Profit: Pilot Episode Season 1 Episode 1
Nov 11, 2013 23:48:22 GMT -5
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Post by K. Thrace on Nov 11, 2013 23:48:22 GMT -5
Profit: The Anti-Hero Without a Heart of Gold
Pilot: Season 1, Episode 1
It isn't easy to describe the outrageous 1997 Fox series Profit. Descriptions like "before its time," "influential," and "delightfully diabolical" just seem to fall short. This is a show where the main character sleeps naked in a cardboard box. Itâs a show where an attractive woman is introduced pouncing across the room so she can start fondling the main characterâonly to have him murmur, âHi, Mom.â Itâs a show where it makes sense to reply to a line like, âIâm a diabetic,â with, âWell, then you shouldnât shoot heroin.â
This series largely takes place in the office building of an unnamed American city (a city that looks an awful lot like it's in Canada). But the milieu is undoubtedly that of the financial district in New York, where everyone has a $5000 suit, a Mercedes, and a penthouse. Sources like Wall Street and perhaps Bret Easton Ellisâ 1991 novel American Psycho are clear thematic influences. The main character is 28-year-old Jim Profit, a newly-promoted employee at Gracen & Gracen: a family company! Gracen & Gracen is also a multinational, soulless corporation where the bottom line matters more than the nutritional value of baby food. In this setting, a psychopath like Jim Profit fits in perfectly--just as long as he's wearing the right clothing. And make no mistake, Jim Profit is a psychopath. I mean, just look at that coiffed hair:
While the show is shockingly well-crafted and developmentally complex for a network show from the 1990s, the Pilot episode is uneven. There are a dozen interlocking characters and complicated interpersonal interactions in the first half of the pilot alone. We are introduced to all of the Gracens, the various people vying for power in the Acquisitions Department, and various other side characters. The pilot seems awkwardly stitched together in the middle, the first half an introduction to this world and the building up of Profit's clever plan to become the Vice President of Acquisitions in a matter of months. Then, just when Profitâs neat removal of his competitors Mary, Pete Gracen, and Walker seems complete, it all starts to unravel.
In the second half, it becomes clear why reportedly thousands of people called in to complain to Fox about this controversial series. The show turns that dial straight-up to 11. We learn about Profitâs original childhood identity, in a scenario that has clear Dick Whitman/Don Draper similarities (down to the countrified background--apparently Profit is originally from Tulsa, Oklahoma, which is treated as the most backwoods of places. For those who watched Angel, you'll note that Lindsey, another ambitious young man, was also from Tulsa--a city of 500,000 people and lots of oil money). We are introduced to "Jimmy's" stepmom--a character whose oddness only begins once she starts making out with her stepson--and we learn a few intriguing tidbits about Profit's ailing father. And amidst all of this head-swimming backstory, we also follow corporate detective Joanne, who finds Profit suspicious and dangerous. And, hey, she seems a little imbalanced to, as we learn that she is seeing a therapist and still has a bit of an obsession with her married former lover. Then she dreams this:
I can imagine the folks at home: "Wait, why is the main character choking the nice lady? Is America's Funniest Home Video on?"
Adrian Pasdar, who plays Profit, and who you might recognize from Heroes, does a great job playing the calculating, emotionless character who manipulates everyone around him. He carefully plays on his coworkers' vices, fears, and desires to gain people's trust and to try to position himself as a rising star in Gracen & Gracen. He uses techniques like seduction, lying, and money laundering to get what he wants. And, as we learn as the episode goes on, people are largely ripe for manipulation because they, too, are sinners. They have affairs, they steal money, they sell baby food that's filled with sugar water. Profit fits in perfectly, even if he is perhaps the worst of the worst because he has no conscience about any of it.
It's only in the last 5-10 minutes of the two-episode long Pilot that the themes of the series come into focus. As Profit says, âTelevisionâs bad for you.â He would know, since apparently he was abused as a kid by being forced to watch television 24-hours a day (while being trapped in a box from the time he was a toddler. Aww. This is a sad show sometimes). So, why TV? TV is about performance, its about image, it's about advertisement, selling, the American Dream. So this is Jim Profit--he is everything TV made him. He plays various roles, and he plays them well. He seduces Pete's wife by quoting A Midsummer Night's Dream. Why that play, of all Shakespeare? Isn't it because that play is about the mixing of reality and performance, so that it's impossible to know what is real anymore? Profit is well aware of the connection--he seduces his prey using every melodramatic line known to the Lifetime Channel. And she falls for it, because that's what she wants--to live in the dream-world that Profit creates. In fact, Profit's performance works so well because he lets people live the tropes and stories that they want to live in (or, at least, it works on everyone but Joanne, who is fiercely devoted to reality, perhaps because she is barely hanging onto reality by a thread).
Profit's con artistry doesn't get him far in this overstuffed episode, after a rather circuitous series of plots and intrigues fails to get him his coveted Vice President status in the company. However, he does manage to ruin several lives and terrorize numerous people over the course of one episode. But Jim Profit, turning to the camera in a Richard III monologue (or House of Cards, for those non-Shakespeare people), assures the audience at home that he will eventually prevail.
