A warm-hearted hit
In ‘Jury Duty,’ a fake trial weighs the humanity of an everyman
What TV shows are dominating the conversation, capturing the zeitgeist, have something interesting to say or are hidden gems waiting to be uncovered? We take a look ahead of your weekend watch. “Jury Duty” is unlikely to restore your faith in the justice system; it might give your faith in humanity a boost, though.
The series — part “Truman Show,” part cringe comedy à la “The Office” — became a much talked about hit south of the border when it debuted in April on Amazon Freevee. It finally premiered in Canada last week on Amazon’s Prime Video.
Its star is ordinary guy Ronald Gladden, a 30-year-old solar panel contractor who was told he was taking part in a documentary about the jury system. In fact, he was part of a fake civil court case in which everyone else, right down to the bailiff (Rashida Olayiwola), was an actor.
The fun of the show is in seeing how Ronald reacts to the shenanigans of his fellow jurors, “Office”-like character types who evoke mostly low-level absurdity: enough to produce comedic moments; not enough to tip off Ronald to the scam.
Easygoing and kind to a fault, Ronald takes whatever weirdness is happening around him in stride.
When one juror tells Ronald he’s going to the bathroom before court starts to “rub one out,” i.e. to masturbate, an unperturbed Ronald responds, “Yeah, do it now while you’ve got the time.”
Nowhere is his equanimity more on display than in his treatment of fellow juror Todd (David Brown), a supposed cybernetics geek and the type of guy you’d likely give a wide berth to on the subway.
Ronald diplomatically describes Todd — who, in the series’ craziest visual gag, shows up for court one day in a pair of “chair pants,” crutches and cushions harnessed to his butt — as “a very interesting individual.” He even watches the movie “A Bug’s Life” with Todd, about a misfit inventor ant, “to kind of let him know that those kind of people tend to be misunderstood in society.”
Meanwhile, as jury foreman, Ronald takes the silly court case in respectful seriousness, a sort of David and Goliath battle in which a self-absorbed rich woman with a virtue-signalling clothing company — given the appropriately twee hipster name of Cinnamon and Sparrow — sues a stoner employee accused of botching a T-shirt order and ruining the business.
It’s not “12 Angry Men,” but Ronald patiently and earnestly guides his fellow jurors to a verdict in “Jury Duty’s” penultimate episode.
Ronald, of course, is an unwitting actor in the show since his reactions dictate what happens next.
Actor James Marsden (“X-Men,” “Westworld”), who plays a comically narcissistic version of himself, says in the eighth and final episode, in which Ronald is finally let in on the deception, that reacting to Ronald’s reactions was like “flying without a net” for the actors.
So how does Ronald react when he finds out he’s been pranked? With the same goodnatured grace he displays throughout the series.
And though the trial was fake, the bonds that formed between Ronald and his fellow “jurors” were real. “Here’s the deal: we all fell in love with you,” says Susan Berger, who plays senior citizen juror Barbara. Chances are, as a viewer, you will too. We’re told Ronald is still friends with the cast, including Marsden. Not surprisingly, Ronald has become a celebrity himself, even starring in a commercial with Ryan Reynolds. And in a perfect postscript to the show, last week he got summoned for actual jury duty.