“No good deed” feels like a punishment

WWith the Netflix hit Dead to meCreator Liz Feldman developed an effective formula for addictive television. Equal parts black comedy, crazy crime drama, and the most effervescent soap opera of all, the series cast Linda Cardellini as an agent of chaos who is thrust into the lives of an unsuspecting family. Each half-hour episode offered enough twists to give you whiplash – and to keep you on the edge of your seat. It was, in many ways, the ideal streaming show. So it makes sense that Feldman and Netflix would want to repeat the success with their next project for the platform.

Not a good deedThe eight-episode first season of which will stream in full from December 12th was clearly built from the Dead to me Template – right down to the title, another cliched phrase made up of three monosyllabic words. It has dark humor, it has crime, it gives every character at least one devastating secret, and it ends each short episode with a stack of shocking revelations. There’s even Cardellini playing another clever wild card. But the balance Dead to me hit was fragile; If the plot could seem cartoonish, then the connection between the two leads, Cardellini and Christina Applegate, and the believability of their characters’ bond helped suspend disbelief. Not a good deed doesn’t have the power to tone down the glib jokes and strenuous, seemingly arbitrary left turns. It was purely a professional obligation, not pleasure or even curiosity, that kept me watching beyond the premiere.

Set, like that Dead to meSet among upper-middle-class residents of Southern California, the series revolves around an enduring obsession of that milieu: real estate. Empty nesters Paul (Ray Romano) and Lydia (Lisa Kudrow) have decided to sell the beautiful Spanish-style home in Los Feliz where Paul grew up and the couple in turn raised their own two children. They need money, also because Lydia, a renowned pianist, has not been able to play for several years. Something traumatic seems to have happened in the house. While Lydia wallows in the residual pain, Paul has held back. Their incompatible coping mechanisms put a strain on the marriage.

Not a good deed begins with an open house designed to introduce the rest of the ensemble cast, while Paul and Lydia spy on the event via smartphone surveillance. Dennis (OT Fagbenle) and Carla (Teyonah Parris) are newlyweds in the creative class and are expecting a baby. His pushy mother Denise (Anna Maria Horsford) has agreed to help them buy the expensive house as long as she – Carla’s nightmarish roommate – can move in too. A couple who have been in love at the mansion for years, Leslie (Abbi Jacobson) and Sarah (Poppy Liu), are at odds over whether Sarah should continue trying to conceive after a heartbreaking first attempt. A dim-witted, down-and-out soap opera star, JD (Luke Wilson), arrives thinly disguised. Paul and Lydia’s real estate agent (Matt Rogers) recognizes Cardellini’s designer draping, Margo, as a local “lookie Louise”; the less tactful Lydia calls her an “AI-generated bitch.” Then there’s Mikey (Denis Leary), a tough ex-con who knows something the homeowners are desperate to hide.

The list of dramatis personae is just too long. Dead to me The film got off to a compelling start, focusing heavily on Applegate’s seething widow character, Jen. Cardellini’s dreamy, eccentric and mysterious Judy; and the tension of the interdependent friendship that develops so quickly between these two lonely women. Not a good deed is too busy jumping from faction to faction, with every plot littered with lies and twists, to flesh out so many characters. Despite some funny performances (Rogers nails his zany one-liners) from a cast of charming comedy veterans, it’s impossible to get invested in the fate of people we only know as pawns in Feldman’s chaotic chess game. A season-long series of flashbacks to a fateful night in the house feels cheaper with each episode. Certain detours – a cocaine adventure, for example – expand the characters’ personalities to the point where you believe anyone can do anything at any time.

This inconsistency can be not only frustrating but downright alienating, especially when it comes to what is actually the most sympathetic element of the series: Paul, Lydia, and their troubled marriage. While the idea of ​​bringing together two of the most attractive sitcom stars of the last three decades sounds great, there is little clue in the script as to why the people playing Romano and Kudrow belong together, and the emotional emptiness on screen Lack of chemistry manifested. No matter how absurd his machinations may be, Dead to me It turned out to be a really moving story about the unconditional love of two platonic soulmates for each other. Not a good deed is, in my opinion, an attempt to turn his own crowded story into a meditation on family, grief and moving on. Regrettably, whatever theme Feldman tries to capture with these slippery characters falls flat.