If you're still not convinced this is a show about a man living a performance, then watch the last minute of this show--Jim Profit, who has spent nearly the whole episode in perfectly-tailored suits, crawls naked into a trash-filled cardboard box, curling up into the fetal position, his eyes staring off emotionlessly into the darkness. The camera pans out, and we see that the whole scene is set on a darkened stage. All of Profit's identity falls away, and we are as confused about what is "real" as any of Profit's victims. Is Jim Profit living out his own imagined television show?
I hope you guys keep watching this series with me! Only 7 episodes left, and there's lots more insanity where this came from!!! If you're interested in watching the series, all the episodes can be found at: www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjlg3ddGFmw&list=PL0MLlXbNG0carmK3rUlKlSsfSDhDWL2h3&index=1
EPISODE GRADE: B+ (though I'd give the first half of the episode an A)
AWESOME FACTS ABOUT THIS SHOW:
--As I alluded to above, the series was inspired by "Richard III." So, yeah, we'll talk more about that in the future. Read up on your Shakespeare if you want to sound all erudite!
--The series was created by the co-creator of Angel, David Greenwalt. Yes, there are clear similarities between the two shows. I will discuss that in future, but people should feel free to draw parallels with the Pilot.
--Profit's traumatic upbringing was based on the childhood of a real-life serial killer who had been similarly raised in a box with only a television present as described in the nonfiction novel Whoever Fights Monsters: My Twenty Years Tracking Serial Killers for the FBI by Robert K. Ressler & Tom Shachtman.
--Profit's assistant Gail is totes doing the Office Space scam before Office Space came out. Oh, Gail. Your name isn't even Michael Bolton.
--The virtual reality images are the worst thing about the show. Other than the soundtrack. And the wardrobe. Oh, God, even the food is weirdly-90s looking.
--Don S. Davis, the sheriff from Tulsa, Oklahoma, FUCKING NAILS his Oklahoman accent. He knows Oklahoma. You know who doesn't have the right accent? Profit's stepmom Bobby. I am not sure if it's because Bobby is supposed to be from somewhere else, or if the character herself is pretending to be from Georgia or South Carolina in order to seem a little more intriguing. I am sure the actress, Lisa Blount, knows how to do a proper accent, since she's originally from Arkansas.
--Speaking of Lisa Blount: She quit high school at age sixteen and enrolled at the University of Arkansas despite not having a high school diploma. Life imitating art! No wonder she was able to commit to the role of a con-artist molester!
Pilot: Season 1, Episode 1
It isn't easy to describe the outrageous 1997 Fox series Profit. Descriptions like "before its time," "influential," and "delightfully diabolical" just seem to fall short. This is a show where the main character sleeps naked in a cardboard box. Itâs a show where an attractive woman is introduced pouncing across the room so she can start fondling the main characterâonly to have him murmur, âHi, Mom.â Itâs a show where it makes sense to reply to a line like, âIâm a diabetic,â with, âWell, then you shouldnât shoot heroin.â
This series largely takes place in the office building of an unnamed American city (a city that looks an awful lot like it's in Canada). But the milieu is undoubtedly that of the financial district in New York, where everyone has a $5000 suit, a Mercedes, and a penthouse. Sources like Wall Street and perhaps Bret Easton Ellisâ 1991 novel American Psycho are clear thematic influences. The main character is 28-year-old Jim Profit, a newly-promoted employee at Gracen & Gracen: a family company! Gracen & Gracen is also a multinational, soulless corporation where the bottom line matters more than the nutritional value of baby food. In this setting, a psychopath like Jim Profit fits in perfectly--just as long as he's wearing the right clothing. And make no mistake, Jim Profit is a psychopath. I mean, just look at that coiffed hair:
While the show is shockingly well-crafted and developmentally complex for a network show from the 1990s, the Pilot episode is uneven. There are a dozen interlocking characters and complicated interpersonal interactions in the first half of the pilot alone. We are introduced to all of the Gracens, the various people vying for power in the Acquisitions Department, and various other side characters. The pilot seems awkwardly stitched together in the middle, the first half an introduction to this world and the building up of Profit's clever plan to become the Vice President of Acquisitions in a matter of months. Then, just when Profitâs neat removal of his competitors Mary, Pete Gracen, and Walker seems complete, it all starts to unravel.
In the second half, it becomes clear why reportedly thousands of people called in to complain to Fox about this controversial series. The show turns that dial straight-up to 11. We learn about Profitâs original childhood identity, in a scenario that has clear Dick Whitman/Don Draper similarities (down to the countrified background--apparently Profit is originally from Tulsa, Oklahoma, which is treated as the most backwoods of places. For those who watched Angel, you'll note that Lindsey, another ambitious young man, was also from Tulsa--a city of 500,000 people and lots of oil money). We are introduced to "Jimmy's" stepmom--a character whose oddness only begins once she starts making out with her stepson--and we learn a few intriguing tidbits about Profit's ailing father. And amidst all of this head-swimming backstory, we also follow corporate detective Joanne, who finds Profit suspicious and dangerous. And, hey, she seems a little imbalanced to, as we learn that she is seeing a therapist and still has a bit of an obsession with her married former lover. Then she dreams this:
I can imagine the folks at home: "Wait, why is the main character choking the nice lady? Is America's Funniest Home Video on?"
