Elsewhere, Paul Sparks is characteristically excellent as Ken, the soft-spoken writer with vaguely Jimmy Buffett styling who runs the AA meeting Nicky rushes to after enjoying some hair of the dog with a man who pretends to be her father in one of the show’s oddest scenes so far, which is saying something. Anyway! I’ve enjoyed Sparks in everything I’ve seen him in since Boardwalk Empire, where he played a memorably chickenshit gangster; watch him carefully here and you’ll see that while what he’s doing isn’t showy, particularly next to Elizabeth Banks’s broad performance as Nicky, he simply never makes an uninteresting choice as a performer. The inflection of a sentence, a glance from the corner of his eye, the way he wears a shirt or holds a cigarette — he feels less like an Interesting Character and more like a character who is interesting, if that makes sense. With this show — with any show, good bad or indifferent — you’ll be a happier viewer if you learn to enjoy the good stuff when you get it, however fleetingly.
I reviewed the fifth episode of The Better Sister for Decider.
Tags: the better sister, TV, TV reviews