The Riches Hurts so Good

The Riches Hurts so Good by Roxanne McDonald

Like a vicious drinking binge and next day’s hangover combined, “The Riches” brings us the deepest of delightful depravity.

The Malloys turned Riches are the Gatsbys on smack. The father is a self-proclaimed attorney who has good news and bad news—good news: he got a job. Bad news: he got a job. The mother is an ex-con (thanks to taking the rap for Dad) who is a stay-at-home dope slamming mess. And the kids are instant ACAs. Even the neighbor is oddly depraved, codependent and clueless as she is thus far.

Bring on the angst. If you have the composition for it. That is, if you liked, loved, or were just engrossed in the HBO series, Carnivale, by executive producers Dawn

Prestwich and Nicole Yorkin, now producing “The Riches,” you will be hooked like a looky-loo who cannot get enough of the grotesque. If you can handle the similar gut-wrenching involvement with the [emotionally] macabre, you will program your TiVo to catch every minute of every episode.
The critics agree, as the continuing promos on FX rightfully boast, that “The Riches” is the best new television series. And the numbers, if they hold as strong next Monday (at ten p.m.), also concur: “The Riches” debut episode, “Bring on the Lie,” according to Reuters and Nielsen Media Research, “averaged 3.8 million total viewers and 2.5 million adults 18-49 in its debut at 10 p.m.”

It may never be another “Nip/Tuck”, but FX networks has done it again, bringing us mature plots, gross and engrossing characters, and stellar deliveries by the way of Minnie Driver, Eddie Izzard, and company.

New FX Show Promises Rich TV-Viewing Experience

New FX Show Promises Rich TV-Viewing Experience by Roxanne McDonald

Just seeing the teasers tells us “The Riches” looks like it will be a great show—maybe even somewhere in the pop range of “Nip/Tuck”, “Dexter” [HBO], and “Dirt”.

It has been so difficult going through withdrawals from the ending of “Nip/Tuck”, a most addictive FX TV drama by the brilliant Ryan White. But “The Riches” might just make it up to us.

For starters, the cast is spectacular: take one Eddie Izzard, with the Tim Curry meets edgy and dark, and add one Minnie Driver, with a Southern Floridian accent and a sultry but spoiled attitude, and you have the makings of a Molloy [turned Rich] family dynamic that will blow “The Osbournes” or “Six Feet Under” off the airwaves.

Well, hopefully not, but this “family” of predators, who initially move into a dead man’s life—a rich dead man’s home, taking over his surname and identity—will grift their way through our entertainment hours in a way unlike any other reality or dark comedy has in quite some time.
Another telling element is the music: while I have yet to identify the soundtrack (and composers) on the previews, the tone and tenor point to a kind of Twin Peaks/David Lynch mood which is, if you are a Lynch fan, of the blackest of black comedy sound.

And so the premise offers absurd, comi-drama, dark comedy enthusiasts a bastardized nouveau riche couple who are much like an old-time Clampetts and Dick and Jane Harper composite; three kids who have got to me more screwed up than a shrink’s kids; and a storyline, dialogue, and dramatic action that promise to elicit some sick-ass chuckling.

At least, as I watch Driver as Dahlia Molloy/Cherien Rich settle in to her new digs, as she justifies her con artistry and as she stands in front of a wall-length mirror popping the cork on a bottle of Nyquil…hey, I am chuckling already.

I am intrigued.

And I would wager that any FX fans, anyone who digs the direction of Carl Franklin (who did “Devil in a Blue Dress” and “Out of Time”), and/or anyone who tends toward intelligent, richly-layered, and droll text/context as screenwriter Dmitry Lipkin will deliver it are interested as well.