Binge-r #195: The Other Two + Da 5 Bloods
A Family Affair: Helene Yorke (Brooke) and Drew Tarver (Cary) in The Other Two
THE OTHER TWO S1
Streaming Service: Stan
Availability: All 10 episodes now streaming
A struggling gay actor and a borderline dirtbag, siblings Cary (Drew Tarver) and Brooke Dubek (Helene Yorke) wake up one day to discover that their 13-year-old brother Chase (Case Walker) has gone viral with his novelty pop song, I Wanna Marry U at Recess. Before the waylaid millennials even have time to contrast familial circumstances the fresh-faced teenager is the next Bieber thing. Success has a weird and wild gravity, and in this terrific American comedy series it makes for opportunities that begin at the dubious, hint at the worrying, and yet tease a possible redemption. Brooke may Google “Interior Designer how become”, but there is the chance of genuine transformation here alongside the drily sardonic scenarios.
Created by Saturday Night Live graduates Chris Kelly and Sarah Schneider, The Other Two does showbiz satire exceedingly well. Rebranded as the hashtag ready ChaseDreams, Chase is immediately taken up by the celebrity-industrial complex, starting with an unctuous manger, Streeter (Ken Marino), and soon embracing the digital gears of 2020 fame. Like 30 Rock, the idiotic implications come in waves, as consumers are primed and the trickle-down economics of fame reach Brooke and Cary in sometimes very public ways, including Chase releasing a single – not one of his catchiest tunes – that celebrates Cary’s sexuality. But the show works because the central characters aren’t monstrous clichés: Chase remains a good-hearted boy, who his brother and sister feel compelled to watch out for when their overly enthusiastic mother, Pat (Molly Shannon), defers to Streeter and his questionable tactics.
Cary and Brooke are comrades in millennial panic: not getting anywhere has become backsliding. “Can I tell people you were a pilot,” the status-obsessed Brooke asks a hook-up when he tells her he’s a flight attendant, and their missteps stealthily acquire a genuine weight that speaks to everything from being hostage to the perceptions of others in Brooke’s case and the exploitation and erasure gay men such as Cary get put through by the entertainment industry. The duo support each other, with a mixture of delusion and difficult truths, which gives weight to both their temptations on Chase’s coattails and the realisations they come to about themselves. The optimistic sister and pessimistic brother is a great balancing act, and so is this show. The scathing silliness comes with a bittersweet core.
>> Further Reading/Viewing: For The Monthly I wrote about The Bureau, the morally ambiguous and coolly riveting French espionage drama which has just added a fifth season at SBS on Demand [full review here].
Thank You For Your Service: Clarke Peters (Otis) and Delroy Lindo (Paul) in Da 5 Bloods
NEWLY ADDED MOVIES
DA 5 BLOODS (Netflix, 156 minutes): In his sprawling new film, the story of a group of black Vietnam War veterans returning to the country for both closure and reward, Spike Lee’s maximalist instincts make for a wildly uneven but often entertaining mash-up. The contrasting texture of scenes, archival inserts, plurality of African-American opinions, and nods to cinema history provide a portrait of former soldiers who fought for a nation that never allowed them equality. Looking for the remains of their squad leader, Norman (Chadwick Boseman, in flashback), and other things long buried, the dynamic between Paul (Delroy Lindo), Otis (Clarke Peters), Melvin (Isiah Whitlock Jr), and Eddie (Norm Lewis) is complicated by side-plots and themes that Lee, who also co-wrote the screenplay, is happy to address with unambiguous exchanges and then punctuate with blammo B-movie action sequences. History’s inequity, and its current extrapolations, isn’t so much examined as turned inside out, an approach exemplified by Lindo’s towering performance that locates the self-interest in trauma and the self-loathing in survival.
New on SBS on Demand: Lake Bell’s In a World (2013, 89 minutes) is a Hollywood satire about the voice-over community, following a daughter (Bell) who takes on her successful but egotistical father (Fred Melamed), that acquires a lived-in poignancy and emotional reach as it examines the grievances between generations (while adding a Cameron Diaz cameo).
New on Stan: Over at the Flicks website I went through Stan’s thankfully eclectic roster and came up with this decades-spanning list of the 50 best films – including numerous classics – they currently have streaming [full list here].
>> Missed last week’s BINGE-R? Click here to catch up with my list of the 20 best new streaming shows of the year to date.
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>> Check the complete BINGE-R archive: 242 series reviewed here, 143 movies reviewed here, and 34 lists compiled here.
