WRITERS: Dawn Prestwick & Nicole Yorkin DIRECTOR: Paris Barclay
CAST: Courteney Cox (Lucy Spiller), Will McCormack (Leo Spiller), Laura Allen (Julia Mallory), Josh Stewart (Holt McLaren), Jeffrey Nordling (Brent Barrow), Ian Hart (Don Konkey), Shauna Stoddart (Terry), Glen Badyna (Elliott), Ankur Bhatt (Kenny), Carly Pope (Garbo), Rick Fox (Prince Tyreese), Alex Breckenridge (Willa McPherson), Anil Raman (Anil), Charles Howerton (Paul Weston), Alexi Wasser (Naomi), David Batiste (Ash), Marc Vann (Dr. Kozar), Billy Brown (Twitty McDaniel), Grant Show (Jack Dawson), Mariette Hartley (Dorothy Spiller) & Shannyn Sossamon (Kira Klay)
Lucy blackmails Prince Tyrese into helping her find a missing rap star and her mother announces marital plans...
The ongoing storylines of Dirt are becoming increasingly enjoyable, as the characters take on greater dimensions and plots develop nicely. I'm particularly beginning to warm to Lucy Spiller, who has always been nicely acted by Courtney Cox, but spent earlier episodes stuck in "standoffish bitch mode" too often.
This episode finds a neat balance, by continuing to explore her family side. We met Lucy's gay brother Leo (Will McCormack) last week and now we meet her widowed mother, Dorothy (Mariette Hartley), who plans to remarry on the 25th anniversary of her husband's death...
These glimpses into the Spiller family unit help buoy Lucy's character nicely, particularly as her home and work ethic are undoubtedly set to collide -- seeing as her brother is dating movie star Jack Dawson. Courtney Cox has good scenes with her screen family and it's interesting to see the tragedy that still haunts Lucy's dreams -- something that was set-up during a dream sequence in the Pilot.
Ian Hart continues to steal scenes with his pure eccentric charm as photographer Don. His character is often the writer's outlet for some more fantastical sequences, which are fun to watch because his schitzophrenia is shown as hallucinations -- ranging from the macabre to the bizarre. It's hardly a truthful way to show a serious mental illness on television, but it certainly allows for Dirt's more entertaining moments. Here, Don has a weird "photoshoot" with a head in a jar, before helping his imaginary girlfriend give birth to.... well, that would spoil the episode's biggest joke!
Tyreese, Holt and Laura's sub-plots, a significant part of earlier episodes, are just poked along with a few scenes here. Tyreese is still being manipulated by Lucy, while depressed Laura (who likes to lounge around semi-naked, smoking cigarettes) begins to self-harm.
One minor plot, continuing from last week, has keen reporter Willa McPherson (Alex Breckenridge) investigating a story about an exercise guru undergoing stomach-stapling. Last week, poor Willa took drugs to avoid blowing her cover with a dealer, and this week she faces a similar professional dilemma with a foot fetishist...
At the moment, Willa's scenes are being played for dark giggles, but Breckenridge is an enjoyable presence, whose character will hopefully be given further development. She's the most identifiable journalist at Dirt-Now magazine and the show needs to build more of an ensemble feel in the office.
Overall, What To Expect When You're Expecting is another good episode that shows Dirt is beginning to develop itself and introduce more characters into the mix. The combination of exaggerated showbiz drama, strange visuals, and dark humour ensures each episode runs at an enjoyable pace. A sequence that intercuts two scenes of masturbation (Lucy alone in bed with a vibrator, Don alone on a sofa with his imaginary girlfriend) is also very indicative of the amusing oddness that permeates Dirt's dark soap opera mentality.
Dirt is proving to be one of the week's more entertaining hours of salacious fun...
