TV Spotlight: HBO's "Enlightened"

Enlighted

Monday's at 9:30 PM on HBO

Starring
Laura Dern
Diane Ladd

Luke Wilson
Sarah Burns

Thanks to the power of HBOGO and my XBOX 360, I was able to catch up on the entire first season on the dark comedy "Enlightened" starring the wonderful Academy Award Nominee Laura Dern (Rambling Rose, Jurassic Park). The opening scene of the series shows Dern's character, Amy, going completely berserk at work because she did not get the job at Abadon that she was pulling for. Instead it was Damon played by Chip Esten (Whose Line is it Anyway?) who she had a small affair with. She freaks out on everyone and goes on a tirade throughout the office. Cut to a few months later and she has just been released from an anger management center in Hawaii and now she has a much more serene outlook on life. She has been: Enlightened.

The series follows her new found happiness and serenity as she tries to make peace with her old co-workers, her mother, played by her real life mother, Oscar Nominee Diane Ladd (Rambling Rose, Wild at Heart) and her ex husband played by Luke Wilson (Vacancy, Henry Poole is Here). No one in her life makes it easy for her. While she has become a new person, everyone around her has stayed the same. They are all assholes, back stabbers, distant mothers, jerks, drug addicts, etc. They all make it hard for her to keep her inner peace. It's also difficult for them because she has come back a very odd person. She is now very perky and bouncy and overly joyed with life. She has basically developed into a hippie who is all about the environment and taking down big corps! And no one wants to join her parade and they all look at her like she's insane and the laugh at her behind her back.

The show is labeled as a comedy. In fact, Laura Dern just won a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Television Comedy a few months ago for her role on the show. But watching the first season, which is 10 episodes long, I didn't find myself laughing all that much. Don't get me wrong, there are some hysterical moments on the show and the character of Amy is so charismatic you can't help but laugh at her personality a lot. But the story lines are not that funny, in fact a lot of them are fairly dramatic and at times, pretty dark. There was a whole episode dedicated to the mother where we followed her throughout her normal day. She was reminiscing about her husbands suicide and had to run into an old friend she couldn't even remember that she soon discovered was the wife of a man who worked with her husband. Then she was ripped apart by her ex-son in law for being partially responsible for the divorce. It was a pretty depressing episode.


There are a lot of depressing aspects to the storyline of the show. The biggest one being Amy's co-workers, especially the ones on the higher floors, seem to despise her. They ridicule her and mock her behind her back and sometimes to her face. They don't take her seriously at all, and are convinced she is a nut job. They lie to her, avoid her and it's all kind of sad to watch because she is trying so hard to be a good person, but they won't give her the light of day. The most annoying one is Krista played by Sarah Burns (I Love You Man, Life as We Know It) who pretends to play nice in front of Amy but is the biggest hater behind her back. Lies to her about everything. You just can't help but feel so sad for Amy. Not to mention she works in the basement with the "freaks" in the department where they monitor all the productivity of Abadon. Her boss played by Timm Sharp (Til' Death) is a perverted asshole who is constantly swearing in the office.

However, Amy isn't totally in the clear. She does go rogue a lot. She comes into work late almost every day. She ditches work in the middle of the day to go on job interviews or to pitch her reports to the higher ups and completely disregards Dougie, her boss. She demeans him often. She also leads on her co-worker Tyler played by writer and producer of the show Mike White (School of Rock, The Amazing Race) and when he finally makes a move on her she pushes him away and that creates a totally awkwardrd situation. At any rate though, the show is more on the drama side than the comedy side. But as a show all together, it's very good. It's really heartfelt and sweet. The writing is absolutely fantastic and the characters are all so three dimensional and there's tons of depth to all of them. It's full of people you have a lot of feelings towards (whether it be negative or positive).

Laura Dern is brilliant as Amy. I haven't seen much of her work outside of Jurassic Park so I don't have anything to gauge off of. But she really carries this show well. Dern does a perfect job balancing the characters moments of serenity as well as her insecurity and moments of instability. She plays well with all the other actors especially those raw and realistic moments between her and Diane Ladd who as mentioned earlier, is her real mother. It makes their scenes together so gritty and real. I can completely see Dern being nominated for the Emmy for Best Actress in a Comedy this coming year. Even though she is more dramatic...but hey, what do I know. The show is incredible, and I'm glad I was able to catch up on HBOGO. Life's Too Short on HBO is obviously a much more funny show, but that is only intended to be pure slapstick and absurdity and is super hilarious! But if you haven't yet, try to catch up on "Enlightened" if you have HBO Go, it may even be on HBO On Demand. I am not to sure when season 2 starts. I'm guessing sometime in September or October of this year. I heard that Dermot Mulroney is joining the cast next season. Should be interesting.

I can't wait though!