Sunny Nights really gains steam in its last installment, dropping some surprises (one involving a spray-tan flamethrower) and setting the stage for a promising—if not for the Marvins, then certainly for the show—new chapter, one with no doubt the same reliable banter but hopefully tighter plotting.
This is a very assured show, the kind where a left-field backstory or character trait doesn’t come off like a tacked-on quirk or distraction but rather the heart of what makes it so wonderful to watch in the first place.
The wide scope and weight of history makes this feel more in the vein of Apatow and Bonfiglio’s George Carlin doc than the former’s solo effort on Garry Shandling. Which isn’t to suggest that this isn’t an intimate sketch. It very much is.
If there are more shows like this coming down the pike—thrillers with heavy doses of humor, generally fantastic casting (Wilson, it’s worth noting, gives a very good and tricky star performance here), a sizable budget, and some smart narrative decisions (more refreshingly abrupt, life-goes-on endings like this one, please)—viewers should consider themselves pretty lucky.
This show’s batting average is high, connecting far more often than not. And at this point, the comedy has the chemistry, playbook, and legs for more potential seasons (and new kids to teach, issues to tackle, and advice on work-life balance to ignore).
[Feels] thinner and, dramatically, less emotionally complex. Some of that is bound to happen when you take characters who have mostly been on the back burner and move them closer to the front. .... But that doesn’t make any of this less delightful to watch, maybe just less fulfilling.
Brown’s docuseries doesn’t end on that note of frustration or on anything to do with developments in the case, really, and instead leaves us with a more human moment, of Thomas and Ayres-Wilson holding hands from across the table (as seen in the still above) and silently bonding over a pain that only they can understand.
[Some] characters could have been handled as one-note punchlines. But the writer-director smartly avoids those broad strokes without ever watering down the mischief, fun, brightness, and excellently scored energy that make Rage worth tuning in to in the first place.
There are a few big twists in Smoke, which is based on the true-crime podcast Firebug, and two of them are dropped quite early in the miniseries’ run. This isn’t necessarily a problem, but, unfortunately, the cat-and-mouse chases after those reveals lose steam in the show’s back half and can feel like they’re prolonging inevitable, albeit stylishly presented, ends.
