I’m hate watching Vinyl. I haven’t given up all hope, even after I noticed Tim van Patten isn’t involved in this series, but rewatching those two episodes made me wonder why. So y’all have been warned.
Never forget!
Anyway, previously Richie wanted to sell his company but when he and some dirtbag killed Andrew Dice Clay for trying to kiss Richie he totally lost his shit, started drinking and doing coke again, went to a New York Dolls show, had a BUILDING FALL ON HIS HEAD, and lived to tell about it. Other stuff happened, but did I mention Richie had an entire building fall on his freaking head and all he got was dusty? Realism at its finest.
As this is a doublecap, and there’s a new episode looming, we’re going to fly through. Especially since, despite a lot of “action” nothing much really happens. Like the first episode. I think this might be a pattern.
So they have opening credits and they’re pretty cool. If this was a fictionalized story of the birth of grunge. Which it isn’t but still cool. So, yay?
We open on a rat in a grimy theater. I’m sure it’s a metaphor for something, but no time to dawdle. Richie, who very likely has brain trauma and at the very least a concussion, is still snorting but has now entered the Gyp Rosetti phase of his high. He’s at a Bruce Lee movie and acting out the martial arts because I guess that’s what you do after doing an eightball and, did I mention, HAVING A BUILDING FALL ON YOUR HEAD? Whatever, the manager finally comes in and tells him to leave, thinking he’s a bum, so Richie can literally ask if he knows who Richie is? Blerg.
It’s the next morning and Ray, Judah and the other guy are stalling with the Germans, taking a moment to indulge in their crassness, and mild racism, before Ray goes to call Devon to ask what the fuck? But she doesn’t know where Richie is either, so she decides to take the kids out for breakfast.
Meanwhile back at American Century, Ray takes a couple of Xanax because he knows this isn’t going to end well, but Richie finally shows up at work, still dusty and high, and marches into the meeting with the Germans, practically vibrating, to channel more Gyp, threaten Judah and finally tell the Germans he’s not selling.
Where have I seen that face before?
I never thought (after one and a quarter episodes) that I’d be glad to see these random interstitials, but blessedly we get a 15 second break from Richie to hear a fake Jerry Lee Lewis sing a snippet of Breathless.
It’s short-lived, though. Ray, Judah and the other guy drag Richie into one of their tiny offices to ask him what the fuck? Instead, he thinks he’s Bruce Lee and kicks/chops each of them so we can get a “humorous” shot of Ray and Judah after Richie leaves. Yay? Nope. Richie meets up with the Germans in the reception area and makes some Nazi jokes to make good and sure the deal is dead.
Richie calls an A&R meeting and goes to his office to change his shirt while his secretary cleans the blood off his forehead. I don’t think that’s in her job description but, 70s. Anyway, Julie comes in to recap what just happened, but with more doom since Richie’s watching the Watergate hearings. Instead, they do some coke because, fuck it, why not?
Anyway, after he does more blow, Richie goes into the conference room, loses more shit because they’re listening to Tull (understandable) and tells them they’re all fired, but have two weeks to sign an act and save their jobs. But they’re also losing support staff because screw secretaries. Some hippie says you can’t rush talent and Richie, rightfully, bum-rushes him out of the office, immediately. Then he engages in some more mild racism before heading back to his office to listen to CCR sing “Bad Moon Rising” while watching Haldeman testify because I think they thought they were too subtle earlier.
Fired with cause just for that t-shirt.
Phew, it’s been a long day. Richie goes to their city apartment and takes one of those cinematic showers where he leans on the wall under the water thinking about what has come of his life, but Devon breaks his spell (where are the kids?) to yell at him that he didn’t bother to call her and she found out that his car was impounded AFTER A BUILDING FELL ON HIM from a cop. Richie ‘s apologetic, and naked, so they hug it out before Richie, and little Richie, leave to get dressed.
