trophy
Wife. I may not like The Morning
Show, but I was glad to see her get an Emmy nomination for it this year.
I haven’t admired Skyler Astin for
nearly as long as Harden, but my respect for him runs just as deep. His
breaking on to the scene in the Pitch Perfect franchise was wonderful
and he has made wonderful performances in two of the greatest unwatched series
of the past decade: Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and Zoey’s Extraordinary
Playlist. In the former, he was recast as a fan favorite and made us forget
how great Santino Fontana was; freed from a similar inhibition in the latter,
he made us root for him and Zoey to get together from the start and our hearts
were as broken when he lost her. Obviously,
he has one of the greatest singing voices I’ve heard in years, but he also has
the innate ability to make himself instantly likable.
It was a personal joy of mine to see
two of my favorite actors of this century working together in CBS’ new
drama-comedy-legal mix, So Help Me Todd. It troubled me quite a bit while,
watching the pilot, the creators had decided to go out of their comfort zones
by casting Harden and Astin, too truly likable people, as characters who do
every in their power to rub the audience – and each other – the wrong way.
Harden is Anne Brightman, a major partner at a Portland firm. Astin is her son
Todd – big surprise – a former private investigator who lost his license before
the series began, has been freelancing – for an insurance agency – has moved
back in with his sister – who is not happy to have him in her basement - ever since. He and his mother have spent the
last two years going out of their way not to talk each other: she has lived her
life playing by the rules, and he goes
out of his way to break them every chance he gets. There is also a larger
problem that they don’t want to admit; they’ve had a lot of trouble speaking to
each other since his father died, and she remarried. It therefore makes things
very awkward when Anne’s second husband – who has Parkinson’s - disappears
while they are moving into a new apartment and Todd must help her. The search
for her ex-husband ends with Todd confronting him on a place to Iceland and he
makes it very clear that he does not want the time he has left – with Anne.
This conversation, in typical broadcast TV fashion, also makes it clear that
Todd’s mother broke her code in fighting for her son to keep her license,
something he never knew about.
I won’t like to you; So Help Me
Todd is, at least in its first two episodes, something of a mess. It’s
still not sure how serious a drama it wants to be, how much it wants to lean
into the comedy that’s occasionally funny, and how much awkwardness it wants to
deal with. I respect both Harden and Astin for taking roles that go out of
their comfort zones; it doesn’t make them any less grating. At this point, it’s
a question which personality trait viewers will find more grating: Harden’s anal-retentive
streak or Astin’s insistence of narrating into his watch like he’s the hero of
his own film noir. Most of the other
regulars on the series we’ve met – apart from Todd’s sister, who is constantly
being pulled between the two – aren’t much more fully drawn and in several
cases, just as irksome. (I loathe Leonard, the investigator for Anne’s firm.
Every sentence out of his mouth makes my skin crawl.)
There are also some pleasures to be
found; the most interesting of which is that for all Todd and Anne’s utter
differences, the paths they seem devoted to taking have not brought them the
rewards they thought. We already know this whenever we see Todd approach
anything, but in the second episode we saw how obvious it is for Anne. Anne has
spent more than thirty years at her firm and has been cultivating a
relationship with the Mayor of Portland that she thinks will finally get her
name on the letterhead. However, before she can meet with him, one of the
partners takes over the case, reduces her to second chair, demeans her for
hiring Todd, and sends her out to get food. It’s clear from the moment we meet
this man that Anne has propping him and other partners for years and has gotten
to the point where she’s used to her being diminished by them. When the
case is successfully resolved at the end of the episode, that same partner
gives half-hearted praise to Anne, and vaguely offers the possibility of
senior partner, but lavishes praises on Todd without crediting her for hiring
him. Even Todd knows how unfair this is.
We’re all used to the oil and water partnerships
of series, but credit where it’s due: I don’t remember the last time seeing a
mother and son team anywhere. It helps matters that both Harden and Astin are
gifted at playing both drama and comedy equally well and their delivery of the
dialogue, especially in their scenes together, is usually the highlight of this
series. And So Help Me Todd makes it very clear, though they will no
doubt go to their respective graves denying it, just how alike they are. In my
favorite sequences to date, both go to the hospital where Alice gives the same
advice to her brother and her mother, and both utterly misconstrue the exact
same way. (Alice actually tries to point this out, but neither listen to her:
you get the feeling she’s used to this by now.)
I also want to give credit to the
fact that So Help Me Todd is appearing on CBS. This is the first drama I’ve
seen on the network since Evil (which ended up migrating to Paramount
Plus) that isn’t a procedural or an action series of some kind. Given how CBS
tends to treat this kind of series, I can’t help but wonder how long So Help
Me Todd is for this network before they replace it with yet another spinoff
of NCIS or FBI. Don’t get
me wrong; it’s nowhere near as polished as Evil was fresh out of the
gate, but there is potential and a certain level of variety that you don’t see
on, well, almost any broadcast network these days, and are likely to see fewer
of in the years to come. That’s the real help that Todd will need going
forward, particularly as its airing against Law and Order: SVU and Grey’s
Anatomy, two series that need to be put down but aren’t go anywhere. I hope
viewers choose something different, even if a show like Todd is the
opposite of the comfort its competition offers.
My score: 3.75 stars.
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