Apple TV’s Loot has me on the edge of my seat and peering through my fingers, but not in the way you’d expect.
The show, which premiered this summer, centers around Molly Wells played by SNL’s Maya Rudolph, the jilted ex-wife of a mega-wealthy tech guy who inherits billions in an acrimonious divorce. As she struggles to start afresh, Wells becomes enthralled in the philanthropic world, offering her a chance to not only build a name for herself outside her husband’s shadow but grow in her attempts to do good. This template was, of course, seemingly inspired by cultural figures like Melinda Gates and Mackenzie Scott who have a reputation for using the extreme wealth from their former spouses to better society.
I think there’s a universe in which a show like Loot could be a tonal hybrid of Succession and The Good Wife, offering a seething, cynical critique of wealth and privilege in overdramatic fashion. But, as Rudolph’s casting suggests, the show is entirely the opposite. The vibrant colors of the set, perfectly styled wardrobe, and borderline trite morals that accompany almost every episode, leave the show with a tone as cushy as its protagonist's mega mansion.
The cast is rounded out by strong comedic performances in archetypal roles familiar to all sitcom devotees but updated for 2022 with stronger jokes, slightly more fleshed out backstories and more diverse casting. Joel Kim Booster plays Nicholas, Molly’s flamboyant, emotionally distant assistant with acting aspirations; Michaela Jaé Rodriguez is the tight laced workaholic head of Molly’s foundation, Sofia Salinas, with whom Molly forms a contentious but ultimately powerful friendship. Molly’s lovable goof cousin, Howard, and her bumbling, slow-burn love interest, Arthur, are portrayed by Ron Funches and Nat Faxon, respectively.
Perhaps the most important difference in Loot and Succession’s DNA is the promise of personal growth and redemption. Molly is malleable, moved to critically reflect on her actions by everything from blowback to her out of touch speech at the opening of a battered women’s shelter to being slighted by her rich friends at an exclusive spa. When a rollercoaster in a theme park Molly owns breaks down, trapping people on the ride, it inspires her to do an inventory of every company she owns. By contrast, in Succession, when heir to the Roy media empire, Roman watches a rocket launch he funded explode, he simply puts his phone in his breast pocket, washes his hands, and returns to his sister’s lavish wedding as if nothing happened.
Loot’s upbeat tone has earned criticism. Some argue the mild-mannered comedy doesn’t give Rudolph enough room to flex her comedy chops. Personally, I was very ready to write a basic critique of the show through the lens of the Nonprofit Industrial Complex, arguing that foundations run by the wealthy were designed to maintain the status quo, supporting billionaire’s visions for the future, rather than the communities actually affected by issues like climate change, poverty, systemic oppression, and all that overlap between them. However, Loot beat me to it.
Loot’s season one finale ends with Molly making a major declaration. She publicly announces that she plans to give every last penny of her fortune away. Molly’s pet project with her new, billionaire boyfriend had just suffered a disastrous debut at an exclusive conference in Corsica, leaving her to question her entire experience in philanthropy and why she is seemingly so bad at it. But on stage at the conference, when Molly drops her bombshell announcement, she proclaims “billionaires shouldn’t exist” to rapturous applause. The scene was a game changer, not just within the world of the show, but also in the tone of its social commentary. It brings an optimistic attitude into a topic that is so culturally rife with cynicism, it feels destined for a head-on collision.
The show claims that true social change does not come from billionaires, and yet a billionaire is our central protagonist. Conveniently, people-in-need are seldom the focus of any episodes. At the women’s shelter opening, we only see the women the shelter is supposed to be servicing in cutaway shots, where they glare disapprovingly at Molly as she lavishes them with gift bags filled with high brow beauty products. Even the episode about the roller coaster ends with Molly selling her share in the theme park and the ride becoming unstuck. Happily ever after, right? But, technically, selling the park is only a solution for Molly, not the park goers.
Perhaps the show’s creators, Matt Hubbard and Alan Yang, are again one step ahead of me. Maybe, they’re also aware that there is no world in which a billionaire redistributing wealth wouldn’t be met with some right-wing outcry of “socialism” or “woke, liberal mob.” They could easily be setting the show up for more complex conversations about what to do with such insane wealth and what giving it all up means in a capitalist society. That being said, I remain skeptical.
Not since The Good Place has a comedy attempted to tackle mammoth, existential questions in such a cheery, tongue-in-cheek tone. But as The Good Place approached questions about the afterlife and moral judgment with religious neutrality, its final thesis was always destined to be nothing more than a philosophical musing. A suggestion about how we should try to consider our actions and the actions of others. Even then its wholesome conclusion that infinite heaven is unfulfilling and our spirit lives on in the good we do for others, faced criticism.
Because the problems with capitalism alluded to in Loot are not metaphysical, but a lived, often strife-filled reality for people across the globe, it’s hard to see its inevitable conclusion as anything other than prescriptive. This feels like a losing battle because, as I’ve learned writing about capitalism and its shortcomings, every facet of modern life is bound up in this economic system. Pulling too hard on a single thread unravels the entire fabric of capitalist life, exposing its rot for all to see. Someone could write a 900 page book on escaping capitalism (they probably have) and still it would be insufficient.
Does Loot believe it can dive directly into the political undertow of its subject without losing its chipper tone? Will season two or potentially season three and four attempt to maintain season one’s generalized gaze or will the show’s finale be unrecognizable from its origins? I have so many questions and the 30-minute show, I fear, has so little time.