None of the show’s writing problems lessen the charm and vitality of the core cast. Elle Fanning, Michelle Pfeiffer, Nick Offerman, and Greg Kinnear are all excellent — adorable, infuriating, and empathetic at different times. Nicole Kidman has much less to do as their wrestler-turned-lawyer, but hey, it’s Nicole Kidman, and somehow wrestlers turned lawyers feel good in a place like this. 

Thaddea Graham, however, is asked to do nothing as Susie but radiate sidekick energy, while Michale Angaro and Marcia Gay Harden are wasted on their characters’ exasperating villainy. This brings us back around to the writing. The Gables feel out of place because they’re the only characters who get to be assholes to Margo without either a) getting booted out of the story, or b) reconciling with her by the end of the next episode, or even the current one. That’s just how this show works.

Once you notice that mechanism…well, it’s a lot like that opening credit sequence. Margo gets bounced around from problem to problem that are inserted in her way expressly for her to collide with. She’s a pinball, not a person. That’s her real trouble.

I reviewed the season finale of Margo’s Got Money Troubles for Decider.

During its original run, Scrubs built every single episode to a serious emotional moment. Sometimes it involved the lives of the doctors and nurses (and Janitor) who worked at the show’s Sacred Heart hospital. Sometimes it involved the lives — and deaths — of their patients. Sometimes it was both. 

Either way it’s the sort of thing that would normally be death for the show itself. This is a sitcom we’re talking about, a situation comedy. If every situation were Sam Malone falling off the wagon, or Dorothy Zbornak failing to find a diagnosis for her chronic fatigue syndrome, or the Diff’rent Strokes episode with the “funny” bike shop owner, they wouldn’t be comedies anymore, would they?

This never eluded Bill Lawrence, Scrubs’ creator. I can’t speak to the man’s oeuvre since, but back then he knew that for every spoonful of sadness or schmaltz, he needed to include some of the silliest, goofiest, stupidest jokes imaginable. There’s a lot of great character-based work on Scrubs, don’t get me wrong, but if you watched the show I bet you remember The Todd’s banana hammocks or Turk’s dance routine to Bel Biv Devoe’s “Poison” as much as you remember J.D.’s long-running rivalry with his older brother or whatever. 

The point is that Scrubs worked hard for its laughs. Jokes, gags, pratfalls, wordplay, cutaway surrealism, workplace humor, slapstick, guys in banana hammocks, you name it — that show tried everything to get you to laugh. And it worked! It isn’t for everyone of course, but it’s one of this century’s few dramedies, as you might broadly define the subgenre, to understand that its drama portion requires comedy ballast. 

To put it another way, O.G. Scrubs understood something virtually no dramedy or comedy that gets serious or whatever has understood since: If you’re going to bastardize the sitcom format to tug at the heartstrings enough to make every episode a Very Special Episode, you’d better make me fucking laugh by any means necessary first.

Margo’s Got Money Troubles has never understood this. Sure, it’s an affable show, full of likeable characters doing vaguely amusing things, like professional wrestling, or OnlyFans modeling, or getting married in an Elvis chapel. It’s stacked to the ceiling with actors I like a lot: Elle Fanning, Michelle Pfeiffer, Nick Offerman, Greg Kinnear, Nicole Kidman. (I’ve never been super high on Marcia Gay Harden and her work here is not turning me around, but your mileage may vary favorably.) It’s about important and interesting topics: sex work, single motherhood, the death of the middle class, professional wrestling. (Sorry, I really like professional wrestling.)

But is it funny enough to sustain an episode like this one, in which Margo is put through the stations of the cross by her awful babydaddy, his ghastly mother, her hugely irresponsible and selfish parents, and the iron fist of Child Protective Services. Not on your life, buster.

I reviewed this week’s Margo’s Got Money Troubles for Decider, and after becoming spoiled by the quality of Widow’s Bay I wound up writing a real stemwinder.

