Good God, “The Riches,” you are testing my patience. In fact, I think you’re testing the limits of the human brain.
Episodes of “The Riches” (the good and proper ones, at least) used to move with the rhythm of a heist flick: encounter a problem, craft a creative solution, execute. It’s like the twelve-bar blues form–with, of course, some idiosyncratic riffs. Usually, we wouldn’t be told precisely what the plan was (though we would be shown bits of it, setting off the fuse of imagination), and there would almost always be ample room for improv during the execution. But the adherence to formula ultimately lent the show an air of professionalism and class, perpetuating the thin illusion that it was smarter and more graceful than we were. It seemed to know more about con-artistry–it was, itself, a con-artist of the aristocratic sort, like Michael Caine in “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.” There are rules to prestidigitation, and “The Riches” often seemed to be aware of them.
But now it’s just a clusterfuck. It’s as if the writers, having survived through the long, crippling winter of their strike, decided that they just had to include every little golden idea-nugget scribbled on a WGA napkin. I suppose oppression and solidarity lower standards. It wouldn’t be terrible if the show produced a handful of interesting problems (in the first episode, not the fourth) and vowed, with monastic discipline, to tackle them one- or two-at-a-time. But what we have, instead, is a big, vain Hydra who wants each of his dozen heads to get equal time in the limelight. And many of those heads seem either expendable, repetitive, or simply inappropriate.
I’ve spoken already about the expendable–i.e., the kid subplots, which seem built light for easy jettisoning. And the bits that feel recycled–for example, another old Princeton buddy showing up–are, for the moment, redeemably so (Booger sits next to Brian Dennehy and David Paymer in the pantheon of great character actors). What’s really inexcusable are the plot threads that seem completely strained, given the show’s abilities and sensibilities. Revealing Hugh’s deal to be a big fat fraud is fine, and even expectable–but making it a fraud that rips off Katrina victims is a jarring lunge towards the tacky realm of cheap sermonizing and half-baked political commentary. We get it, “The Riches,” you read the newspaper in 2005. And stacking another double-cross on top of that fraud–involving a Russian who comes across as a poor man’s Niko Bellic from “Grand Theft Auto IV”–is like putting ketchup on a perfectly good steak.
Maybe the show is practicing a perverse kind of pointillism, cramming each hour with thousands of tiny plot-dots, each worthless on its own, but each contributing to a coherent, harmonious whole. It’s too early to tell. But I suspect that there’s a bit of “Weeds” Season 3 syndrome going on, with the writers having decided to abandon the familiar rhythm for cacophonous mania. In that mode, “Weeds” was funny in an apprehensive way, like watching a lunatic who’s rubbing ham all over his face but could very well decide, a moment later, to stab the dog. So far, “The Riches” is shaping up to be that lunatic.
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