The Riches

Well, to relax the vitriol Hemlock Grove brought out of me, I watched The Riches again. Now again, I adore two actors in this show. Eddie Izzard, of course, and Shannon Marie Woodward. Now, let me be clear. This show isn't a good show. It just doesn't piss me off half as much as Hemlock Grove did. Unfortunately, while I loved it the first time, I didn't like it that much the second time.

The sexually confused child is handled very well. Their gypsy culture is handed... alright. (Not that I know anything about gypsy culture.) Unfortunately, drugs are the center of the show, and it's handled  very inconsistently. One minute, the mother has a total meltdown because she can't get her 'urban' drugs, next she's being introduced to 'suburban' drugs, next her husband goes on quite a hilarious drug trip. (Eddie Izzard is much too good at comedy for that not to have come out as funny as it did.)

The youngest kid doesn't seem sure whether he wants to be a girl or a boy. He's introduced as a girl, then revealed to be a boy. The family is very supportive of this, but tells him for this con, where they pretend to be a dead guy's family, he has to choose a gender.

The only bits worth watching were not found on youtube. The introduction, where they pull off a grand con to get presents for the mother getting out of jail, and the drug trip in episode 10. After that... it isn't really worth it. It isn't that this show is bad. It just wasn't good either.

I think all the show's problems stem from the fact that, even by the second season, The Riches hasn't figured out what it wants to be. Hiring two great comedic actors, Shannon Woodward and Eddie Izzard, for what seems to primarily be a drama. It opens with a comedic scene, and as an author, I know openings are there to set the tone for the rest of the work. It ends on a cliffhanger that can only go badly, and to be honest, if the cliffhanger had been resolved, I might have liked the show better. This isn't fair to the show, but it's true.

It really does seem to want to be a drama, with Minnie Driver's character's drug problem, and the youngest son's transgender issues being taken very seriously--most of the time. The arranged marriage plot is very heavy-handed, but the comedy just seeps in, with the girl being arranged to marry a very mentally challenged man, who the show alternately makes fun of and attempts to take seriously.

So perhaps The Riches was attempting to be a Dramedy, but it never really finds the balance between comedy and drama to really make it work.