‘Company You Keep’ can’t decide if it’s heist show or nighttime soap
A handsome con man works big scores with his family in “The Company You Keep.” After selling some property they don’t even own, they think they’ve hit the jackpot — $10 million free and clear. Turns out, they just got scammed themselves by someone else, who takes the money and runs. Now they’re back at square one.
Actually, it’s worse than that. They got made, and now they’re on the hook to return all that money, bit by bit, to the Irish criminal syndicate they targeted with this phony deal — otherwise it’s lights out. A decent enough heist-ofthe-week premise, if only the ABC drama were going for that.
Starring Milo Ventimiglia in his follow-up to “This Is Us,” the show is a series of winking capers. But also family drama (involving multiple families). And also a nighttime soap juiced with romantic intrigue. It’s based on a Korean show called “My Fellow Citizens!” which I have not seen. Wikipedia describes the premise thusly: “A con man, who gets involved with unexpected incidents, marries a police officer and somehow ends up running to become a member of the National Assembly.”
“The Company You Keep” has made some key changes. The police detective love interest is now an agent working for an unnamed shadowy government agency, played by Catherine Haena Kim. Another tweak: It’s her brother who’s running for office, and as storylines go, this is underwhelming. Nor does it actually develop her character further. More pressingly, the show can’t seem to land on an overall tone or sensibility.
Ventimiglia is likable; that’s not the issue. But as written, the character is too bland and underdeveloped to really carry a show. Same goes for his romantic counterpart in Kim.
It’s not that a show can’t do multiple things at once. But with “The Company You Keep,” the ratios are off. ABC sent out just two screeners, which isn’t much to go by. The pilot gets bogged down establishing the world of the series and probably isn’t a good example of things to come. The second episode opens with a musical choice — “Money (That’s What I Want)” — that is extremely on-the-nose, but it’s a kicky number that suggests: Oh, the show is this.
A diamond necklace is being auctioned off and the crew is there to — wait, the episode starts mid-heist, skipping all the planning and problem-solving to go straight to the main event. Too bad the scheme is confused and disjointed and broken up by other storylines.
But hey, Ventimiglia looks good in a suit. “Get to stealing,” he’s instructed by the threatening femme fatale who is now his nemesis. There’s a zippiness to that line that’s undercut every time the show changes gears to become a relationship drama complicated by demanding families. William Fichtner and Polly Draper play Ventimiglia’s blue-collar parents who own a bar in Baltimore, and we’re meant to believe they can bluff through a con with the best of them. But so far, at least, the episodes feel so scattered that anyone’s flair for chicanery is almost an afterthought when it should be one of the show’s big selling points.
How to watch: