After reading all the negative reviews here, I threw my own negative review away and started over. I'm going to call this a campy murder romp instead.
I was expecting more from Exec Prod Jason Bateman after Ozark. And while this COULD've been done more darkly like Ozark, I see now that they were playing the social media fame obsession AND murder story only for laughs and gags. Does it work? Kinda. Maybe. The jokes and dialogue could be smarter. The use of dream sequences gets a little overworked.
Cuoco and Messina play two desperate and bumbling fame-seekers who do some completely implausible things in an effort to chase notoriety but only get deeper into trouble. It's kind of a send-up of the whole social media true crime phenomenon, but it's not an obvious satire. It works if you go into it with the idea that you, the viewer, are smarter than all of the characters on the screen. They're going to prove you right in every scene.
Yes, it's obviously implausible that anyone would do any of the things that happen here. Or is it? Social media has shown that not everyone is as smart as us.
I like Cuoco and Messina but not their characters. I just want them to call the cops and end the shenanigans. And the Matt character is a bit over the top, but if you look at it like a send-up, it helps.
Don't be taken by surprise when S-1 just kind of ends without resolution. That's how it goes.
