Chuck Lorre returns to old tricks in Disjointed
The show: Disjointed, Season 1, Episode 10 The moment: The threat
Ruth (Kathy Bates), a lifelong pot advocate, now runs a legal dispensary with her son Travis (Aaron Moten). But DEA agent Schwartz (Richard Kind) is threatening to arrest Travis, who is Black, for dispensing to minors.
“Travis is looking at five to 10,” Schwartz says.
“You miserable pr---,” Ruth snarls. “How do you live with yourself? Knowing that you’re part of this corrupt, stupid, pathetic, outdated clusterf---, the war on drugs. Who are you helping?”
He doesn’t respond. “And you threaten my son?” she goes on. “You got a quota on young Black men you gotta send to prison?”
“If you’re finished with your speech, please keep in mind that I could have Travis in jail in 45 min- utes,” Schwartz counters.
Here’s how you know this series was created by Chuck Lorre, the machine behind Two and a Half Men, Momand The Big Bang Theory: for nine episodes, he and his writers throw every easy weed gag at the screen — smokers get hungry! Horny! They can’t remember stuff! They laugh at everything! The punchlines are lewd, toilet-related or both! Then, at the buzzer, Lorre hits us with Meaningful Social Commentary. He follows this formula so rigorously, if it were THC we’d be stoned just reading this.
Props to Bates, she’s here to have fun, even if that means enduring embarrassing clichés (like her hippie roach clip hair feather). But keep an eye on Betsy Sodaro and Chris Redd, playing perma-stoners Dabby and Dank. The show sparks up when they arrive and that’s not blowing smoke. Disjointed streams on Netflix. Johanna Schneller is a media connoisseur who zeroes in on pop-culture moments. She usually appears Monday through Thursday.