“Don?t spill any Chinese food on your Spider-Man costume”
That’s the strangest line from one of the strangest shows I’ve seen all year. For those of you who didn’t catch it, I’m referring to HBO’s new show K Street. On the surface it seems like a normal reality show about a political consulting firm run by James Carville and Mary Matalin. Along with their two partners/assistants, they’re in the early stages of setting up their new office.
(Hmmmm…Mary’s assistant looks familiar. Maybe I saw her on Crossfire or something.)
When it is revealed that James has agreed to do some debate prepping for Howard Dean, Mary goes ballistic, fearing that a relationship between the firm and the senate front-runner could drive away their Republican clients. Cut to some random guy getting his shoes shined, hair cut, etc. (They keep cutting back to this throughout the show) In order to do some damage control, Matalin’s assistant/partner goes on a mission to inform their Republican clients, Senators Don Nickles and Rick “Dog Fucker” Santorum, “just in case the word gets out”.
(Ummmm…did she forget she’s on TV?)
In perhaps the most interesting part of the show, Carville, while consulting Howard Dean along with Paul Begala, feeds Dean his Trent Lott/MLK joke (which I wrote about here). The next night, Mary Matalin loses it even further when she’s watching the debate with “the girls” and she hears the joke.
(Why do they keep cutting to the assistant/partner on the phone with her boyfriend?)
The next morning at the office, James and Mary have an interview scheduled with a family friend of one of their friends (or something like that). Of course, it’s the weird haircut guy. As they interview him, he keeps going off on strange tangents. At one point he gives a bizarre mini-speech about how the dictionary is “the most important book”, “maybe even more important than the Bible”, because, I’m shitting you not, it’s full of definitions. At this point, I would have kicked his weird ass out.
And that’s it. The episode abruptly ended there. In the closing credits, it’s revealed that the assistant/partners and weird haircut guy are actually actors. I guess that means the whole “damage control ” subplot was scripted. Does this mean that Carville didn’t consult Dean? That he didn’t come up with the joke? Seriously, what the hell is this show? (Other than an outlet for politicians to do vanity cameos, a la The Simpsons)
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I didn’t see the show, sounds weird indeed, but did you hear about Arnold’s bonehead comment on Oprah?… when asked about his inappropriate comments in a sex mag during the 70’s and recent sexist comments, the terminator said something like, “Well, that was when I said stuff like, ‘One pump is better than cumming.’”… oooooh gross!
Comment by Erin — September 18, 2003 @ 1:12 pm
i saw this show… i was completely confused. i thought it was going to be a fictional show. then i’m watching it and i recognize all these people as themselves, so i thought it was a documentary series. then dean showed up, and i was even more confused. then the credits roll and i see the “cast” of characters. i don’t understand how they’re trying to blend fiction with reality. but it was interesting anyway. i’ll keep watching.
Comment by tom — September 18, 2003 @ 5:30 pm
also, i thought that grey haired guy was anderson cooper for a while, but then my girlfriend realised he was an actor who has appeared on “sex in the city” and that was confusing because he was hanging out with james carville- a real person playing himself.
Comment by tom — September 18, 2003 @ 5:32 pm
I guess this is supposed to be an “inside look” at how Washington works. But how is it “inside” when it blurs the lines between fiction and reality so much that you don’t even have a frame of reference to work from? Frankly, I don’t WANT to see the lines blurred any more than they are. It reminds me of when RJ Cutler was going to do a Presidential Candidate TV show where they would select an independent 2004 candidate in a format a la American Idol. Very scary stuff and I’m glad it did not come to pass.
Comment by Kyle — September 19, 2003 @ 2:44 am