For most of this episode, however, Margo stays out of its own way. The result is a charming little confection of an episode that’s sweet, colorful, sexy — Elle Fanning looks incredible — and at times laugh-out-loud funny. (Jinx reassuring Margo that “People file restraining orders every day!” got me good.) There’s even a real surprise in the form of Kenny’s A+ reaction to Margo’s big revelation. I’m bummed that the show appears headed in the direction of a custody drama, the outcome of which seems as predicable as the twist itself.

I reviewed this week’s Margo’s Got Money Troubles for Decider.

If you don’t like conflict on Margo’s Got Money Troubles, just wait fifteen minutes. In this week’s episode, the family Millet takes a trip to Las Vegas for Shyanne and Kenny’s Elvis-themed nuptials. Once again, one of Margo’s parents finds out her big sex-worker secret. Once again, ugly things are said. Once again, they’re forgiven (if not forgotten) a couple scenes later. For a show that’s trying mighty hard for dramatic heft, this sitcom structure keeps wrapping things up in once neat little bow after another.

I reviewed this week’s Margo’s Got Money Troubles for Decider.

For me, the main attraction here is Nick Offerman and Nicole Kidman wrestling, and not just for the obvious reasons, although for those too. This isn’t a perfect representation of how this stuff works — any convention that doesn’t want to be sued into oblivion is not going to let a guy get in the ring and wrestle an impromptu match without being medically cleared, and also you can’t send old wrestling equipment via media mail — but it’s a respectful one. It honors the idea that while this art for may be silly, as silly as taking pictures of your boobs with the word BOOBS written on them for example, it is still an art form, with artists who care about their craft and viewers who derive great happiness from watching their incredible bodies at work. If that doesn’t also describe erotica and pornography, I don’t know what does. 

I reviewed this week’s Margo’s Got Money Troubles, an improvement, for Decider.

“If you are into a certain Type of Guy, Nick Offerman has never been hotter.” When I saw critic Angie Han post these words, I had not yet watched this third and final episode in Margo’s Got Money Trouble’s three-part premiere. I had not yet seen the vision. But it simply cannot be denied: Nick Offerman looks amazing in this show. Jinx, his grizzled ex-wrestler character, brings forth his innate combination of traditional masculinity and avuncular vulnerability like nothing I’ve ever seen him do, and he gets off some incredible aged biker fits in the process. I’ll put it this way: Nick Offerman has scenes with Michelle Pfeiffer and Elle Fanning where you can’t take your eyes off him.

I reviewed episode three of Margo’s Got Money Troubles for Decider.

Fans of professional wrestling and prosthetic breasts, your ship has come in. This episode of Margo’s Got Money Troubles, the second installment in the show’s three-part premiere, officially introduces Nick Offerman as James “Jinx” Millet, a rehabbed and retired wrestler whose character comes from the “Macho Man” Randy Savage school of aesthetics. It also introduces actor Elle Fanning’s The Substance–style fake breasts, which are subjected to the trials of breastfeeding in all their prefab glory, and as such get a lot of airtime. That’s as it should be: Breastfeeding, like every other aspect of single motherhood, is a full-time job.

I reviewed episode two of Margo’s Got Money Troubles for Decider.

“The beginning of a story, when you start to read it, is like a first date. You hope that from the opening lines, the magic will happen, and that you will sink into the narrative like a hot bath, giving yourself over entirely. That’s what you want: for the author to come right up to you in the dark of your twisted mind and kiss you on the throat.”

Putting narration like this in the opening minutes of your brand new show is either very brave or very foolish. Using the voice of title character Margo Millet — English major, aspiring writer, and (as of the end of this premiere) single mother — writer-creator David E. Kelley is laying out the criteria by which the audience can evaluate the opening of his own show. By the time the closing credits roll, you can think back to Margo’s words and judge the quality of what you’ve watched.

Did it feel like a great first date? Did the magic happen? Did you sink into a hot narrative bath, like Margo herself sinks into an actual bath later on? Did Margo’s Got Money Troubles come up to you in the dark of your twisted mind and kiss you on the throat?

Well, no. 

I’m covering Margo’s Got Money Troubles for Decider, starting with my review of the uneven series premiere, one of three episodes that were released last week. Expect my other reviews up shortly after a back-end backlog!