The Riches
I’ve been a fan of Eddie Izzard for years, he’s one of the smartest and well-informed comedians working today. Unfortunately, his film work has been less than satisfactory, what with My Super Ex Girlfriend and even Mystery Men, where he played the villain.
Nonetheless, I was excited to hear that he was starring in a new show on FX called The Riches. In it, he’s the husband in a family of gypsies who wander the country as conmen. In the opening scene, Izzard’s family crashes a high school reunion, and he pretends to be one of the classmates, bullshitting them in a Wedding-Crashers style.
But Izzard’s character has a midlife crisis of sorts, not sure if he wants to live this life forever. In an unfortunate series of events, he partially–and accidentally– causes the death of a rich married couple, and decides then and there to move into their new mansion and pretend to be them.
It’s a richly-textured show, often funny but also incredibly dark. The scene where Izzard comes upon the couple whose lives he takes over, the wife is dead and the husband is still alive with a branch protruding from his chest.
For a pilot episode, this looks like it could warm up to be an incredible series. It comes on at 10pm EST on Mondays on FX, give it a try.
