WRITER: Joel Fields DIRECTOR: Paris Barclay
CAST: Will McCormack (Leo Spiller), Jeffrey Nordling (Brent Barrow), Laura Allen (Julia Mallory), Josh Stewart (Holt McLaren), Ian Hart (Don Konkey), Courteney Cox (Lucy Spiller), Rick Fox (Prince Tyreese), Glen Badyna (Elliott), Alex Breckenridge (Willa McPherson), Shauna Stoddart (Terry), Carly Pope (Garbo), Grant Show (Jack Dawson), Tyson Chambers (Goofy Young Guy), Paris Barclay (Director), Traber Burns (Reginald), Anil Raman (Anil), Ankur Bhatt (Kenny), Richard Portnow (Teddy), Shannyn Sossamon (Kira Klay), Alexi Wasser (Naomi), Channon Roe (Jeff Stagliano), Kate Linae (Connie Chris), Hal Havins (Frankie), David Batiste (Adam), Cynthia Addai-Robinson (Michelle), Stormy Daniels (Stormy) & Timothy Bottoms (Gibson Horne)
Dirt Now is about to launch and Lucy needs a great cover story, so she dspatches Don to get photos of a Chrisitan pop star in hospital. Meanwhile, Holt is courted by a producer and Julia has a bad time on the set of her sitcom...Ovophagy benefits from an increasing awareness of Dirt's storytelling style and its character's traits. It focuses on another morally questionable search for a juicy story, this time a whiter-than-white Christian pop star who has been admitted to hospital for reasons unknown.
Lucy (Courtney Cox, born for this role) is desperate for her new magazine (the merger of Drrt and Now into... um, Dirt Now) and rallies her staff into action by showing them National Geographic footage of foetal sharks eating their siblings (ovophagy). It's another crazy moment Dirt revels in: you can't really imagine someone like Lucy Spiller spending time recording nature doc's just to make a point in a meeting, can you?
But that's the nature of this show. It's as flashy and disposable as the tabloids, packed with silly moments and visual quirks. The most interesting character remains Don Konkey (Ian Hart), if only because his loyalty is taken to the nth degree. Lucy is essentially manipulating someone with schitzophrenia, which is a little distasteful... particularly as Don's living arrangements don't suggest he's paid that well. We're only three episodes into the series and it's already clear that Don is the unsung hero behind Lucy's empire. His attempts to gain access to a hospital are played for laughs, until a final act of self-harm shows the lengths Don will go to for Lucy.
The Holt and Julia subplot is better this week. It seems less cluttered and isn't as dependent on the main storyline. Julia (Laura Allen) is having a terrible time on the set of her sitcom, forgetting lines so often that she's told to rest and get over her recent car accident by the producer. The same producer who later shmoozes boyfriend Holt (Josh Stewart). It's nice to have a B-story that isn't tied to magazine publishing entirely, offering a different showbiz-based view on the Hollywood machine. Holt's story is also progressing nicely, as his career goes from strength to strength, as girlfriend's Julia's falters.
Courtney Cox remains impressive here, both beautiful and believably hardboiled as editor-in-chief Lucy. Her firing of a dissenting voice smacks of a show-off attitude I'm not sure exists in reality, but I liked how she gave a green reporter a chance to prove her worth by infiltrating a local drug-dealer. It shows she's happy to cultivate her workforce and give people breaks. The episode also gives us our first look at Lucy's family, as her gay brother Leo (Will McCormack) makes his first appearance.
Joels Fields' script is fun and fast-paced, neatly combining the elements of Dirt we've seen displayed so far, but making them slicker. Scenes seem to move faster and the situations are easier to get involved with. Even a small moment when a fresh-faced reporter is forced to take drugs instead of blow her cover, it more enthralling than last week's entire storyline.
I'm a little concerned about how Don's visions are being treated by the writers recently, however. The pilot episode gave us plausible visions that were half-humorous, half frightening. The recent visions are just silly and mostly involve the ghostly presence of dead celeb Kira Klay (Shannyn Sossamon). At times, Dirt is resembling a trippy version of Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased) whenever Don's around. It's a nice idea to show his warped mind's fixation with Kira, but I preferred the chilling oddness shown in episode one. Mind you, it is amusing that Don's version of Kira is pregnant already!
Overall, Ovophagy is easily the best episode of this fledgling series so far. It entertained me more consistently and, now the characters have solidifed in my mind, it's just easier to relax into Dirt's world. It's not essential viewing yet, but it's also yet to be boring.
