Long Beach vibe is key to ‘Lodge’
The AMC series, ‘the least aspirational show on TV,’ employs a laid-back approach.
On a recent spring afternoon, an endless blue sky over a deserted beach seemed to offer a snapshot of Southern California’s idyllic promise. But look past the waving palm trees and the picture changed.
There, on the horizon, a flotilla of oil tankers dragged a gloomy thumbprint across an otherwise post-card-worthy view, and high winds made life difficult for a TV crew on a bluff above the shore.
On a concrete bench overlooking the coast, a rumpled man in ill-fitting khakis (played by James Urbaniak) counseled a darkhaired young woman (Sonya Cassidy) fighting to keep hair and grit out of her eyes as cameras close around them. “The abyss isn’t death,” he told her. “It’s just a fable that God made up to keep us away from the truth.” With that, he walked away, and in the silence that followed it was hard to tell whether this supposed psychic’s words should be taken as profound or nonsensical.
Welcome to Long Beach, and to the weird, rewarding contradictions of AMC’s “Lodge 49,” a series that returns for its second season Monday but remains tough to describe.
“I really don’t know, other than it is about the dichotomy of the life we all live,” said Wyatt Russell, who plays protagonist Sean “Dud” Dudley, ex-surfer and formerly aimless “knight” of the Ancient and Benevolent Order of the Lynx. On the sofa between us, Snowball, Russell’s fluffy mini-husky, vied for our attention. “Every day you’re going to experience greatness, you’re going to experience joy and you’re going to experience pain in some way, shape or form.”
With his long hair, blond beard and slacker’s bearing, Dud drew comparisons to The Dude, of “Big Lebowski” fame, upon the show’s debut. But that doesn’t do justice to the more earthy eccentricities of “Lodge 49.”
“My best pitch is, it’s a great show if you don’t own a television,” Russell added with a grin. “It’ll be your favorite show on TV if you don’t own a TV.”
Where: AMC When: 10:10 p.m. Monday Rating: TV-14-DL (may be unsuitable for children under the age of 14 with advisories for suggestive dialogue and coarse language)