#jonathan schmock

A dead beat dead dad

Haunts family through mirrors

Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986) 

By Jonathan Schmock

Look, I'm very busy. Why don't you take the kids and go back to the clubhouse? 

Chez Quis Maitre D' - Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986)

Kevin Cage of @spotlightsaga reviews… Flaked (S02E01) Day 1 Airdate: June 2, 2017 @flakedmusic Ratings: @netflix original Score: 8.75/10

**********SPOILERS BELOW**********

A day in the life of Chip… Well, post Chip, anyway. This isn’t the Chip that was the 5-Star recovering addict socialite of Venice Beach. This is the liar, sell-out Chip that tried to make things right but fucked everything up even more because his motives were purely selfish, Chip. This is the Chip who is exposed, naked, vulnerable… He no longer gets warm welcomes, waves from all, and free coffee. There’s one thing Chip didn’t lie about… And that is that Chip is an addict, or at least extremely self-destructive… I believe his feelings for everyone were real too, but Chip can’t help but to sabotage everything good in his life, you see, because that’s what addicts do. It’s an ugly fucking road. As someone who’s been through the ongoing, never-fn’-ending struggle of addiction (both as a viewer and willing and extremely active participant), I can wholeheartedly tell you that the disease manifests in many different forms… And that there is no right or one way to treat addiction. You just figure shit out as you go along, and I’ve found that if I focus on all my missteps or even worse, completely deny what’s happening in front of my face, treat things like they aren’t really happening, things just fall to shit even faster.

It was obvious from the first few episodes of S1 that ‘Flaked’ wasn’t some glossy black comedy that Will Arnett was going to charm himself through. Essentially this scared a lot of viewers off, and even though I too was apprehensive of the show’s direction at first, I eventually found myself enthralled. Now only do I know Chip, I know many Chips, some playing extremely prominent roles in my life. 'Flaked’ doesn’t exist for the viewer to love or root for a protagonist or boo an antagonist. 'Flaked’ merely exists as almost a memoir or a dirty little love letter that Will Arnett has written to his demons. This is a character piece and that’s exactly why I now look forward to the show. I’m bummed that 8 episodes in S1 turned to 6 episodes in S2, but that’s always fitting tho, isn’t it? Of course that’s what would happen, because by all means 'Flaked’ is a string of disappointments that ends up making a fascinating character piece if, you’ll have it.

I noticed that each episode is labeled 'Day 1’ and so on until 'Day 6’… Obviously, this is our week with Chip… And I’m both ironically excited and horrifyingly sad that the week long journey will unfold starting……. NOW. Now, meaning a few months after the end of S1. Chip and London (Ruth Kearney) are living in Wren’s (Bella Popa) spare room. Nobody wants them there, especially when it comes to Chip. As a matter of fact, Chip is kicked out and forced to scour a community who literally hates him for someone who will take him in. The disdain is real. He begs Topher’s gopher for money in recognizance for Chip literally betraying his entire community just to help Topher convince them that developing a large upscale hotel would be good for them. Topher is dodging him and taking advantage of the fact that they had nothing in writing. I want to call Topher an asshole, mainly because he is, but essentially he’s a good business man… Cunning, sly, and manipulative. This whole ordeal has left a lot of people feeling the effects of gentrification, maybe not as extreme as others we’ve written about, but it’s the same outcome and one that we are fighting here in my small slice of asshole heaven in Miami Beach.

The new hotel has raised rent and forced people out of their homes and businesses. Stefan (Travis Mills) is now selling his coffee outside like a lemonade stand because he can’t afford the rent… You know what that means, no free coffee. Chip will have to work on Stefan later, he has bigger fish to fry. He heads over to see Cooler (George Basil, who since S1 of 'Flaked’ has made quite the name for himself on a personal favorite TBS Networks’ 'Wrecked’, NBC’s 'The Good Place’, FX’s 'You’re The Worst’, The CW’s 'No Tomorrow’ and another personal fave HBO’s 'Crashing’). I’m loving George Basil in everything he’s doing, but his unconventional, scatterbrained, zany energy stands out in a holistically prominent way in here in this Netflix Original. Basil seems to be just running with the character, and he’s simply fun to watch. Cooler just goes with the flow and even forgets why people are upset with Chip in the first place. Chip mentions that he feels ostracized in a town where he was once revered, 'because they are holding him to something that he did’. Cooler being Cooler, chalks it up to 'people being people… “Like, they do that.” Suddenly it dawns on him exactly why Chip was being held responsible for his actions. After Cooler kicks him out, Chip only has one place left to go.

Enter Dennis (David Sullivan), Chip’s ex-bestie… But once a besties always a bestie (and if reconciliation doesn’t peak it’s friendly head around the corner today, there’s always tomorrow). You can’t escape the ones you love the most. It’s true that they will probably hurt you in a much larger degree than someone you care much less about, but that’s because we love them and we layer them in expectations… It’s another one of those 'people being people’ situations Cooler had mentioned before. Chip merely doesn’t run into Dennis. Co-Creators Will Arnett & Mark Chappell begin to set up a whole S2 arc for Dennis to work through. Clearly he won’t be playing second fiddle character-wise. Director Michael Patrick Jann does a great job of weaving Arnett’s writing and pushing the narrative forward at the right times and that right spots. Dennis is opening up a wine shop, not exactly a great idea for a recovering addict, and is developing a weird pseudo-relationship with his upstairs business neighbor and dance instructor, Rosa (Lenora Crichlow). By the time Chip gets to Dennis, the show has already set Dennis up as more than just a supporting character. Not that he wasn’t a prominent figure in S1, but he instantly feels more important to the story now. This isn’t just about Chip and a dark secret anymore.

Chip let’s it all out, tells Dennis everything that happened around the car crash. Chip took the fall to protect someone he loved deeply, to protect her career. Dennis won’t let him off the hook, he says that 'you didn’t just tell that lie once, you told it over and over’, to him, to everybody. Sure, Chip eventually got perks for this awful secret, this terrible accident he took credit for… Ironically… But Dennis is wrong on this one, he has to be. Chip may have lied and benefited from its ugliness in some way, but he was still Chip. He still gave Venice a part of himself, and I seriously don’t think that Dennis is some sort of saint in a position to judge someone so harshly. Sometimes life is just as much about moving on as it is letting go. Let go of this one, Dennis. Chip fucked up… But does anyone really deserve to be tossed to the curb like this? I’ve ran similar circumstances with people I know in my head over and over, and while Dennis has a right to be angry… I think he only gets that right for so long… As a friend, a person who was hurt, he’s entitled to some emotions. But as shitty and ego-centric as Chip can be, underneath all of that, there is a good man who just doesn’t know how to win.