It’s the golden rule of cool: The more you try, the less you are. Should Vinyl ever take that lesson to heart, we might have a hell of a show on our hands. The fact is that when its characters are sagging rather than swaggering, losing rather than boozing — that’s when it’s at its most watchable.
Take the opening scene of tonight’s episode, entitled “E.A.B.” To the (highly expensive to license) tune of the Beatles’ “Here Comes the Sun,”Richie, Zak, and Skip walk into a bank in slow motion, where they try and fail to get a loan. It’s a funny, charming sequence, taking full advantage of actors Bobby Cannavale, Ray Romano, and J.C. MacKenzie’s sad-sack faces, their perfect period clothing and hair, and their natural Three Stooges interplay. In essence: When its characters fail, Vinyl works.
I reviewed this weekend’s Vinyl for Rolling Stone.
Tags: reviews, Rolling Stone, TV, TV reviews, vinyl