19 hours ago
5
After the heavy and disturbing watch that was "Adolescence," I needed a palette cleanser. Something easy, mildly funny, with plot points I could follow without having to do a deep dive.
Kate Hudson as Isla Gordon, Brenda Song as Ali, Drew Tarver as Sandy Gordon, and Scott MacArthur as Ness Gordon in ‘Running Point.’ PHOTO FROM NETFLIX
Enter the first season of Netflix's new sports comedy, "Running Point" which is made up of 10 half-hour episodes.
After an embarrassing car accident set off by a drug habit, Cam Gordon, president of the LA Waves basketball team, turns over the reins of the enterprise to his sister, former party girl, Isla Gordon (Kate Hudson). He bypasses his brother Ness (current general manager) and his half-brother, Sandy (current chief financial officer).
She may seem like the odd choice but Isla does know basketball, she has good instincts and while she may fumble — and repeatedly run into immaculately clean glass partitions, she has it in her to be a problem solver and a leader.
It's a combination of "Succession," "Ted Lasso" and "Arrested Development" but it may not reach the heights of those shows.
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The Gordons do get on each other's nerves, and while they react to each other with lots of no-filter quips, pokes and takedowns, they do it ultimately with humor and love.
Each episode has Isla overcoming one problem or issue while the longer arc involves the question of whether she can turn her team around from one that's been losing to one that can actually make the play-offs. Apart from her brothers, Isla deals with the team (and one of their moms), their coach, a podcaster, the chairman of the board for the Waves, her fiancé, and presidents of other teams. She has to navigate business, love, family and being a 40-something woman in the male dominated industry. All this is loosely based on the life of Jeanie Buss, co-owner of the Lakers, who is also co-executive producer of the show. Brenda Song (London Tipton on several Disney Channel shows in the aughts) is Ali, Isla's Chief of Staff. Ali is smart and will not mince words. Meanwhile, Ness (played by Scott MacArthur) has a Filipina wife no one wants to mess with. Ness just keeps pronouncing her name, Bituin, as Bit-two-in instead of Bitwin. He also described balut as fertilized chicken egg, instead of duck. With all the Filipinos in Southern California, I don't know how these details slipped through the scriptwriting cracks. Some days, when the news you follow gets too much, or you get tempted to peer into the hell known as the comments section, or you're in the middle of a tough time in your personal life, you need shows like this. "Running Point" is low stakes, funny, and actually sometimes sweet.
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All episodes of "Running Point" are out on Netflix.
