acrid

TV Review: ‘Flack’ Starring Anna Paquin

February 19, 2019 12:00PM PT

There’s a familiar, acrid aftertaste to “Flack,” Pop’s new drama about the controlled chaos of the publicity industry. The grim behind-the-scenes machinations of the glossy entertainment industry have always been one of TV’s favorite subjects, as are the people tasked with pulling the strings without anyone ever realizing. Over just six episodes, the show manages to cover everything from serial harassers, to closeted athletes, to lazy comedians embracing transphobia rather than actual punchlines.

It also centers characters with deliberately jagged edges — the kind of people who flirt with self-improvement before spiraling into a self-loathing that they insist is inevitable. These so-called “antiheroes” have traditionally been grizzled men, but “Flack” is the latest show to let women assume the role, most particularly with Robin (executive producer Anna Paquin), an ace publicist whose mother’s suicide and addiction issues have hollowed her out. In this way, creator Oliver Lansley deliberately levels the playing field by allowing the female characters to be just as messy and mean and deeply flawed as any man onscreen — if not far more. (A rare exception goes to a lascivious star played to slimy perfection by Bradley Whitford.)

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It’s a decent enough goal, even if it’s been achieved enough at this point to lose some of its initial novelty. But “Flack” is often too blunt to be as interesting as it palpably wants to be, burying any shred of nuance by underlining its themes in red marker to make sure you can’t miss them.

The series follows Robin, her best friend and partner in crime Eve (Lydia Wilson), and their wide-eyed intern Melody (Rebecca Benson) as they try to keep a lid on their clients’ darkest shames and ambitions. Encouraged (and scared) by their imperious boss Caroline (Sophie Okonedo), the trio fights their moral centers to find creative ways of making sure their clients come out looking the best, no matter what the cost.

Lansley feeds them scene after scene of acidic banter that sometimes crackles off the screen as intended, but other times stumbles over its attempts to be shocking, especially as delivered by women. (Also: show me a human woman who claims to use the phrase “diddle box” to refer to masturbation and I will show you a liar.) Nonetheless, each actor takes on the challenge of fleshing her character out beyond a logline with admirable verve; Wilson is particularly sharp, giving just enough of a peek behind Eve’s steely exterior to confirm that yes, there is indeed a human behind the ruthless barbs and impeccable haircut.

But for as good as the actors are, they can’t hide the fact that “Flack” isn’t sure what to do with anyone who isn’t Robin. Everyone else stems from her, and the show never quite shows how or why anyone else ticks outside their proximity to her. Eve is a bitch and Melody is a naif because they have to balance Robin out; we never find out anything else about them to differentiate them beyond these qualifiers. Caroline never reveals a single other gear other than “terrifying”; Okonedo plays it with a beautiful, quiet intensity, but the show doesn’t seem interested in exploring why Caroline became such a monster when it could just show us that she is one over and over. Robin also has an earnest, long-suffering boyfriend (Arinzé Kene) for seemingly no other reason than she has to make someone suffer in front of our very eyes for us to believe how broken she truly is.

The closest “Flack” gets to finding something genuinely new to say is with the relationship between Robin and her younger sister Ruth (the ever reliable Genevieve Angelson). Robin’s struggle to out-run her mother’s tainted legacy while Ruth tries to just “have a boring life” with her family are incompatible on the face of it, but their love for each other runs deep, and both Paquin and Angelson are adept at pulling that out of their every interaction. Their family drama might not be some salacious Hollywood disaster zone, but as Robin keeps trying to tell herself over and over again, it’s far more compelling than “Flack” gives it credit for.

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Tear gas and hate speech mark 14th ‘yellow vest’ protest in Paris

In Rouen, in Normandy, a car blocked by demonstrators pushed through the crowd, slightly injuring four people, the all-news channel BFMTV reported. Police used tear gas and water cannons in Bordeaux, a stronghold of the yellow vest movement, and other cities on the 14th straight Saturday of protests. Another demonstration in the capital was planned for Sunday to mark three months since the movement held its first nationwide protests Nov. 17.

Lloyd Omdahl: 'Partisan' a dirty word at local level

Sponsors of the measure have had very limited hands-on experience in local government and since their rise came the political route they have concluded this is the only way to elect qualified officials. It smacks of self-aggrandizement.

The arguments offered by the sponsors in favor of partisan local elections were specious and vague. One sponsor argued that the voting public needed to know a candidate's partisanship before one could determine the qualifications of the candidate. He thought that any entity that taxes property ought to be partisan. Apparently, there are partisan ways to tax property.

Because most state legislatures were corrupt in the latter part of the 1800s, the Progressive movement (1890-1920) was born to clean up government by eliminating politics and politicians from the scene.

North Dakota had its brush with corruption in the 1890s when the Louisiana lottery bought state legislators to get their gambling scheme adopted. The plot was discovered by the governor and the plan was aborted.

While North Dakota kept its partisan Legislature, Minnesota made its Legislature nonpartisan, which it was until 1973. However, we did adopt nonpartisanship for local government. In my last count, only three states elect their local officials on the nonpartisan ballot.

Sponsors of House Bill 1375 claim that voters would make more informed decisions on the lesser known offices. This is contrary to one of the best arguments for nonpartisanship, a system in which you vote for the person instead of the party.

It doesn't seem fair that the proponents of partisan elections should be stuck with such anemic arguments. So in the name of justice, I feel compelled to offer them some better ones.

Some voters do need the crutch of party ID to help them make choices. Parties would recruit candidates to fill the tickets. Parties would help finance local races, thereby encouraging competition for all seats. (Right now, many county and city offices are filled without competition.)

(There may be competition in the first election when everyone would learn the party strength, after which cities and counties would become one-party electorates.)

While there are several arguing points in favor of partisan elections, they are not persuasive when measured against the benefits of the nonpartisan system.

Most importantly, nonpartisan elections avoid the recrimination that now permeates American politics. If we elected candidates on the party ballot, this recrimination would be channeled through local governments right into local communities, resulting in political hostility in every city and courthouse. Polarization would spread.

Nonpartisan elections give voters the opportunity to "vote for the man/woman" without regard to politics. Nonpartisan election opens the field for any and all persons in counties or cities interested in public service.

Partisan elections in local governments would result in more lost time since political rivalries and courthouse in-fighting would divert time that should be spent serving the public. Lost time must be financed with local tax money.

Partisan local government elections would attract a different kind of candidate, one who was more interested in using local offices as a stepping stone in his/her political careers. We would get politicians instead of public servants.

Partisanship would drive many good public servants out of government.

While many civic observers think that North Dakota is as political as most other states, that is not true. We joined the Progressive nonpartisan movement in the early 1900s. Our local officials are nonpartisan; our judges are nonpartisan,

Culturally we are so nonpartisan that we can predict that this proposal will be slain by a large margin in the Legislature.

Lloyd Omdahl is a former lieutenant governor and professor at UND.