Several episodes ago I made the argument that American Gigolo’s warmth was a welcome development given the emotional sterility of Paul Schrader’s original film. Now I’m not so sure. These final few episodes have seen warmth tilt over into soap suds, and the replacement of a harsh look at Julian’s lifestyle with a give me back my son whodunnit didn’t benefit anyone in the end. And I can’t help but feel that this show with “gigolo” in the title should have featured, well, more gigolo-ing, or really had any interest in sex work at all beyond providing an taboo backdrop for a murder mystery. A curious, curious beast, this American Gigolo. I wonder if we’ll see Julian ride again. So to speak.

I reviewed the season finale of American Gigolo for Decider.

Here’s a quick question for you: Remember when American Gigolo was about being a gigolo?

Admittedly, it’s a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it situation. Since his exoneration for murder and reemergence from prison, Julian Kaye has, by my count, gone on precisely one date with a client. They skipped out on a high-school reunion and had sex in a dive-bar bathroom before she revealed to him that she’d once accidentally killed someone, putting something of a damper on the evening. He coached her through her guilt and escorted her to the doors of the high school, yes, but that was where their evening ended. 

All the other sex work we’ve watched Julian/Johnny perform has been via flashback, and much of that coerced while he was a juvenile. To the extent that his titular job is a factor in the series at all, it’s purely as context, the world in which the various crimes, lies, betrayals, and heartbreaks with which the show is more concerned emerge from. The killing for which Julian was framed; the death of his high-school girlfriend upon her involvement in this other part of his life; his complicated relationships with fellow veterans of the trade Lorenzo and Isabelle; his continued dealings with Detective Sunday, the cop who put him away and now feels guilty about it; his child with former client-turned-girlfriend Michelle Stratton; his son running away with an older woman, that older woman’s murder by one of Michelle’s husband’s employees, and his kidnapping by a second such employee; the revelation that the woman he was accused of murdering was the sister of the girl who killed herself: All of these things stem from Julian’s life as a gigolo, without actually providing us with any insight into or commentary on that life. He could just as easily be a (very sexy) cop, or teacher, or paleontologist.

It’s frustrating! Come on, guys, it says “American Gigolo” right there in the title!

I reviewed this week’s episode of American Gigolo for Decider.

I’ve been thinking about this, and I’m kind of at a loss: What’s so American about American Gigolo, anyway? The adjective implies a sort of national universality about Julian Kaye’s escapades, or a uniquely American characteristic thereof. But as far as I can tell, he’s just some poor sap who fell bass-ackwards into sex work and thence into a wrongful murder conviction, and who’s now struggling to piece together exactly how and why both things happened to him. It’s tough to see his life, as portrayed in this series, as anything emblematic of any larger, America-wide concerns. He’s just some patsy, and remains so.

I reviewed last night’s episode of American Gigolo for Decider.

The bad news first: American Gigolo Episode 5 (“The Escape Wheel”) is easily the least good of the lot thus far. The tone is sappy, the plot is creaky, the characters turn at the drop of a dime, and there’s no sex to speak of. If you thought the American Gigolo concept would suffer when removed from the antiseptic gaze of original writer-director Paul Schrader, this installment makes your case.

I reviewed this week’s episode of American Gigolo for Decider.

Looking over my notes on the episode, I’m struck by, well, how struck I was by Julian and Sunday’s kindness toward strangers. Even while fucked up on booze and coke, Julian personally carried that dog to the vet, made sure his owner knew where he was, and footed the bill for the pup’s treatment. He’s just as careful with Anne’s feelings as he is with the dog’s physical well-being. And even though his mother initially fled Sunday, the detective waits until she returns, carefully nurses her back to health, and apologizes for wrongfully accusing Julian of the murder he went to prison for. Underneath their diametrically opposed (and morally dubious, depending on your point of view) jobs, they’re both decent people.

