Two sisters try to make a living tracking down fugitives.
SUMMARY
Sterling (Maddie Phillips) and Blair (Anjelica Bette Fellini) are fraternal twins who attend a very strict Christian Academy. Sterling is the more prominent and demure one publicly, but privately she’s the wilder of the two. She starts the series off by losing her virginity to her very chaste boyfriend Luke (Spencer House), having to work hard to talk him into it. After the sisters get distracted talking about it, they get into a car accident. The man they hit mistakes them for a car that was tailing him, and mistakes the pair of them for bounty hunters. They defend themselves ably and end up helping the actual bounty hunter, Bowser (Kadeem Hardison), to take the fugitive down. They soon start helping Bowser while trying to deal with school and their family.
END SUMMARY
About five minutes into this show, when it went from hormone-driven teenagers to a car wreck to a firearm-filled standoff, I was asking myself “Did I just miss something?” The answer is that no, I did not, the show just very quickly shifted from one to the other. That’s actually how the show works sometimes, and you get used to it pretty quickly. One cold-open is basically a character dying that you have never seen before and have no reason to care about. However, as the series goes on, you realize that it’s mostly about largely reactive subjects (being a teenager and bounty hunting), which means that having things happen and adapting to them puts the audience more in line with what the characters are going through.
The dialogue in the show, when it’s good, is really good. There are a number of fun quips and quotations in every episode. Periodically, the sisters will try to do a fast-paced semi-psychic “twinspeak” conversation which is represented as a look between the two to outsiders, and these are often perfect examples of the humor in the show. A lot of the humor comes from how frank the two can be to each other while also code-switching to “Southern Church Lady” whenever they’re interacting with their neighbors.
Some of the humor comes from the fact that the two are bounty hunters and fairly rebellious and progressive while in a very Conservative area. Despite the fact that many of the older people in the show exhibit very regressive attitudes, the youth characters mostly exhibit positive examples of Christianity, trying to be body positive and non-judgmental. However, they do get called out at times by the narrative for their narrow worldviews and they find out more and more how damaging their environment can be for themselves and their friends. There’s also a solid joke when one of the leads interacts with the Satanic Temple only to discover that they’re pro-reproductive rights, social justice, and the separation of church and State, rather than goat burning demon worshippers.
The leads are all pretty good, but it really shines in the twins. The chemistry between Fellini and Phillips really does come off as sisterly, which is genuinely impressive. They also have a solid rapport with Hardison, who plays what could have been a simple archetype into a nuanced character. It’s also great to see him when he deals with his more publicized “rival,” played by Method Man. The biggest drawback to the series is that there are some long stretches where they aren’t allowed to play to their various strengths. Still, when they’re together, it’s usually pretty great.
Overall, I thought it was a fun show. It suffers from a lot of slow periods, but when it’s good, it’s very good.
If you want to check out some more by the Joker on the Sofa, check out the 100 Greatest TV Episodes of All Time, Collection of TV Episodes, Collection of Movie Reviews, or the Joker on the Sofa Reviews.
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