Showtime just ordered a second season of its newest “quirky/awful protagonist” series House of Lies. Well, congrats, I suppose, to the writers and producers, the cast and crew, the executives and transpo guys. You have a job for at least another year. And the network has what passes for a hit these days on television. But I wonder if this “quirky/awful protagonist” business—practically patented by Showtime with series like Weeds, Californication, and Nurse Jackie—is starting to fray around the edges, turning from something fresh and interesting into something curdled and coarse. Maybe it’s just over-exposure; these protagonists seem to be turning up everywhere, not just in these half hour cable “comedies” but in feature films as well. At what point do we go from thinking, “Wow, I’ve never seen a character like this before! As the lead! How delicious!” to thinking, “I just want to have a nice cup of tea and make it go away.” For me, I think, that turning point has happened. I’m done. I love you, Don Cheadle—I love you even more, Kristen Bell—but I’m done.
There have been anti-heroes forever, of course—even as protagonists. But for some reason, this recent spate seems particularly bitter, particularly distasteful. It’s one thing in movies, where at best you’re giving over a few hours of your life. I pretty much loathed Young Adult, don’t understand the critical love for it (A.O. Scott called it “as sour as a vinegar popsicle”—in a good review) but ultimately, I never have to think about that irritating slagheap of psychotic stalking and mean girl aggrandizement again. 
I could argue that the fact that Charlize Theron’s Mavis Gary remains completely unredeemed at the end is a little troublesome, ultimately a contrived attempt at creating something bold and unexpected which to my mind just creates something turgid and unsatisfying. I could posit that the movie isn’t successful as a cautionary tale (that aforementioned lack of redemption; the protagonist neither changes nor receives any real comeuppance) or as a sly dark satire (since the sliver of humanity it would be satirizing is so small—bitter, hot women addicted to Diet Coke and contempt—as to be unworthy of this level of examination). But no matter: that movie’s over for me. And so is Bad Teacher and any movie I accidentally stumbled upon on cable starring Jeremy Piven.
The contract a TV show offers you, however, can last for years; that’s the whole point—they want you to sign up for the duration, to keep coming back. And there have been anti-heroes on TV before. In the 80s, Dabney Coleman’s sitcom Buffalo Bill famously vented spleen on NBC for nearly two seasons before being yanked; critics yowled but audiences Just Didn’t Get It. In a TV landscape where comedies like Cheers and The Cosby Show reigned supreme—shows about the bar we all wanted to hang out in and the family we all wanted to be a member of–viewers didn’t have much taste for a churlish talk show host who was relentlessly mean to everyone around him.
Things have worked out better for Larry David on Curb Your Enthusiasm; the show’s lasted eight seasons. Maybe we live in a darker world, where selfishness and amorality and social ineptitude are okay as long as they’re played for hard laughs? Nevertheless, to me, Curb is a show that’s always funnier when people describe it than it is when I’m watching it. I find sitting through an episode a discomfiting experience, filled with cringe-worthy, completely avoidable contretemps, all shot through with Larry’s petulant, nasal whine. And I always have a hard time with objectively successful people—multi-millionaires like “Larry David”; popular beauty queens like Young Adult’s Mavis—whose central character trait is bitterness. (Bitterness, to me, should be reserved for the losers; it’s all they’ve got.)
Where anti-heroism really met major commercial TV success, of course, was with a certain Dr. Gregory House. When his eponymous series debuted in 2004, it felt like a revelation. Here was a network TV show starring an unapologetic asshole, who didn’t even reserve his bile for the colleagues he felt were beneath him, but gleefully spewed it all over the patients he was supposed to be helping. There’s no doubt; Dr. House is an absolute, grade-A dick. But the series cleverly buys that dick-ishness with a couple of very simple conceits: A) House is in constant, chronic pain and b) oh yeah, he saves people’s lives.
The funhouse mirror version of this also makes an anti-hero work: instead of a mean life saver, take an iconic villain—mob boss, serial killer, meth dealer (Tony Soprano, Dexter, Breaking Bad’s Walter White)—and purposefully reframe him in heroic–or at least vaguely human–terms. Show that gangster going into therapy to deal with anxiety attacks and crying at the ducks in his pool. Make sure that serial killer only kills other killers and juggles a “normal” family life on the side. Have the meth dealer a teacher with a terminal illness just trying to support his family. These shows work because the hideous choices of the heroes are shown in contrast to something–anything–relatable. Their humanity is buried, or tested, but it’s there.
Showtime’s original “quirky/awful” protagonists did versions of the same thing. Both Nancy Botwin of Weeds and Nurse Jackie Peyton are anti-heroes who temper their deplorable behavior with (somewhat) understandable—or even commendable—character traits or motives. Nancy started out as a widow just trying to support her kids. She’s become something much, much worse (and a lot of viewers have rejected this trajectory), but the original conceit made emotional sense (at least within the contours of a comedy). Plus, Nancy deals pot—just pot, nothing more–a point that was made often in the first few seasons. She’s a drug dealer of the mildest, quaintest kind.
