Monday, June 1, 2020

What I’m Watching: Hollywood


Hollywood: Season 1, Episode 5 “Jump” (B+)

Apparently Eleanor’s big push at the end of the previous episode wasn’t enough to convince Avis that they needed to cast Camille, but that was accomplished after Dick referenced “Song of the South,” a film that is still known to be incredibly controversial and remains unavailable because of that. That ended up being good news for just about everyone, with even those main characters who didn’t get the lead parts cast in smaller supporting roles. For a show that depicts some despicable people, it was nice to see just how genuine and complimentary those who did score the leads were to those they beat out, with Camille and Claire getting along well and Jack and Rock are essentially best friends coaching each other about their truly terrible acting. After the very celebratory table read, problems started to emerge for the production, but they got resolved pretty quickly by Henry, who unsurprisingly knew all the right people to make sure an eager reporter would bury anything he found for fear of his life. Demanding a producer credit was an interesting way of being repaid was a clever way of ensuring that now everyone on this show has an investment in this project. Dick’s notes for Archie weren’t well-received at first, but they did a great job of completely rewriting the story to make it much more relevant for the new casting and title. He wasn’t at all happy with Raymond for going way over budget, and thanks to Jack’s shocking news about his not being the father to the kids his wife is about to have, we’re going to see an all-out operation at the gas station to make them their much-needed money. I can’t imagine that will be a good idea given his legal troubles, but they’ll figure some way to get out of it as this show wraps up its narrative in the final two episodes.

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