#peaktv

While watching it I was reminded that on the “Erotic 80’s” episode of You Must Remember This that covered the Rob Lowe sex tape scandal, Karina Longworth suggests that Lowe’s career trajectory was as influence by the success of Wayne’s World as the scandal. As in Wayne’s World, Rob Lowe’s character here is best taken as comedic antagonist. The protagonists are actually his son and his company’s CFO, Anna. (The company is named Dragon, hinting at both the fantastical aspects of the science they work on and how central Ellis’s cult of personality is to everything.) They are also his enablers. The relationships are as unstable as the title. At the start of the series we learn Ellis’s wife has recently died in an accident, though no details are given about it.  Ellis has always been eccentric and difficult but he’s become less functional. But as he’s been hailed as a genius, he has an ego, can’t see anything he does as wrong and insists that he is always best. The fact that Leslie (Fred Arminsen), the Board ordered psychiatrist, who at one point  threatened to write a bad report about him, adores him despite the fact that Ellis kidnapped him in retaliation to the threat just adds to the way reality warps for Ellis.  Everyone else has to clean up.

Anna is played by Sian Clifford, who I primarily think of as Fleabag’s sister Claire. She is funnier here, even if the joke is often that no one can tell when she’s joking. She feels under appreciated and writes fan fiction in which she is worshipped. Malcolm (Aaron Branch). Malcolm, a former classmate of Jackson’s who hero worships Ellis also works in the administrative side of the Dragon. His love of Ellis is so intense that at tone point he ghosts on a date with a crush when said crush mentions that Ellis often makes his job more difficult. Dragon also employs the young scientists Ruby (Emma Ferreira) and Luna (Ruby Marsh), who are picking up the work Ellis abandoned. Their friendship is tinged with romantic rivalry. Over the first season they are both interested in Jackson. Ruby dates him while Luna ends a different relationship that should have ended earlier. At the end of the season Luna and Jackson seem to be trying to get together as Ruby has moved on to someone who shares more of her interests.

The first season also ends with the Ellis setting fire to the car of a Board member who was making moves against him. Though there is talk about possible prison for this, Anna is able to pull some strings and get the charges dropped. A condition of her strings involves bringing her ex step daughter, Georgia (Iris Apatow), to Dragon as an intern. I mostly disliked Georgia, but I did so on behalf of Anna and Luna. Georgia interrupts Luna and Jackson getting together and otherwise stirs shit around the office. Dynamics shift for her and not necessarily for more of that fun hangout vibe. It’s hard to say if she’s an appropriate response Ellis’s arson, but he is the least affected by her.

The second season also brings in Lamorne Morris as Peter, a younger biotech star. Ellis buys up his company after Jackson tries to leave Dragon for it. Both Dragon men find themselves lacking in comparison to the charm of Peter. He’s also interesting in that his character seems to get disillusioned with Ellis as it goes on. It’s different than characters who are totally enthralled by him (Leslie and Malcom) or find him impossible but are in codependent relationships (Jackson and Anna).