Nurse Jackie is cut right from House’s mold. She might be a total fuck-up, lying to everyone to score (and often steal) any meds she can get her hands on, sleeping around on her (ridiculously, frankly) adoring and adorable husband, but she is a fierce advocate for her patients. She saves people’s lives, too—and bucks the entrenched medical establishment as she goes. You could almost say Jackie’s simply a flawed—gasp!—hero.
Neither of these shows are perfect—again, a lot of people feel Weeds has gone dangerously off the rails along with Nancy’s apparent sanity (and moral compass). Nurse Jackie is never quite as believable, tonally consistent, or funny as I’d like (is it actually a comedy? or just a half-hour drama?) but both shows have tried, to varying degrees, to keep their protagonists within spitting distance of human.
Not entirely tired of this formula, Showtime’s executives reportedly still wanted more testosterone on their schedule to balance Nancy’s pot Mom and Jackie’s drug-addled nurse–which is how we ended up with House of Lies. But Don Cheadle’s Marty Kaan comes with more than just balls; it feels that here, the mini-genre has reached its (inevitable?) nadir.
Despite his adorable cross-dressing son and former therapist Dad (did warmth just skip a generations somehow?) Marty is simply…awful. He works as a management consultant and much is made of how arcane and absurd that profession is. In fact, the organizing principle seems to be that consultants are nothing more than Gucci-clad snake oil salesmen, convincing idiotic CEOs that their companies needs services that are actually total bunk. They might in fact be true about consultants—but then I don’t know why you’d want to make a show about them. Isn’t business boring enough? Do we need to delve into the inner workings of the businessmen on the edge of business, cannibalizing other businesses? If Showtime thinks there’s some joyful “fuck the 1%” to this scenario, they’re wrong; sitting in the first class lounge with a cocktail, Marty is no Robin Hood.
Perhaps to add some frisson to this potentially unpleasant–not to mention dull–B school nightmare, House of Lies amps up the dark, macho porniness; pretty much all the sex on the show seems to be hate-fucking, whether it be with ex-wives, the wives of clients, or strippers. A sexual relationship that doesn’t include some sort of currency exchange—whether it be money, a job, or a score to settle—is nowhere to be found. The male members of Marty’s team (played by Josh Lawson and Ben Schwartz) are puerile frat boys who aggregate their sexual conquests and argue over whether or not a blow job from a transvestite merits “points.” Clients are preening jackasses; their wives are kinky or undersexed and either turn to Marty (or his stripper friend) for their sexual kicks. Then there’s poor Kristen Bell, somehow in the midst of this mess (in a part completely unworthy of her considerable talents; why doesn’t this woman have her own show?) as the team’s sometime voice of sanity, Jeannie. And even Jeannie cuckolds 
her seemingly ideal fiancé (whom she keeps a secret) and idolizes Marty and his sleazily successful business tactics. It’s a really lovely universe this, filled with brittle, vicious, unhappy, cutthroat people who’ll do anything to get paid or get off. (One yearns for the perverse honor of a Lannister!)
If House of Lies sound like a sordid, mirthless affair, it is. But for Showtime, it’s a hit, so someone likes it. The debut was solid, and according to TV By The Numbers, the series averages 3.98 million viewers a week. It’s gotten a fair share of positive reviews. (Maybe not as many as Young Adult, which—shocking to me—got an 82% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes.) And, as mentioned, it’s been picked up for a second season. So…yay? Reprobates for the win?
Wouldn’t it be marvelous, though, if we could find a way for a comedy–even a “dark” one–to be both really funny (House of Lies isn’t, nor does it seem to be even attempting real laughs), to skewer people who need skewering (corporate America), and to plumb the depths of human behavior while still allowing for some shreds of humanity? House of Lies seems to be saying, everyone does it (“it”=selfish, amoral behavior), so let’s just grin at the camera and enjoy it. But if that’s the world we live in—and admittedly, it probably is (alas)—I’d still prefer my entertainment time to be spent on things that offer another vision. Not a happy-go-lucky, Pollyanna, dance through the buttercups vision, but at least one that doesn’t seem quite so gleeful about all things despicable. At least a vision where an anti-hero is engaged in some sort of struggle, trying to manage his or her baser tendencies. Or maybe, over the course of a long series, even attaining a tiny measure of grace. Based on the first few episodes of House of Lies, the show—and Marty—seem all too proud of their petty villainy to aim for anything as obvious and bougie as redemption.
The makers of House of Lies no doubt feel like what they’re doing is brave and fresh. Showtime trumpets the show’s “outrageousness.” Look how daring we are! Our characters are loathsome and they do loathsome things to other loathsome people! The world is terrible and so are we! Thanks, but if that’s what passes for “dark comedy” these days, I guess I’ll stick to a “light comedy”: my beloved Parks and Recreation, a show that manages to be hilarious, trenchant and–it occurred to me anew as I watched last week’s utterly charming episode–include not one villainous character. Talk about brave.
Photo Credits: Showtime; Phillip V. Caruso/Paramount Pictures