And again, the show plays to O’Donnell’s strengths as a comedian in particular. She’s hilarious when Isabelle gives her a drink that’s more fruit than water. She’s hilarious when she tries and instantly, I mean within five seconds, fails to chase his mother into the desert. (“Stop running! Slow down!” she hollers at the fleeing woman as she herself, you guessed it, slows down and stops running.) She’s hilarious with Paloma, as she repeats the reasons she doesn’t have a partner either at work or in life verbatim: “I’m cranky, I’m set in my ways, and I like to work alone.”

As for Bernthal, the dude gets seriously sexy in this episode too — a less surprising element of the show than the kindness or the comedy, perhaps, but a vital one. I loved the way he instinctively smiled when he said “Hi” to Anne during their first phone conversation, as if his ladykiller charm cannot be switched off even when he’s alone. The sex scene in the bathroom is both hot and, well, kind of disgusting, as hot things can sometimes be; Anne winds up in bare feet, one of them resting on the toilet seat, as they bang against the wall. 

I reviewed tonight’s episode of American Gigolo for Decider.

But for those of us who major in Jon Bernthal Studies, Gigolo remains a captivating portrait of a guy forced into a life he didn’t want at a too-young age, who found he excelled at it and came to embrace everything about it, only to have it all taken away from and be forced to reinvent himself, first as a convict, now as a free man. By the looks of things, he’ll be tricking again soon enough, yet another reinvention. Bernthal’s natural magnetism is the thing that connects all the dots: He’s equally convincing as a carefree playboy, a tatted-up jailbird, a down-on-his-luck sad sack, a doe-eyed heartsick lover, and a recidivist hustler. Physically, his gift is that he can embody all these things at once: It’s so easy to picture him as a fuck machine, a friendly just-folks kinda guy, or a thug, or sometimes all three at once. That’s the beauty of his work, and that’s the beauty of American Gigolo.

I reviewed this weekend’s episode of American Gigolo for Decider.

What I’ve learned from reading a bit of other people’s reactions to American Gigolo the TV show is that there are folks in this world who aren’t interested in watching Jon Bernthal strut around L.A. while being sexy and melancholy. Couldn’t be me! It’s hard for me to imagine a more telegenic leading man than Bernthal, his face all raw power, his eyes all bleeding soul, his body a machine — this time one built for sex rather than violence, as it was in The Punisher and We Own This City. His performance fascinates me, which is more than I can say for other more prominent shows at this moment. Let’s see where he rambles to next.

I reviewed tonight’s episode of American Gigolo for Decider.

The episode’s primary driver, as you might have guessed from this brief summary, is not plot at all, but character-based ambiance, specifically emanating from Jon Bernthal. I’ve had the pleasure of covering his work in The Punisher and We Own This City for this website, and I’m not ashamed to say I simply can’t get enough of the guy. The thrill of watching Jon Bernthal work out in prison, drive a car on the freeway, languorously recline in bed, walk around in expensive-looking clothing, run his hands through his floppy hair, et cetera and ad nauseam, cannot be overstated. There’s just something about his dark brown eyes, his prizefighter face, his overall physical swagger that can’t be imitated or duplicated. You either have it or you don’t.

Of course, the same could no doubt be said about Richard Gere, who originated the role of Julian in Paul Schrader’s original film. (Reports that this show functions as a timeframe-adjusted sequel to the movie are greatly exaggerated; there’s simply no way to reconcile the events of that movie, in which Julian dodges a murder rap at the last minute thanks to the grace afforded him by the woman who loves him, with the events of this show, in which he does 15 years hard time.) Gere, who in retrospect looks like a sort of Bernthal/David Duchovny prototype, portrayed Julian as a beautiful nullity, a sort of sexual idiot savant whose polyglottism and knowledge of fashion, food, cars, stereos, art, and so on functioned solely as a means to woo older, wealthier women. The movie’s big tell is that Gere’s Julian had an apartment full of framed paintings and photographs simply stacked against the walls, not hung on them; he knew what constituted Good Art in the eyes of his milieu, but he didn’t care enough to actually enjoy it, since enjoying it wasn’t his job. 

I wrote about the series premiere of American Gigolo for Decider, where I’ll be covering the show all season. I also wrote a fair bit about Paul Schrader’s original American Gigolo film, about which I have mixed feelings. Check it out!