Then that homicide cop stops by to talk. But it’s not about Buck, No. It seems everyone in the music industry in 1973 was killing someone or other, and this time it’s about his old boss Maury and that fish-eyed creep, Galasso. They may or may not be involved with the murder of some bookie Richie knows. Relieved that it has nothing to do with him, Richie just hems and haws until the cop leaves. Then, hilariously, he starts sobbing that “he’s a bad person … and JUST WANTS TO SIT!” HAHAHAHA. Okay, it’s not supposed to be funny, but come on. He just wants to sit? HAHAHAHAHA.
Portrait of a woman who’s made a horrible mistake.
Once Richie gets a chance to sit (hahahahahaha) he books it out of the apartment, leaving Devon to stew in her own resentment. He’s on a mission to see Lester because I’m sure there’s no anger there at all.
Of course, Lester’s a much more decent person than Richie, so rather than beat the shit out of him and dumping him on the sidewalk, like any other less decent person would do, Lester lets Richie inside his apartment to not apologize at all for not being able to make Lester a star. Instead, he’s there ostensibly to give Lester his tapes from that one session they did as Lester, not Little Jimmy Little.
Lester sees through Richie right away and says he has no interest in being Richie’s pity party so he can be trotted out as a “forgotten artist” but have to croak out the songs with his shattered voice. Richie, since he’s happy with his white male privilege, says it’s not his fault that Lester wouldn’t play with Galasso, while bleeding through his handkerchief because he no longer has a septum, but Lester’s all fuck that and finally bum-rushes Richie out of his apartment.
Too good for this show.
Things just keep getting worse for Richie. He’s stuck at some industry shindig honoring Maury Gold, his old boss, while Devon sullenly sucks on a cigarette and Ken Marino shows up in a really bad wig to give him crap about being “too good a guy” to sell his dog of a label to PolyGram. Richie’s all “Dafuq?” but Ken’s pissed that he didn’t get Ray Romano’s series regular gig, so he keeps giving Richie shit in the hallway, this time with a rather severe woman who doesn’t suffer Richie gladly.
He can’t even retreat to the relative comfort of the garish men’s room because Maury’s in there to get away from his own celebration. Richie’s starts prattling on about Lester and how great he was, but Maury accurately points out that he’s the only music guy who ever gave a damn about music. Which is why his label sucks. Damn, Maury.
But Richie won’t be deterred. He’s back in the office, meeting with the geezers to figure out which artists they need to cut. If they don’t make any money, they’re gone. Ray puts up a fight for a band called Status Quo, but they suck so they’re GONE! So are 70% of the other bands except for an ersatz version of PFunk called “Indigo” because George Clinton probably told them to go to hell. Anyway, Indigo is hot, it’s cool, it’s hip, it’s happening so they stay.
Of course, now that they have almost no artists, the other geezers are wondering what they’re going to do about cash flow since they’ve also cut that. Richie thinks they’ll just put out a Christmas album. Judah finally has something valuable to say, and points out that it’s already August (wasn’t it just April in the first episode?) and it’s going to be tight. Then he ruins his one moment of clarity by suggesting Elliott Gould make the album, forgetting that A) he’s an actor and B) he’s not signed to the label, but they all remember he’s Jewish, so they go with their singing nun instead. What?
This is why businessmen should not be president.
Flush with what he thinks is success, Richie goes back to his office to meet with the head of marketing and PR to come up with a campaign to make Richie’s midlife crisis look less like a cry for help and more like a well-thought out plan to create an in-house boutique label that will release only really cool music. He wants a futuristic sounding name, but the PR guy can only come up with shit like Atomic (the name of a fantastic Blondie song from a few years in the future, but why quibble) that Richie says is dated then Rock It (Herbie Hancock, 1984) which Richie thinks is ridiculous. For his part, Richie’s no better, coming up with Boom Boom Records, Howlin’ Records, and most awful of all, Hot Shots.
Thinking he’s finally back on track, Richie’s relief is short-lived when Corso just shows up at his office with his latest big-boobed sidepiece who wants to be a star. He points out how hard it’s been to get in touch with Richie like he’s some big, antlered animal, like a … BUCK … then tells Richie he wants his sidepiece, Nora, to record an album with American Century. Richie does not disagree because he has no fight left in him. (He JUST WANTS TO SIT.)
