Joel Kim Booster, Maya Rudolph and Ron Funches.Colleen Hayes/Apple TV+
It’s not a common or garden dilemma. Your partner does something unforgivable, so you divorce and end up with a settlement of $80-billion dollars, give or take. What to do with it?
Loot (streams AppleTV+) has the billionaire taking the view that some charitable causes can be helped with all that money. It’s a comedy, you see. After drowning her sorrows on several continents, partying hard and moping around the mansion in L.A., our central figure, Molly Novak (Maya Rudolph), is reminded that she funds a foundation that helps the poor. And she decides to go all in.
This would not be a successful comedy were it not for Maya Rudolph. Enormously skilled at absurdist humour and with an expressive face that, alone, can carry a comedy a long way, she’s perfect for this. The humour is mostly rooted in the tension between Molly’s liking for her cushy life and rather reckless diversion into do-goodery. There’s sport being had with the idle rich. Invited to the opening of a women’s shelter her foundation supports, she organizes a limousine to get her and her crew there. Reminded that this is outrageously damaging to the climate, she whips out her phone, pushes buttons and says, “I have just given 10K to Greenpeace. That should even it out, right?”
What makes the show (from Matt Hubbard and Alan Yang, of Parks and Recreation) click is the decision to make it a weird little workplace comedy. Molly decides to work out of the foundation’s office, a place run with discipline by its director, Sofia Salinas (Michaela Jaé Rodriguez from Pose). Surrounded by well-meaning but very ordinary people, Molly is many times tempted to retreat back into a super-nice life. Her supercilious personal assistant keeps asking when they’re going back to, you know, “getting massages and buying castles online.” But flinty Sofia intrigues her, and Sofia just wants the money to keep flowing to help the deserving.
This is a sitcom with many of the genre’s familiar set-ups. It’s just more cockeyed than most. There’s nice chemistry between Molly and the foundation’s accountant Arthur (Nat Faxon), who doesn’t have a personal chef like her, but goes to Costco instead. But it’s unlikely this will lead to romance. Instead, it’s all about breaking down Molly’s closed-in world of the 1 per cent, and having her realize that the world of the 99 per cent isn’t just cute, it’s real. The series (three episodes now, more arriving weekly) has already been criticized for not paying enough attention to the people Molly’s money will help. But it was never meant to be either scathing satire of the super-rich or an exposé. It’s a breezy, gag-filled comedy with just enough absurdity to satisfy.
Catch up on the best streaming TV of 2021 with our holiday guide
Also airing/streaming this weekend – Westworld returns (Sunday, HBO 9 p.m., streams/Crave) for a much-delayed fourth season. Always one of the most perversely layered series, keeping the plot and time frame straight is a challenge. For a start, who is human and who is an android host? In the third season, the hosts rebelled and the theme parks they occupied became war zones. Now, in impressively cinematic new episodes, the show seems to be set a few years later.
Ariana DeBose and Evan Rachel Wood in Westworld.John Johnson/HBO/Crave
The Man in Black (Ed Harris) is demanding to buy some encrypted data from a Mexican cartel and Maeve (Thandiwe Newton) is hiding out in the woods, in danger; and a new figure, the painter and storyteller Christina (Evan Rachel Wood, who played the host Dolores in earlier seasons) is having her serene life disturbed by a stalker. Wood carried the show’s first season and here she’s the main emotional anchor. Around her, of course, are characters who aren’t what they seem. The sinister quality of Westworld remains intact and there are gripping action sequences. Yet it’s hard to tell if the series is back on the rails as a vivid exploration of the power of myth and story, while dealing with our fear of artificial intelligence.
Putting the big-ticket comedy and drama aside, note that The Hidden Life of Pets (streams Netflix) is new and promises: “In this series we’ll dig deep into our pets’ inner lives.” Thus, we see fish playing underwater soccer and a guy in Switzerland taking his border collie base-jumping from mountain tops. That guy says, “Some person’s soul was reincarnated in him.” We’re told the more fun pets have, the smarter they become. This seems to apply to a dancing parrot whose moves interest some awed neuroscientists. Delightful stuff.
Also, The Nature of Things: Kingdom of the Polar Bears (Saturday CBC NN, 8 p.m., streams CBC Gem) is a timely and cool repeat. Veteran polar bear guide Dennis Compayre takes viewers on a trip, providing a rare and intimate glimpse of a polar bear mom and her newborn cubs.
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