An OnlyFans performing teen mom leads TV's best new drama
Margo's Got Money Problems captures the economic anxiety and changing cultural landscape with aplomb.
I am a product of David E. Kelley. I was at that impressionable age of around 13 years-old when I first saw Picket Fences. I was certainly watching some grown-up TV shows by that age (mostly sitcoms like Cheers and Seinfeld) and the occasional drama, but Picket Fences took me into more adult terrain as a viewer.
Kelley’s show used a small town framework to discuss ideas related to cultural morality and where that butted heads with the rule of law (a lot of the show was focused around the town’s Sheriff, his family, and his deputies. By extension, a lot of the show’s storylines would play out in the local courthouse.
The central themes and approach to story that Kelley employed in Picket Fences was grafted onto my TV watcher DNA and even today I find myself attracted to this sort of storytelling (you can find a direct line between Picket Fences through to beloved shows of mine as an adult like The Good Wife/Fight).
David E Kelley has a new TV show out today that really feels like Kelley is doing a retrospective of his career highlights. It is called Margo’s Got Money Troubles and I really wasn’t sure what to expect from Kelley with it.
Through his writing, Kelley has often written strong roles for women. But his female characters have often been challenged by the way they are reflected in their relationships with men and finding their own voices/independence. This is probably best exemplified through Ally McBeal, but you see this a lot in his other shows a lot.
I was curious how Kelley would handle the material in Margo’s Got Money Troubles, in that it is so female-focused in an era where the idea of a 70 year-old man telling the story of a teenage OnlyFans worker just doesn’t quite feel like something that modern audiences would get on board with.
Margo’s Got Money Troubles stars Elle Fanning as a student who has an affair with her married college professor. After becoming pregnant, the skeezy professor wants nothing to do with the situation. Margo is also challenged by her mother, played by Michelle Pfeiffer (David E Kelley’s real-life wife) who barely wants any involvement. The mother, a former Hooters waitress, is instead more focused on her new relationship with a religious never-married man played by Greg Kinear. Margo gets support from her cosplay-loving housemate and from her largely-absent, former wrestler father (Nick Offerman, who is incredible in this) who turns up on her doorstep straight from rehab where he was being treated for a heroin and opioid addiction.
It is through her father commenting on a former colleague who made more money through OnlyFans than she ever did wrestling, that Margot opens her own OnlyFans account.
There’s no way that this show should work and as much as I respect (and often love) the work of Kelley, he has had a patchy career of tremendous successes (Ally McBeal, The Practice, Chicago Hope, Picket Fences, LA Law, Big Little Lies, Goliath, Doogie Howser MD, Presumed Innocent) along with a number of shows where their mere existence is baffling (Snoops, Girls Club, Harry’s Law, The Crazy Ones, Nine Perfect Strangers). This show is a top five show for him and is absolutely going to be one of the best shows you see all year.
Kelley keeps this show feeling contemporary as it juggles some very difficult terrain surrounding cultural morality and where that butts heads with the rule of law (which seems a bit strange to say at the outset, but you’ll see how true that is by the end of the season).
I do have some reservations around how Kelley depicts the reaction a lot of younger people have in the show related to Margo’s OnlyFans work – a lot of it is very sex negative where my understanding of the culture at large is that while the youngs have less of an interest in sex, they are less puritanical than other generations about working in spaces like OnlyFans.
Also, as well developed as the entire cast of the show is (including a fantastic performance by cinema enthusiast Nicole Kidman in a small-ish role), Thaddea Graham gets the short-shrift as the house-mate – she clocks up a considerable amount of screen-time, but for a character that gives so much of herself to Margo and her family, we learn very little about what her character actually wants out of her own life.
But as complaints go, those are really small concerns. Margo’s Got Money Problems is incredibly winning and absolutely deserves the buzz I suspect it is going to get over the coming weeks. Good luck making it through any sort of social engagement over the next few months without someone raving about how good this show is.
Thank you once again, David E Kelley.
Margo’s Got Money problems debuts today on Apple TV.
