On the surface, Nick Dalton seems like the prototypical “man who has it all”. A suave, handsome, and extremely successful attorney with political aspirations, Dalton owns every room he walks into, both intimidating and intriguing with his cool presence. He’s the man you want to learn from and the man you want your sister to end up with.
Except for the fact that Dalton is a former henchman for Bruno Bianchi (aka Cliff Hill), Chicago’s primo mob boss, who witnessed his former employer get rough with the cute new cigarette girl Maureen at The Playboy Club and take an accidental (powder blue) stiletto to the neck. With Bianchi’s unsuspecting wife sniffing around the club for answers and his girlfriend Carol-Lynne extremely jealous of Maureen, what’s Nick Dalton to do?
That’s the central conflict of NBC’s The Playboy Club, which takes us back to the early 1960s and the formation of the first Playboy themed nightclub in Chicago. One of the two 60s era shows debuting this season (the other being ABC’s Pan Am), Playboy Club works best when its atmosphere is a little less serious and a little more sensual or celebratory. Of the scenes that clicked with me, most happened on the main floor of the club, where the blaring trumpets, endless champagne, and magnetic energy screamed sophistication. Watching the club function and getting delved into that type of atmosphere gave the pilot the type of juice it needed, especially as you got to see each bunny interact with the customers and you could immediately get a feel for each girl’s personality.
The mob subplot is one that could go either way for me. I think it’s a good thing that the show tried to do something a little different and if handled correctly, it could add a certain amount of danger and complexity to the interactions between wide-eyed farm girl Maureen (Amber Heard) and Nick (a charisma-less Eddie Cibrian). However, it could easily fall into Cliché Land and I’m curious to know how the show will deal with it once news gets out that Maureen may not be as innocent as she lets on. Death is a strange way to bond characters, but as long as the show doesn’t drag out this information too long and keep everybody else in the dark, it could be a notable way to throw a wrench into what could have been a slightly empty fit of nostalgia.
If I had my choice, though, I would want the show to focus on fleshing out its characters. I understand not having every shade that the five bunnies possess out there in the opening within the first 10 minutes, but the girls were extremely thin and underdrawn, most of who could be reduced to a pretty standard dramatic archetype. You have the “sassy black girl” (Naturi Naughton), the sarcastic independent woman who doesn’t want to be married (Jenna Dewan-Tatum), the ultra feminine lesbian who actually is married (to a gay man) (Leah Renee), the aging bunny with connections and jealousy issues (Laura Benanti), and an innocent Midwestern girl lost in the big city of Chicago (Heard). Each is a different lens to look at femininity in the 60s (which I like) and the scenes with every bunny together generally worked, but I don’t feel like I know any of the bunnies and it’s hard to really sink your teeth into a show with characters that are too broad.
While most of the show takes place at the club, which is booming with energy, there are moments that dragged and were very exposition-heavy. That may be somewhat necessary to set up the rest of the series, but for every bright, shiny mixture of music, sex, and sisterhood that absolutely popped on screen, there was a plodding bit of back story that likely could have been delivered differently. It’s not that the story itself was bad, but I found myself a little less engaged with Nick running into John Bianchi and the disposal of the body, for example. There wasn’t much energy or danger to either scene and I was even a little surprised that the final scene where the surveyors found Nick’s key to the club didn’t end up with Bruno’s body washing on shore. In a way, I hoped that it would wash ashore, only in that it would amp up the drama that much more. Nick seemed a little too cool under pressure while it took everything Maureen had not to crack, so having the incident be a reality would shake him up a little. Could the calculated demeanor be a look at who Nick was before the suits and the smirk?
For all the controversy it inspired before airing, The Playboy Club is actually a rather harmless look back at the 60s Playboy culture. Its characters may not be the fullest and it may not have been the most thrilling pilot we’ve seen, but the show has some style to it and with a little time, I could see The Playboy Club turning into a seductive snapshot of a time when men were men, boys were boys, and bunnies ruled the city.
The Playboy Club airs every Monday night at 10:00 on NBC.
Thoughts, Quotes, & Observations:
- If I had to grade the pilot, I’d give it a C+. It had its positives and I think it has the potential to gel within the next few episodes, once the show gets comfortable juggling its characters, but it has some serious kinks to work out before it can fulfill said potential.
- “That means you’re selling something people want and it sure ain’t cigarettes.”
- “Honey, you have a dirty mind. I was going to say penis.”
- “Yeah, Gladys, I saw your husband dancing with our new cigarette bunny. You could bounce a dime off her ass.”
- The Carol-Lynne/Maureen pairing gives me recollections of Showgirls, of all things. I think having Maureen bring down the elder bunny and then become kind of a power hungry monster herself would be awesome.
- In the pilot, Ike & Tina Turner stopped by the club to perform a song and appeared at the mansion party toward the end of the episode. In future episodes, there’ll be appearances from Lesley Gore (Colbie Caillat), Sam Cooke (Raphael Saadiq), and Ray Charles (Javier Colon). What other early 60s artists would you like to see grace the stage?
- For all her hemming and hawing, Carol-Lynne’s insightful take on who Nick is was articulate and seemed spot on. She has a hell of a voice, too.
- Did anyone else think that John Bianchi’s “women will be the death of you” conversation with Nick could be some serious foreshadowing? He mentioned that twice, so perhaps the push-pull with Maureen and Carol-Lynne will take its toll on the man, the myth, the legend that is Nick Dalton.
- More foreshadowing: Maureen and the Tina Turner song playing at the end of the episode about “I wanna be made over”. Will Maureen ditch her innocent girl persona for something a little more vampy?
- Jenifer Lewis sighting!
- I’d love to have the Mattachine Society be more front and center.
- No more voiceovers from Hef after tonight’s pilot. Thoughts?
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