ABC’s Scoundrels [Sundays, 9/8C] is a strange little show about a family of small-time crooks and con artists that veer into uncharted territory when the father is unexpectedly hit with a much heavier sentence that expected.
Wolfgang “Wolf” West [David James Elliott] and his lovely wife Cheryl [Virginia Madsen] are in their last bout of lovemaking before Wolf is sentenced [for what crime we are never told] when they are interrupted by the police. Led by Sergeant Mack [Carlos Bernard], a veritable platoon of police search the house and ask the whereabouts of son Cal [Patrick Flueger] – who fits the description of a home invader who allegedly put an elderly Asian woman in hospital.
Along the way, daughter Heather [Leven Rambin] pits because mom won’t let her pay for some photos for her portfolio [she wants to be a model] and other daughter Hope [Vanessa Marano] does more damage to the cops with her withering remarks than they do with their search. And, oh yeah, the Wests have another son, Cal’s twin, Logan, who just happens to be being admitted to the bar on the same day that his father is being sent up the creek.
It all seems very much a comic romp through the land of small-time crime and sleazy cops – Mack comes across as far sleazier than any of the Wests, which sets up a tone that is expected to help the audience cheer the Wests on as momma Cheryl decides they should go straight after wolf is put away for five years, rather than the expected seven months.
Another thing it seems to be is too pat. There’s a silly and utterly disposable gag about the victims of Cal’s home invasion, the Hongs and the Chinese criminal gangs, the Tongs; there’s Cal’s inability to put two and two together without coming up with five, or maybe six [saying he’s not the brightest bulb on the chandelier is a woefully inadequate description of his intelligence, or lack thereof]; there’s Hope’s blackmailing her principal [to stay out of school] because, “I want to be a filmmaker – you don’t need an education to do that;” and there grandpa, whose Alzheimer’s got him so confused the last time he visited that he mistook Heather’s closet for the bathroom…
Elliott and Madsen have great chemistry – which is utterly wasted because they share the screen so seldom. Flueger’s range is pretty limited, so outside the actual words they’re saying, Cal and Logan – despite being very different, physically [Cal’s hair is long, Logan’s is short; Cal is scruffy, Logan is clean-shaven and neat], they react exactly the same way to everything. Rambin finds the sweet spot with her dumb blonde who’s smarter than she looks – and smarter than she thinks she is [but that still not all that bright].
The real find here, though, may be Marano. She reminds of the young Heather Matarazzo – a skinny brunette who is indefinably and oddly attractive, but also really intelligent and disdainful of everyone and everything. Her line, “What did we steal this time, the raisins?” as a police officer dumps a box of cereal into the kitchen sink, isn’t all that original, but her delivery could etch volumes on a copper tablet.
In short, Scoundrels feels like something that USA would have rejected. It’s long on characters [good] but short on story and imagination. It’s entirely possible that future episodes might find a balance between comedy and drama and sell Cheryl’s efforts to force her family to go straight, but they’ll do so without me. There’s nothing in the premiere to suggest that the going straight part of the equation will be particularly entertaining and every suggestion that the small-time crime part won’t be sufficiently explored to be interesting.
Final Grade: C-