As someone who has historically not
been an enthusiastic novel reader, Douglas Adams stands as one of the few
people to open me up to the delights of the form. Whether it’s the Hitchhiker’s
Guide to the Galaxy series or Dirk Gently, his delightful absurdity is
sprinkled nearly everywhere in the book whether it’s the larger plot points
(the answer to life, the universe and everything being 42, an alien race
torturing people through bad poetry readings) or clever dialogue (“flying is
throwing yourself at the ground and missing”).
The idea of “Dirk
Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency” (I’ll have to add an IIRC caveat, I’m
too lazy to look this up) is that the protagonist is a thoroughly amoral and
lazy detective who calls himself a “holistic detective” so that he can bill
anything he does to the case. Since everything’s related to everything, there’s
no telling that anything he does isn’t related to the case.
He manages to capture the whimsical
absurdity of Douglas Adams’ book series. The TV series takes on a more mystical
approach while keeping the absurdity confined largely to the character of Dirk
character himself (Samuel Barnett). Gently is a classic cuckoolander
with recently-fired bellhop named Todd (Elijah Wood, hitting the same beats of schlubby
directionless as “Wilfred”) as the straight man keeping him in check. Both
series have been populated with a wide array of characters with the most
Dirk-like being a female holistic assassin named Bart (Fiona Dourif) who takes
casual violence to such extremes that the gore is placated by (what TV Tropes
refers to) as crossing
the line twice. Others like black wing officer Hugo Friedkin (Dustin Milligan
of “Schitt’s Creek”) have the lone character trait of being a little dense. Mildly
humorous but mostly blah. At least there’s a variety of tonal flavors in this
awkward-yet-charming character stew.
The key emotional relationship is
between Todd and his sister Amanda (Hannah Marks) and while two young adult
siblings bonded by their shared directionless (“Casual” and more recently “Lodge
49” have done it well), the two have an affable chemistry. It also helps that
the relationship is complicated by random chronic illness and Amanda having
superpowers making her more than just another audience surrogate.
Both seasons of the show are
serialized and zany but don’t necessarily match the profound zaninesss, say, of
the source material. The second season, which I saw recently, revolves around a
traumatized child in rural Montana (as ideal for a fish-out-of-water vibe as
any Western state) with telekinetic powers who creates an entire imaginary
world that has been operating on its own for thirty years.
The mystery unravels gently enough
for the slower viewers (AKA me) not to get lost in all the technobabble. As
such, there’s some catharsis when the loose strings get tied together at the
end, but it’s mostly about watching zany characters navigate tight situations
in a way that’s a bit more fun than the average serialized crime story.
The second season’s chief villain,
Suzie Borden (a nod to Lizzie, perhaps?), is a bored housewife with a rebellious
teenage son, who gets a little taste of supernatural power and goes to town.
She’s curiously sympathetic at first: One can easily see her as the mildly
put-upon housewive trope getting her revenge against society for putting her
into a box and stripping her (and perhaps all domesticated women) from their
dreams. However, our audience sympathies cleverly switch when we learn that
while Suzie sees herself as Carrie (a movie I
recently reviewed), her peers see her as more in line with a plastic from
Mean Girls.
Like many ensemble series, the level
of interest in what’s on screen changes with whether we’re following a good
character and a good storyline. Suzie’s one of the bigger draws here.
The series’ first season was such a
freaky lightning in a pan that it’s pretty impressive for lightning to strike
twice as it did here.
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