DIRT 2.6 – "And The Winner Is..."

Writer: Albert Kim
Director: Tricia Brock

Cast: Josh Stewart (Holt), Courteney Cox (Lucy), Ian Hart (Don), Alex Breckenridge (Willa), Julian Acosta (Adam Proteau), Ashley Johnson (Sharlee), Ryan Eggold (Farber), Jeffrey Nordling (Brent Barrow), Rosanna Arquette (Mia), Juli Clair (Holt's Publicist), Morena Baccarin (Claire), Rochelle Aytes (Jasmine Ford), Victor Webster (Trey Paulson) & Richmond Arquette (Collin De Quisto)

Lucy, Willa and Farber mingle at the Hollywood Gold Awards, Don accompanies his celebrity friend to the glitzy event, and Brent receives an indecent proposal...

While mildly entertaining at times, this penultimate episode does very little to turn around the fortunes of a disappointing sophomore season. In terms of slumps, even Heroes' derided second year managed to be dumb entertainment throughout. Dirt has simply forgotten its strengths and, in playing it safe, has wound up looking impotent and unforgivably bland...

The setting for this episode (a vacuous showbiz awards ceremony) would have been fine fettle for Dirt last year, but it's mostly a wasted opportunity in season 2's nervous hands. The love-triangle between Lucy (Courteney Cox), ex-boyfriend Holt (Josh Stewart) and new boyfriend Ted continues – but seeing as Lucy only started seeing Ted a few episodes back, and last week agreed to secretly date Holt on the side, none of it held my attention. I just kept on wondering why Lucy lacks the confidence to break things off with Ted and go public with Holt.

Anyway, at least it all ends and the door is left wide open for a Holt/Lucy romance to blossom. Strange to hear Julia's death mentioned again, while once again ignoring the fact she was the victim of a hit-and-run. It looks like nobody cares, and the writers seem to hope the audience will just forget about the fact Lucy's brother was behind the wheel.

Willa (Alexa Breckenridge) and Farber (Ryan Eggold) sniff around backstage the whole episode, trying to work out who drugged actress Rochelle Aytes (Jasmine Ford) so she'd make an inebriated fool of herself while giving an award. Their investigation eventually leads to backseat sex in a limo afterwards -- sadly nowhere near as steamy as season 1 would have filmed it. Still, interesting to note how Willa succumbs to men: just offer her your personal e-mail address!

The most appealing subplot once again belongs to Don (Ian Hart), who accompanies his celebrity popstar friend Sharlee (Ashley Johnson) to the event – and she helps him smuggle in a secret microphone, too. Sharlee is the Britney Spears stand-in for Dirt, and the episode continues to have fun playing with Don's desire for a normal life and his programmed paparazzi responses.

There's a great scene where Sharlee gets dressed in their limo as they drive to the event, with Don visualizing the freeze-frame snaps he's missing out on as she strips half-naked. Later, after Sharlee gives an award to Mia (Rosanna Arquette), a clear Madonna-type who french-kisses her in front of the cameras, their dressing room falling out is captured by Don. But, with Sharlee apparently growing closer to twitchy Mr. Konkey, can he hand over the material to Lucy? As it turns out -- no. For once, Don actually makes a decision based on peoples' feelings instead of front page gossip. Hurrah.

There's a mildly involving subplot for Brent Barrow (Jeffrey Nordling), who manages to pull a significant success out of thin air, after DirtNow's new boss Adam (Julian Acosta) challenges him to exchanges dates with him. Brent's worth is rewarded later, when Adam lets him have some of the associated fortune of his DirtNow takeover, which includes a Lamborghini. The drunken Brent drives it home in high spirits, only to fall asleep at the wheel after parking it in a closed garage, with the engine running. It would appear he's unwittingly committed suicide through intoxication (allowing Nordling to play FBI Agent in 24's seventh season?), but we'll have to see what happens in next week's finale.

Yes, the finale is next week. While I understand it must have been a nightmare for Dirt's writers to cope with having their season slashed in half, there have been no signs in any of these episode that anyone had a clear plan for season 2. Every character has been given a perfunctory storyline, but only Don remains moderately intriguing. Even his badly introduced younger brother had a decent scene here. The only thing of intrigue has been Don's blossoming relationship with a much younger girl, who should also be his prey as a tabloid photographer.

Everything else has been utterly forgettable, and the decision to base characters on real-life celebrities has just put Dirt into a strange parallel universe. And none of these parodies offer as much bite as the real thing. If Britney Spears was dating a well-known paparazzo, it would carry more gossip inches than Sharlee/Don seem to be. And how can you seriously fail to poke fun at Madonna using the alter-ego of Mia? But her appearance seemed like a favour to Courteney Cox's real-life sister-in-law Rosanna Arquette.

Even lovely Willa, who I loved last year, has become little more than a motor-mouthed, sarcastic irritation this season. It's all very disappointing, especially given the story possibilities of an awards ceremony, with every character just swimming around in their own uninteresting circles. I don't think anyone is excited about seeing Lucy and Holt back together, Willa and Farber are dry together, and now Brent's time on the show looks to have come to an end. I guess that sex tape he secretly made of himself and Willa was ultimately pointless, then. Remember that, from season 1? It seems a long time ago now.

Overall, I don't expect next week's premature finale to turn things around, so season 2 will hopefully be swept under the red carpet. If Dirt does return, and it doesn't really deserve to based on these half-dozen episodes, I hope they revert to what worked in season 1 – before fans abandon it en masse.


2 June 2008
Fiver, 9.00 pm