Adrian Pasdar, who plays Profit, and who you might recognize from Heroes, does a great job playing the calculating, emotionless character who manipulates everyone around him. He carefully plays on his coworkers' vices, fears, and desires to gain people's trust and to try to position himself as a rising star in Gracen & Gracen. He uses techniques like seduction, lying, and money laundering to get what he wants. And, as we learn as the episode goes on, people are largely ripe for manipulation because they, too, are sinners. They have affairs, they steal money, they sell baby food that's filled with sugar water. Profit fits in perfectly, even if he is perhaps the worst of the worst because he has no conscience about any of it.
It's only in the last 5-10 minutes of the two-episode long Pilot that the themes of the series come into focus. As Profit says, âTelevisionâs bad for you.â He would know, since apparently he was abused as a kid by being forced to watch television 24-hours a day (while being trapped in a box from the time he was a toddler. Aww. This is a sad show sometimes). So, why TV? TV is about performance, its about image, it's about advertisement, selling, the American Dream. So this is Jim Profit--he is everything TV made him. He plays various roles, and he plays them well. He seduces Pete's wife by quoting A Midsummer Night's Dream. Why that play, of all Shakespeare? Isn't it because that play is about the mixing of reality and performance, so that it's impossible to know what is real anymore? Profit is well aware of the connection--he seduces his prey using every melodramatic line known to the Lifetime Channel. And she falls for it, because that's what she wants--to live in the dream-world that Profit creates. In fact, Profit's performance works so well because he lets people live the tropes and stories that they want to live in (or, at least, it works on everyone but Joanne, who is fiercely devoted to reality, perhaps because she is barely hanging onto reality by a thread).
Profit's con artistry doesn't get him far in this overstuffed episode, after a rather circuitous series of plots and intrigues fails to get him his coveted Vice President status in the company. However, he does manage to ruin several lives and terrorize numerous people over the course of one episode. But Jim Profit, turning to the camera in a Richard III monologue (or House of Cards, for those non-Shakespeare people), assures the audience at home that he will eventually prevail.
If you're still not convinced this is a show about a man living a performance, then watch the last minute of this show--Jim Profit, who has spent nearly the whole episode in perfectly-tailored suits, crawls naked into a trash-filled cardboard box, curling up into the fetal position, his eyes staring off emotionlessly into the darkness. The camera pans out, and we see that the whole scene is set on a darkened stage. All of Profit's identity falls away, and we are as confused about what is "real" as any of Profit's victims. Is Jim Profit living out his own imagined television show?
I hope you guys keep watching this series with me! Only 7 episodes left, and there's lots more insanity where this came from!!! If you're interested in watching the series, all the episodes can be found at: www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjlg3ddGFmw&list=PL0MLlXbNG0carmK3rUlKlSsfSDhDWL2h3&index=1
EPISODE GRADE: B+ (though I'd give the first half of the episode an A)
AWESOME FACTS ABOUT THIS SHOW:
--As I alluded to above, the series was inspired by "Richard III." So, yeah, we'll talk more about that in the future. Read up on your Shakespeare if you want to sound all erudite!
--The series was created by the co-creator of Angel, David Greenwalt. Yes, there are clear similarities between the two shows. I will discuss that in future, but people should feel free to draw parallels with the Pilot.
--Profit's traumatic upbringing was based on the childhood of a real-life serial killer who had been similarly raised in a box with only a television present as described in the nonfiction novel Whoever Fights Monsters: My Twenty Years Tracking Serial Killers for the FBI by Robert K. Ressler & Tom Shachtman.
--Profit's assistant Gail is totes doing the Office Space scam before Office Space came out. Oh, Gail. Your name isn't even Michael Bolton.
--The virtual reality images are the worst thing about the show. Other than the soundtrack. And the wardrobe. Oh, God, even the food is weirdly-90s looking.
--Don S. Davis, the sheriff from Tulsa, Oklahoma, FUCKING NAILS his Oklahoman accent. He knows Oklahoma. You know who doesn't have the right accent? Profit's stepmom Bobby. I am not sure if it's because Bobby is supposed to be from somewhere else, or if the character herself is pretending to be from Georgia or South Carolina in order to seem a little more intriguing. I am sure the actress, Lisa Blount, knows how to do a proper accent, since she's originally from Arkansas.
--Speaking of Lisa Blount: She quit high school at age sixteen and enrolled at the University of Arkansas despite not having a high school diploma. Life imitating art! No wonder she was able to commit to the role of a con-artist molester!
I didn't notice the food, but I'm not a foodie or anything.
