The Riches

STUDIO: FX
PREMIERE: March 18, 2008
STARRING: Eddie Izzard, Minnie Driver, Margo Martindale, Aidan Mitchell, Gregg Henry, Noel Fisher, Shannon Woodward, and Todd Stashwick
CREATED BY: Dmitri Lipkin

The second season of The Riches picks up right where the first one left off with the Malloys in some serious trouble...again. The Riches is a show that always seems on the verge of breaking through into the next Six Feet Under, but is constantly held back by writers who can't seem to focus or do so on the wrong elements. Take for example the first quartet of episodes of the strike-shortened second season. Courtesy of great performances by Eddie Izzard and Minnie Driver, The Riches stays consistently interesting, but never quite goes beyond that. I keep waiting for The Riches to become must-see TV, but with a writing staff that's already repeating itself in the first part of the second season, I'm starting to think that it will never live up to its copious potential. The pattern of the writing has reached a point of nearly self-parody. Every episode, the Malloys/Riches almost get caught, they pull a con or get very lucky and live to see another day, there's a plot cliffhanger, and the credits run. Everyone involved in front of the camera deserves better.

In case you're unfamiliar, The Riches tells the story of Wayne and Dahlia Malloy, who are the parents of three children and all of them are travelers or gypsies. One awful day, after stealing money from their creepy traveler clan, the Malloys are in a horrible car accident with a couple named Cherien and Doug Rich. The wealthy couple are moving to a new house and the Malloys decide to take over their lives with Wayne even pretending to be an attorney - something that's surprisingly easy with a little help from your loyal assistant. Dale (the scene-stealing Todd Stashwick) is the evil head traveler who comes after them and at the end of season one, Dale and Doug Rich's best friend Pete were both about to blow the lid off the Malloy's incredible con. The season ended with a cliffhanger that's picked up immediately by the first two episodes of the new season.

The Riches is at its best when the writers allow the premise and the ensemble to get dark and edgy. The bloody conclusion of the Dale/Pete/Wayne dilemma is the most interesting element of the first part of the second season and the show's most interesting element of its entire run has been the dark side of Dahlia - how jail treated her (she was just released at the beginning of the first episode) and how she's tried to kick her demons. The idea that the Malloys aren't the only con men in suburbia seems like such a rich one for parody and social commentary - what other secrets hide behind the picket fences - but the writers never seem to take it where it needs to go. We've barely met any of the neighbors and the one who's become the biggest part of the show, Nina, played by the great Margo Martindale, has been reduced to a plot device by the first arc of season two. In fact, the biggest flaw of The Riches is that everyone but the two lead characters are too lightly written. The three children - Noel Fisher, Shannon Woodward, and Aidan Mitchell - are all played very well, but regularly given nothing to do. The most interesting arc of the new season involves Cael, the oldest son, and it would be nice to see the show move away from Wayne and Dahlia a bit more often.

You won't find many shows on TV with two stronger central performances, but you also won't find many shows more unfocused in just four episodes than The Riches is in its first month of new episodes. An inconsistent tone and a poorly fleshed-out supporting cast can be the downfall of any show. And yet, The Riches is compulsively watchable just for the clever concept and the Emmy-worthy leads. If only it could someday be more than that.