Molly Maloney

I wanted to love this show so much, and though there’s a lot of great components, they never quite come together into a fully cohesive whole. Ron Livingston stars as Loudermilk whose *entire* personality is “super salty recovering alcoholic + the name Loudermilk.” Story has it that he was a former, big-league rock critic for major publications like Spin and Rolling Stone (he’s even written a book or two), but both writing and music are so scarce in both in the plot line and the production that they’re nothing more than minor background props in Loudermilk’s 2-dimensional life. Even when confronted with one of the greatest personal disasters anyone could possibly ever face, Loudermilk’s character is entirely unaffected by the end of the 30-minute episode. It feels like the entire budget was blown on Livingston’s salary, leaving the writing, sets (we rotate endlessly between his apartment and the AA meeting room to the point that the show starts to feel pretty claustrophobic after just a few episodes), and supporting cast feeling entirely ill-matched. And, holy cow, the plot holes! (A multi-episode story arch about a character attending meetings for his boss - just evaporates without mention in S2 as does his S1 love interest). There are nuggets of brilliant writing and delivery by Livingston (and him, alone), but they’re not enough to make this show feel like anything more than a stunted, shallow, mediocre community theater production built around a single shining star. In all earnestness, this show could’ve been amazing, but I’m stunned it’s lasted a whole 3 seasons. <sigh>

It must’ve been written by AI because there wasn’t a single second of this movie that wasn’t formulaic dreck. The dialogue, the plot, every scene - there wasn’t a moment of authenticity from either the actors or the script across the entire 1 hour and 44 minute runtime. Is it the worst thing you’re likely to see this year? Considering the state of American politics, probably not. But that still doesn’t make it okay. This movie doesn’t deserve a glitter flake over 2.5 stars.