by rick grant rickgrant01@comcast.net
The last time television viewers saw Eddie Izzard was on one of his British comedy specials on The Comedy Channel doing his stand-up in drag. This new series on FX is a radical departure for Izzard, who skillfully portrays Wayne Malloy. He’s head a family of Irish travelers who lead a gypsy life in an RV roaming the country running scams for a living. The bulk of the Irish traveler clan lives in Marrero, Louisiana where the show was shot. Wayne’s family includes his older son, Dale, (Todd Stashwick) his teenage daughter DiDi, (Shannon Marie Woodward) young Sam, (Aidan Mitchell) and Wayne’s wife, Dahlia, (Minnie Driver) who has just been paroled from prison with a heroin addiction.
In the pilot episode, which aired March 12th, the family attends a high school reunion. As Wayne talked it up with the attendees, pretending to know them, the other family members steal money from wallets and handbags. It’s a typical scam for this wandering band of gypsy crooks. Then, after Dahlia returns, the family heads back to the clan headquarters in Louisiana to divvy up the money and touch base with the relatives.
As fate would have it, Wayne runs afoul of the clan’s stand-in leader who attacks him. Tired of sharing his booty with the in-laws, Wayne breaks into the old man’s safe and steals the clan’s bank. With clan members running after them, the Malloys take off in their RV to start a new life somewhere away from the clan’s influence.
During the trip, they happen to meet another Irish clan family at a gas station. Wayne is suspicious and tries to avoid trouble, but he has a fight with the head of the family and they are on the run again, with the other family chasing them. During the RV road battle, a husband and wife in a sedan swerve off the road to avoid hitting them, and they are killed. When Wayne finds them deep in the thicket off the road, he takes the man’s identification and other papers, sending their car to the bottom of a lake. The couple’s name was Riche. They had just bought a home on the Internet. So, Wayne decides to check it out.
The Malloys had just planned to see if there was anything worth taking in the house, and then they found out the Riches bought the property through a real estate broker they’d never seen. So, it occurred to Wayne that they could actually assume the Riches’ identity and no one would know the difference. In effect, they could steal the couple’s identity, living the good life in an upper class suburban neighborhood. Wayne would pose as a lawyer and they could live there indefinitely. The next day, the furniture the couple had ordered arrived, including their personal possessions from their last house.
The pilot set the stage for future episodes involving the Malloys, who are brazenly impersonating the dead couple, living in their mansion and enjoying their affluent life. The show has a similar dramatic tone as HBO’s Big Love in that the polygamous family in that show is living in suburbia, pretending to be a normal family when in fact the husband has his wives in three homes next door to each other.
Eddie Izzard and Minnie Driver are remarkably compatible together portraying their grifter characters Wayne and Dahlia Malloy. It’s a dysfunctional family of thieves who have taken advantage of a tragedy to live someone else’s lives. When Wayne accepts an invitation to play golf, he sucks the foursome into betting big money, and he shoots a below par round, winning the pot. Before long, the fake Riches family fits right into the neighborhood, and Wayne is ready to answer any of their questions. This ability to blend in is tested by the Riches’ nosy neighbors who show up on the first day to greet them. Dahlia is jonesing for a fix, and nearly gets caught. Clearly, her prison term has wrecked her emotionally and physically. But her neighbor gives her a tranquilizer which acts as a substitute fix. So, Dahlia decides there are some advantages to living in this neighborhood.
The series was created by playwright Dmitry Lipkin, who wrote the pilot episode, and co-executive produced along with Eddie Izzard. The hook of the show is a send up of mundane suburban values and the relentless pursuit of the American dream.
The droll comedic tone along with its nuanced dramatic elements define it as a dramedy with masterfully crafted writing, high quality production values, and shockingly fine acting by the stellar cast. Izzard proves he can move smoothly from the comedy stage to a complex acting role with stunning panache. From drag to drama–what a stretch!
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