Which makes it the perfect time for Maury and Galasso to show up to make sure Richie didn’t say anything to the homicide cop. Richie’s all “I don’t know anything about the guy you killed, I was just worried they were coming about the guy I killed.” This makes Galasso happy so he offers to give Richie a bridge loan if he’s a little strapped at the moment. Richie, in his one moment of clarity this episode, is all “Thanks, I’m good.”
Worse than a payday lender.
By the way, remember Buck? Yeah, the cops finally find his dead body. And after months (but probably days because these are not the Boardwalk Empire writers and they’re all “continuity, schmontinuity), including the entire summer of 73, of rotting in a shallow grave in a pit across the street from a bunch of row house, some kids finally wonder what that smell is and the cops come to investigate.
Corso calls Richie to give him the good news, while he’s getting drunk and pondering what happened to that giant, garish, Warhol portrait of Devon, but let’s Richie know that they’re still good. This turn of events makes Richie decide to listen to Nora’s demo. Surprisingly for this show, she’s not completely incompetent as a singer, she’s just not that great. Kind of like this show. Psych, this show still sucks.
My face while watching Vinyl.
And now, for the other stories.
Devon’s dealing with a lot of existential dread and ennui as she spends most of her days in Connecticut remembering how superfly cool and awesome she was when she hung out at Andy Warhol’s Factory with a bunch of morose Eurotrash, including Ingrid who was dating Richie at the time. But then Devon bones him in the bathroom at some club and thus their great love story begins.
Eventually Richie knocks her up and they move to Connecticut because the Village was hella scary in the late 60s, and she thinks she’s going to be Martha Stewart, but instead just stops washing her hair and wearing makeup and tallying all the bad decisions she made in her life that led to this.
After Ray calls to see if Richie came home, he didn’t, the kids start pestering her for breakfast. They just want bowls of Lucky Charms, though, so I don’t get what Devon’s damage is, but she decides to take them out for breakfast.
They get pancakes at some diner in town, but even diner pancakes can’t ease Devon’s bone-crushing ennui. To be fair, though, she is living in Connecticut. Devon goes to the bathroom and while looking at herself in the mirror leads us into one of the few truly beautiful moments of the show so far.
The PA is playing “Yesterday Once More,” supposedly by the Carpenters, but they had Aimee Mann cover it to be lusher and dreamier. Devon takes off and hallucinates Karen Carpenter is in the car with her, singing along. It’s soft, and lovely and gives Devon a moment of release. It’s gentle and a little sad, but so beautiful.
Her reverie is broken, though, when she sees a “Children at Play,” and realizes that Karen’s not real and her kids are still at the diner. Oops. She rushes back and the kids are still there with the manager. Devon apologizes and lies that she went to get gas, but luckily, it’s the early 70s and CPS was much laxer back then.
In another moment of lucidity, but it was in the past while he was still sober, Richie suggests Devon find something to do in Connecticut. Maybe she can find an arts council or dance company to work with and make their town less of a backwater.
Of course, by the time Devon has her own project that matters to her, raising money to fix up an abandoned barn to function as a concert hall for a dance company she and some other ladies who lunch want to sponsor, Richie’s lost his mind and decides he’s not going to make the $10K contribution he said he would.
Devon reminds him that this was his idea in the first place but Richie goes all “back in my day” and “you have a nice home, nice clothes and food to eat, what more do you want,” so Devon kicks him out of their bedroom and decides to sell the Warhol.
Devon goes into the city with the painting to get Andy to sign it. He “kindly” points out her hair and how thin she is, then questions and questions her about the painting. Why did she bring it? Why does she need it signed? Is she planning on selling it? When Devon breaks down and stars pretty crying on camera, Andy shows that he may still have a teeny, tiny heart and says he’ll sign it. And he’ll sign her dress so she can sell that, too.
It’s not yesterday, once more.
