Sunday, February 20, 2022

What I’m Watching: Pam and Tommy

Pam and Tommy: Season 1, Episode 5 “Uncle Jim and Aunt Susie in Duluth” (B+)

All of these web searches are quite entertaining, remember things like AltaVista and the slowness with which graphics would load on each page. Unfortunately for Pamela, the tape was all too easy to find, and she also had no control over the bitter lawsuit that ended up getting printed in the New York Times. The idea that the sex tape itself wasn’t a story but that it was stolen and that part of a major legal dispute would make it newsworthy says a lot about how the media works, and that’s even truer now that things can be “reported” online without any sourcing and then become stories because of the way people respond to them rather than any evidence. Jay Leno’s initial lack of interest and then his piling on hit Pamela very hard, and the fact that she’s the only one being deposed highlights just how much more it’s going to affect her than it will Tommy. As usual, the musician has no control whatsoever over his temper, beating up the people who were excited to recognize him and then throwing a fit when Third Eye Blind got the better space from the same management company. Rand seems to have gotten ahead of Pellicano, completely cleaning out his apartment and disappearing so that his latest visit wouldn’t result in deadly violence, though I have a hard time imagining that he would be able to pull that off unless he’s something gotten things under control since his last desperate and frantic appearance.

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