Last month I lamented the timing of Nine Perfect Strangers
which premiered days after another rich annoying people at a resort show, The
White Lotus ended. But we have had dueling project with similar premises going back
to two we gotta destroy an asteroid heading towards earth movies in the late nineties. But those were from two different movie
studios and Nine Perfect Strangers is airing on Hulu while The White Lotus aired
on HBO. What makes American Rust
different is that it comes less than a year after Your Honor, another show about
a gatekeeper of the law who bend the rules for someone close to them who was caught
up in a murder investigation where drug dealers are involved and like Your
Honor, also airs on Showtime.
Like past shows and movies with similar themes, there are some
subtle differences. Brian Cranston played
a judge in a big city of New Orleans while Jeff Daniels plays a small town sheriff
in Pennsylvania that is “more West Virginia than Pittsburg.” Then where Your Honor was an adaptation of an
Israeli television show, American Rust is based on a book that predates all of
the shows.
The book is twelve years old now, and the show may take place
during that time as there are really no date markers that I noticed other being
mildly surprised that a bunch of twenty-somethings getting weirdly excited for a
Kool and the Gang song got played at a wedding.
But this is the type of town that time forgot so it could be take in a
year closer to now, though thankfully it avoids COVID all together. One of the main characters still sports a
mullet to go with his letterman jacket despite being old enough to purchase alcohol
and works as the linebackers coach at his old high school. Granted, with twelve percent unemployment,
you get whatever work you can get.
We first meet Daniel’s character, he is splitting pills in a
way to ween him off what we know is the very addictive opioid. It is a small town (though not Easttown), and
he is the sheriff, so naturally, it does not take him too long to find a dead
body. But he also sees something familiar at the
crime scene and has to make a split decision that affects the case and the
whole town.
The mulleted football coach somehow managed to land himself a
very attractive girlfriend who moved to New York City sometime after graduation
and now is engaged to some Spanish businessman.
If this were real life no way this guy has any shot rekindling their relationship
when she comes back home after the brother that had been taking care of their
wheelchair bound father skips down. But
hey, they gotta fill ten episodes with some sexual tension. But where I think I would have enjoyed Nine Perfect
Strangers more had I watched it before The White Lotus, I wonder if I would have
enjoyed American Rust more had it aired before Your Honor and Mare of Easttown. Watching it now just feels like I have seen
it before, and in the case of Mare, I have seen it done much better.
American Rust airs Sundays at 10:00 on Showtime.
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