Devon’s happy to be able to contribute to the fundraiser with such a major piece. She tells the others that a similar Warhol just sold at Christie’s for $22K, so that should cover her part of the fundraiser. Rather than be grateful, they suggest Devon get a second Warhol they can sell as a diptych and get twice as much, not even noticing that the painting is of Devon.
In a less sad story, Jamie is still hustling to become an A&R rep and sign the Nasty Bitz. She slinks in to pitch the Nasty Bitz, again, but Richie says no, she’s a secretary and a girl. She tries to stamp her feet and say she brought him the band, but he corrects that she just snatched the tape before it was delivered to him. But he softens up and says yes if she gets Julie to prep them … and gives him some more coke. Which she conveniently has tucked away in her wrap top? Whatever, she threatens the receptionist if she ever rats Jamie out again because Jamie has no idea who Gloria Steinem is.
Julie’s more old school, though, and thinks the band needs to show they have talent so he wants them to cover a Kink’s song. Jamie balks, but Julie sends her to get coffee and sandwiches while he works with the band. Kip acknowledges that the Kinks are all right, just not their style, but Julie starts to walk. They want the contract, though, so they agree.
When your performance can be summed up in a still, you suck.
They keep rehearsing until Lena Olin shows up and calls the cops on them. She also calls Jamie a blonde prostitute, so my guess is she’s Jamie’s mom and does not approve.
Finally, it’s the showcase and the band plays “All Day and All of the Night.” Richie hates it because it sounds like every other band in the city. He walks, but Jamie’s not going to let all her hard work and degradation go to waste so she throws a bottle at Kip telling him to play one of their originals so Richie can come back and save the day, saying he’ll sign them.
Meanwhile, Ray gets his own storyline about what a shrewish wife and selfish daughter he has that they don’t even care about his broken nose. I guess Terence Winter looked at his track record and decided “not enough anti-semitism.”
Whatever, Ray’s just a wallet, so they just want to spend and spend and spend on the girl’s bat mitzvah. This leads Ray to consider suicide, but working out his anger and resentment by busting his taillights is enough.
Clark has his own story where he meets up with Alice Cooper and ham-handedly tries to sign him as a solo act, but gets taken for a ride before Alice admits he had no interest in signing with American Century because Richie’s a dick, but he wanted to scare the piss out of Clark first.
Alice Cooper, you’re my hero.
Finally, Lester.
I can’t make fun of this storyline because it’s the only one with heart and emotion and Ato Essandoh is such a revelation.
Even though Lester is righteously angry with Richie, who just abandoned him after he couldn’t bring him over to American Century, then shows up at his door years later with a bunch of tapes from when Lester was lightning in a bottle, Lester allows himself to relive those dreams, briefly.
He takes out his old Gibson and starts playing “I Can’t Quit You, Baby.” His playing is a little tentative, and his voice is rough and throttled but he plays on. As he gets into the song, he transcends reality and starts singing in his full voice, and playing with his old swagger. He dreams what could have been, and sees himself living in a high rise, surrounded by gold records, a lovely wife and beautiful children. It’s a great dream, but Lester is pulled back to reality when his voice gives out before the end of the song, and he’s left sitting in his little apartment thinking of what could have been.
Lester’s been living with those questions for years, now, and doesn’t let it eat at him. Too much. Next day, or someday, he’s back to doing his super job, cleaning up after the residents in what looks like a gym but is now more of a lounge.
Two old timers are drinking and listening to some young’un mix songs. He plays snippets of Kool and the Gang and James Brown, but not enough for the geezers to get into. They’re too old to realize that the kid is inventing the most disruptive and revolutionary musical genre in decades, but Lester knows. He hears it. He has his glimmer of hope.
So that’s it for the two episodes. Sorry about being so late. I promise to be more timely in the future, but that most likely means I’ll just be late weekly instead of bi-weekly.
But don’t let my mood bring you down? What did you think? What parts did you hate? Which parts made watching these episodes bearable? Or, if you like this show, please let us know what works for you. I promise to give you a fair hearing. TTTV is about love and hating TV.
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