Weighty new topics still seriously funny
Even if your dreams come true beyond anything you ever dared to imagine, you cannot escape your past. Where you came from is part of who you are and who you will always be.
That has been the comic premise of Starz’s “Survivor’s Remorse,” whose fourth season launches on Sunday, Aug. 20. This season, without losing a bit of the show’s exceptional humor, show runner Mike O’Malley and his writers get serious about NBA superstar Cam Calloway ( Jessie T. Usher) and his eccentric but loving family.
Executive-produced by LeBron James, “Remorse” is the story of a young kid who grew up with few opportunities in life, until his court skills get him hired for big money by a fictional Atlanta NBA team. It’s clearly a sea change for Cam, not to mention his family, including his single mom, Cassie (Tichina Arnold), sister MChuck (Erica Ash), his cousin and business manager, Reggie Vaughn (RonReaco Lee), and Reggie’s wife, Missy (Teyonah Parris).
The series has always turned on how the major characters deal with sudden wealth, and of course they never forget where they came from. But this
season, creator O’Malley and other writers explore issues such as personal religious faith, the responsibilities one has to one’s past, and the always weighty subject of cultural appropriation.
Cam and others explore their respective pasts in more than symbolic ways. In the season premiere, Cam reconnects with a significant figure from his childhood. Deeper into the season, because of the hardships he faced as a kid, he considers ways to ensure that African American kids can have some of the opportunities he never had. All of this contributes to another step in maturity for the character, one that will lead him to make a major decision in his personal life.
Cassie is reconnecting with Catholicism, determined to find the faith she left behind years before. As M-Chuck tries to discover the identity of her father, she is motivated to broaden her search to connect more deeply with the history of African Americans, only to find that part of that history has been appropriated by a well-meaning white man. Reggie and Missy are certainly enjoying the wealth and opportunity that being part of Cam’s family business provides. But at the same time, they want to declare their own independence.
On the surface, these issues could be considered belated growing pains. But they are more than that: They speak to the value and complexity of each character, further grounding Cam, Cassie, M-Chuck and Reggie as more than just joke machines — not that they ever were.
The series has always been marked by great performances, but the new season gives each of the actors even more to work with and each one of them more than rises to the challenge. In addition to the actors already mentioned, I have to single out Robert Wu as Da Chen Bao, Cassie’s billionaire boyfriend. O’Malley & Co. give him exquisite lines and he nails them beautifully every time. They’re funny, of course, but beneath the humor there are subtle messages about Asian identity and cultural prejudices. Chris Bauer, as team owner Jimmy Flaherty, also turns in brilliant work here. In fact, there’s a scene when Cam informs him he is the team’s new player representative, that Flaherty delivers, in a single take, an aria-like oration that will leave you rolling on the floor.
Beautiful as she is, Meagan Tandy is a lot more than set decoration as Cam’s wise girlfriend, Allison Pierce. If someone isn’t developing a star vehicle for her yet, they should be.
“Survivor’s Remorse” has been consistently great since its launch in 2014. But the fourth season is unquestionably the show’s best. “Remorse” continues to defy the odds — so many comedies seem to lose steam by the third season, if not earlier. Not “Remorse”: Four seasons in and O’Malley, his writers, directors and cast are keeping things fresh, new and required viewing for anyone who likes comedy with brains.