Acevedo on being a middle class working actor: “I had to sell my house”
You know Kirk Acevedo, but probably not by name. You may have, like me, first noticed him in Oz and Dinner Rush. But, in the decades since he has been seen as a series regular in TV shows like 12 Monkeys, Fringe, Law & Order: Trial By Jury, and Arrow, and films like The Thin Red Line, Dawn of The Planet of The Apes, and Insidious: The Last Key.
But he has passed the age of 50 and with a shrinking marketplace for TV production and an exodus of ‘movie stars’ into TV, he has seen the number of roles available dry up.
In a podcast conversation in March, but written up at THR just today, Acevedo talked about the impact of this on his finances and career. He told the An Actor Despairs podcast that he has had to sell his house and that it is incredibly difficult to get by as a middle class actor.
There’s a lot of interesting comments made by Acevedo, but this section gets to the core of the issue pretty well:
Acevedo said his new reality is trying to focus on earning a living on the small screen. “TV is really the only place to really make a living now because it’s not in film for guys like me,” he said because of increased competition. “I can’t even tell you what they want to offer us. It’s not even a livable wage. And in TV now, all the movie stars — since there’s no more films, not the way it used to be — they’re all in TV. Every Oscar winner is doing some eight to 10 to 13 episode show multiple times. I’m competing with Oscar winners. Yeah. It’s like, ‘OK, should we pay Kirk his quote or this guy that was nominated for an Oscar seven, eight, 10 years ago?’ See the problem?”
Acevedo then boiled it down to this: “Like in any economy in any country, the middle class always gets squeezed out. We’re getting squeezed out.” The actor reveals that he was able to book some gigs, including appearances on The Offer, Star Trek: Picard and a four-episode arc on Lioness. But the economics of those gigs has changed as well.
“Let’s say you do 10 guest spots. That’s $100,000 grand, right? You have an agent and manager. So, we take 20 percent out. That’s $80,000 [left]. We got taxes, too. [Let’s say 38 percent, leaving you with] $45,000. Let’s say your your rent is, I don’t know, let’s go on the low side, we won’t even go on the high side, say $3,000. That’s pretty low. That’s $36,000. Can you survive off of 10 episodes? You could if you’re just starting out.”
News Desk
More celebrities are signing the petition against Paramount buying WBD. Read: Variety
US Senator Cory Booker will hold a “spotlight hearing” on the Paramount-WBD merger. Read: Deadline
Disney will cut around 1000 jobs from its recently launched unified marketing division, as well as its studios and TV businesses, ESPN, Marvel (blame the reduced slate), product & technology, and certain corporate functions. Read: THR | The Wrap
Paramount+ has renewed The Madison for a third season. Kurt Russell’s character, presumably, remains dead. Read: thefutoncritic
Prime Video has announced a pickup for season two of Young Sherlock. Read: thefutoncritic
Nicola Coughlan and Aimee Lou Wood have been confirmed to host the next two episodes of SNL UK. Read: RadioTimes
Dave Chappelle says he is considering bringing back Chappelle’s Show. Okay, but I am mostly interested in seeing Chappelle’s Show UK. Read: Associated Press
The Burbs has been picked up for a second season. Read: Variety
Somehow Netflix drama His & Hers has inched its way up to be one of the all-time most-watched shows on Netflix, scraping into its top 10. Read: Deadline
When Pop Culture Jeopardy! debuts on Netflix for its 20-episode run, episodes will roll out every weekday starting May 11. Read: thefutoncritic
Worth a read is this fairly succinct and lovely interview with Malcolm In The Middle creator Linwood Boomer. Read: Polygon
Disney says the Malcolm In The Middle: Life’s Still Unfair revival series clocked up 8.1 million viewers worldwide in its first three days. Read: THR
In “Oh, of course she is” casting news, Michelle Monaghan is joining the season three cast of Apple TV’s Your Friends and Neighbors. Read: Deadline
Trailer Park
Your Fault: London debuts on Prime Video in June.
Tucci In italy debuts on National Geographic May 12.
Nemesis debuts on Netflix May 14.
A relentless LAPD cop becomes obsessed with taking down the master thief behind a string of daring heists - and only one can come out on top.
That’s the newsletter for the today.
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I couldn’t see which Australian platform will screen Margo’s Got Money Troubles. Do we know yet?