Is it possible to have two lives? Con man Bob/Robert Allen certainly tries to have his cake and eat it too, Texas-style. In Midland (the original title of the show) he works a short con on locals and lives a quiet existence of lawn-mowing and blue collar suburbia with girlfriend Lindsay (Eloise Mumford). In Houston he’s working the long con on oil magnate Clint Thatcher (a superb Jon Voight) by marrying his daughter Cat(Friday Night Lights' Adrianne Palicki) and jumping over Thatcher’s two sons for a position in the company. It’s an incredibly delicate dance, with carefully bundled cell phones and wallets to tell him where he’s at or where he’s going and always having a story for his whereabouts and motives.
It’s also delicate balance for creator Kyle Killen (who’s only previous work was writing the Jodie Foster-directed, Mel Gibson-starring PR nightmare, The Beaver) to keep the seemingly selfish and entitled Allen from being too avarice in his desire to juggle these two women’s emotions and loyalty. What pulls it together is an absolute star-making turn by the incredibly charismatic and oft-shirtless newcomer James Wolk. The opening of the pilot is a quick-moving montage of Allen as he shuffles from Midland to Houston, Lindsay to Cat. There is almost an Up in the Air feel to the rootlessness of this existence and Wolk even evokes a bit of Clooney-esque ease in his charm and undeniably likeable smile.
As Allen’s father John, David Keith is one bad dad. A life lived on cons and robberies; it’s all he’s ever taught his son. He menacingly emphasizes that the con is the only thing that’s real and he the only person who really knows him. But really it’s the other way around; John is a man in the shadows, always ready to run and with no roots to ground him. It’s Allen that is his reality and without him he has nothing. This continues to a scene in a convenience store where Allen witnesses a loser dad taking advantage of his young son’s new counter job. I’m a sucker for broken father/son relationships and this one is a doozy.
In Houston, the Thatcher brothers are of two minds; Trammell (Mark Deklin) is suspicious from the get-go while younger brother Drew (Bryce Johnson) is on board with Allen, even as Trammell reminds his brother of the dangers of trust as he invokes their deceased “Uncle Roy,” something that will pay off later down the road. When an old idea of Drew’s is given top status by Allen (with an ulterior motive, of course), it’s a subtly poignant scene as Drew laments he’s often taken off a task at the crucial moment of implementation. Allen provides Drew with an almost fatherly affection here, and a sign of approval.
When suspicions arise in Midland over one of his land cons, John shows up urging Allen to get out of town. This is the crucial moment in Allen’s existence. He wants the legitimacy of the corporate job, to stop the cons and live a comfortably wealthy lifestyle. But he also still wants the charm and warmth and backyard barbeques of his other life. Allen’s hand is being forced to choose between his two lives at this point but like many a lifelong con man, he can’t choose. By the end, we see Allen in Vegas about to marry Lindsay, digging himself in deeper in an effort to create those roots and embedding himself into the con(s) deeper as well. Yet he still remains an ultimate fantasy anti-hero. You admire and despise him, love him and hate him. But most of all, you want to see what he does next.
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