There was a lot of talk last September about the new rash of gross-out, female-driven comedies. With the premieres of Whitney and 2 Broke Girls, television critics jumped on the bandwagon and started wondering if women should be so crude. Can we joke about our vaginas and still be ladies? My answer for the two aforementioned shows is, no, they cannot. And it’s not because vaginas aren’t funny. They’re hilarious. But Whitney and 2 Broke Girls just weren’t funny, gross-out vagina jokes or no.
That brings us to six months later and the premiere of Don’t Trust the B—- in Apartment 23. I’m not sure how much people are going to talk about it, but it’s awfully dirty. The difference is it’s also rather funny. While Whitney Cummings or Kat Dennings use their crude jokes in an aggressive, almost malicious way, usually to keep people from liking them, Krysten Ritter, the titular B–––, is gross in such a natural, partly unconscious way that it’s funny and not nearly as offensive as on the other shows. She’s got a dirty mouth because that’s just the way she talks; she’s not flaunting it or even drawing attention to it. It’s almost, well, likable, and that’s a quality sorely missing elsewhere.
It’s this unexpected likabilty that saves/sells this show for me. Don’t get me wrong, there are some problems with the pilot and more pronouncedly with the second episode, which is available online here. The secondary characters, ie. the neighbors, Robin and Eli, are horribly caricatural. The pacing of the first half of the pilot is a bit jarring and precipitous. And the show is so clearly filmed in LA that it’s almost a joke in itself. However, there’s a spark. A twistedness. An surreal audacity that makes me smile. (Just look at the first scene of the show and tell me it’s not bold). And if a sitcom can have that after two episodes, it’s got something going for it.
The show centers around June (Dreama Weaver), a wide-eyed (literally) optimist who comes to New York City with grand plans of success at a mortgage firm and happiness with her grad-student fiancé. Within minutes, the mortgage firm goes belly-up – the CEO has been embezzling for years – and June is left jobless, prospectless and homeless (the apartment was a company building, which was seized by the government). Really, it sounds like the opening scenes of a romantic comedy, and in the movie version, June would be played by Katherine Heigl, complete with a fake tan and an impossibly expensive wardrobe. But thankfully, instead of meeting Mr. Right, who at first appears to be Mr. Wrong, but then ends up being perfect, June meets Chloe (Krysten Ritter), and the main plot of the show takes off.
Chloe, as I said before, is the bitch in apartment 23, and she’s a straight-up sociopath. For years apparently, she’s been luring unsuspecting women into her apartment, and rather than murdering them like most sociopaths, she drives them crazy to the point that they forfeit their rent/security, and she gets some cash in hand. I’m not sure if that actually works, I mean, in the real world, wouldn’t she have to give back at least some of the money, but as a concept, it’s pretty ingenius. She gets more than she bargains for in June, however, and, as you would expect, a TV show develops. June fights back, selling Chloe’s stuff to the neighbors; then the two bond as they try to get said stuff back. June reveals a darker side which surprises Chloe, and she’s, as she says in the show, not easily surprised.
The pilot also deals with the business of June’s fiancé, who is cheating on June, though June won’t believe Chloe when she tells her. To prove her point, in the worst possible way, Chloe seduces the fiancé and lets June discover them in flagranté, on June’s birthday cake. I call this element of the pilot “business” because it really isn’t the crux of the show, and, in fact, in the second episode, they move past it pretty quickly. It’s more of means to an end to bond Chloe and June even more. The show pivots on the budding friendship of the optimist and the sociopath, so once you know that Chloe has June’s back, you’ve tapped the essence of the show.
And it really is this dynamic between the two lead characters that makes the show work. June is not nearly as nice as she wants to be, and Chloe is not nearly as evil as everyone thinks she is. June is like Community‘s Shirley Bennett, all optimism and smiles, until you cross her the wrong way. And Chloe is a female Jeff Winger, all ego and walls, but with a heart deep down inside. As Dawson says, “She may have the morals of a pirate, but she would do anything for her friends.”
There’s also great chemistry between the two actors, something which I thought was missing on the similarly plotted 2 Broke Girls. They have a very Oscar and Felix repartee, which keeps the pace of the show nicely on point. It’s also fun to see both actors in different roles than they usually play. It wasn’t long ago that Dream Weaver was the cutthroat girlfriend of the son on The Good Wife and Krysten Ritter was the manic pixie dream girl who wore short skirts on Veronica Mars and shot heroin on Breaking Bad. Seeing them on Apartment 23, they are really well cast, even though it’s such a departure from their previous work.
Finally, I can’t finish this review without mentioning James Van Der Beek. In a move akin to Matt LeBlanc on Episodes, Van Der Beek plays himself, or a perverted, interpreted, Ricky Gervais’s Extras-type version of himself. And it’s hilarious. Probably, at this point, he’s the best part of the show, even if you have to negotiate for the flannel shirt. He’s definitely the best part of the second episode. And if you only watch for him, that’s okay. At least you’re watching the show, one which, I think, displays a lot of potential to become appointment viewing. I’m definitely in.
Pilot: Grade: B+
Daddy’s Girl 2: Grade B
PS. I’m not sure how this show, with all it’s perverted, dark humor, is going to play with Suburgatory and Modern Family, both of which are bright, shiny, happy, family-friendly fare. I’m don’t think the audience that likes Manny is going to warm up to a snarky James Van Der Beek. However, fans of Happy Endings, the show which had this time slot before, should appreciate it. Here’s hoping it finds an audience.
PPS. I watched these episodes on hulu, and in that version of the pilot, June makes a comment about writing a rap at Christian camp called “Jesus is my n-word.” That was changed for the regular airing. I guess bitch isn’t the only word they have problems with.
Mary the TV Maven 