Flack Review: Dan (Season 1 Episode 3)
As previously mentioned, Flack is at its best when the ladies are at their desk. That is to say, their gigs are infinitely more compelling than their private lives, no matter how compelling those lives are.
Fortunately, on Flack Season 1 Episode 3, “Dan,” the audience is treated to 90% job.
In fact, the titular Dan’s own job, and the hot water he’s gotten himself into, has the ladies doing some of their craftiest damage control yet. Last name Proctor, he’s a middle-aged, middle of the road comedian whose time has passed and, what’s worse, some new material targeting the trans community gets him heckled — and bested — by a member of the trans community in the audience. Actually, they were sharing the bill.
Yes, she’s a comedian too, and soon enough Robyn and co. will be convincing her to tour with Dan, an idea they don’t even bother to run by the disgruntled has-been. Although, admittedly, he’s a has-been with a huge following on social media.
Meanwhile, Robyn’s grappling with the notion of motherhood continues, further exacerbated by sister Ruth, a mother two times over and over it — plus there’s Robyn’s late-night trysts with porn.
In an effort perhaps to escape her own personal life, Robyn sets Eve up with Tom, who she met in her NA group (Narcotics Anonymous), even though she and Tom have more in common, and more chemistry.
This doesn’t stop Tom from launching verbal missile after missile at Eve and all that she seems to represent, which one would think wouldn’t be so estranged from her co-worker and bestie, down to a crack (pun intended) on the amount of money Eve probably spent on her underwear (“your underwear probably cost as much as a trip to Budapest”). Of course, Eve finds this incredibly hot and tugs him into the bathroom with her for a quickie.
Caroline finally comes into her own as not only the boss but also as the team player who salvages the Proctor debacle. While a scene early on in the episode sees her again getting her Meryl Street a la The Devil Wears Prada on, as she grills each of her “subjects,” once she’s in spin mode the viewer sees all that it takes to inhabit a world where saving someone’s career is the name of the game, and said career is going down in flames while the whole world watches.
That Streep moment, however, provides her with one of the episode’s best lines: “There’s blood in the water. Stop flapping around like a bunch of epileptic penguins.”
Caroline: There’s blood in the water. Stop flapping around like a bunch of epileptic penguins.
The solutions to some of the problems they’ve faced thus far have been the stuff of real reaching, to be sure (i.e. a mom filling in as a body double for her teenage daughter’s sex tape last week to hiring fake babies for starlets to claim they birthed for photo shoots this week, and even the trans opening act save), but these jobs do exist, just as the train-wrecks who make them necessary do.
Flack only deserves flack for its depiction of the ladies’ home lives, as we’ve seen all that before, and better.
What did you think of this episode of Flack? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
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Flack airs Thursdays at 10/9c on POP.
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Vinnie Penn
A morning radio host by day, and writer...well, the rest of the day, Penn's work has appeared everywhere from Maxim to Cracked and Parent, with him being Head TV writer/recapper for six years for MSN.com. He also did a season of VH1’s popular Best Week Ever and has appeared on Showbiz Tonight, That's What He Said (YourTango), and Fox & Friends. His latest book, "Route One Food Run," was released June 2018.