“Marriage is a lot like a marathon. Sometimes, you puke.”
For the newly divorced Paula (Tatiana Maslany), single life isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Living in the suburbs of New York, she’s making a life for herself in a new apartment, sharing custody of her third-grade daughter, Hazel (Nola Wallace), with ex-husband Karl (Jake Johnson), while balancing a career as a fact checker. She spends most nights decorating her apartment while conducting online therapy sessions (and a whole lot more) with a cam boy named Trevor (Brandon Flynn).
Trevor is a gorgeous object of Paula’s desire. Despite the loneliness she projects to the rest of the world, Paula feels at home with a person she tells all of her secrets to while he charges by the hour. One fateful evening during a particularly raunchy conversation on camera, Paula witnesses Trevor getting kidnapped by a masked assailant, throwing her world upside down as she is instructed to wire $50,000 for Trevor’s return. After she phones the police and swallows her pride, Paula is told by Detective Gonzalez (Dolly de Leon) that Trevor is scamming her and that she should ignore the incident altogether.
Instructions that Paula simply cannot follow.
“Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed” offers a multitude of premises within a 10-episode series that weave together seamlessly to a loud techno beat. Paula is determined to discover the truth about Trevor’s predicament, and after the kidnapper incessantly calls Paula’s cell, her work phone and even Karl, the soccer mom has no choice but to track Trevor down herself. What she finds is a crime so heinous that it threatens her livelihood, a custody battle over her daughter, and exposes secrets from the past that Paula would prefer remain hidden.
The series initially presents itself as a dark comedy, but it quickly turns into a cat-and-mouse game with enough twists and turns to make the casual viewer dizzy — but hardly ever bored. By the second episode, “The White Lotus” actor Murray Bartlett emerges as a person of interest in Paula’s web of chaos, a role that puts the performer in a dangerous light. Was Trevor a victim or a charismatic blackmailer, and what shady business did he get himself and Paula into?
Maslany depicts Paula as the disheveled mother she desperately tries not to be, providing enough plausibility for a person so ingrained in her daughter’s life and athletic aspirations ever to get involved in such a messy situation. This is a series with a premise that hinges on constant mistakes and mistaken identities, and Maslany is game for the action, comedy and dark themes that go along with it.
But Jake Johnson is terribly underutilized with a talent that slinks down into just the annoying caricature of an ex-husband who wants to move his daughter and new wife to Idaho without giving Paula much of a choice.
It would have been really nice to see Johnson in a role with more depth here, as his character is simply a roadblock for Paula’s resolution. Throughout the series, though, Paula is aided by two nosy coworkers (Kiarra Hamagami Goldberg and Charlie Hall) who not only root for her to get promoted and stay at the company, but they also tie themselves to her private investigation for journalistic integrity. A Scooby gang of sorts, the trio make up a hilarious and thought-provoking squad that rivals de Leon’s sardonic comedy chops and Bartlett’s diabolical scheming.
Created by David J. Rosen (“Sugar”), “Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed” lives up to its title as a series that keeps the viewer guessing right until the very end. Often hilarious, mostly grim and ever so pornographically charged, the series takes what could have been a one-episode “Law & Order: SVU” plotline and stretches it into a commentary on loneliness and past mishaps. Rather than relying on a clean-cut ending, there’s a cliffhanger awaiting the viewer that begs for a second season to wrap up loose ends.
I, for one, would love to see that happen. But with a little more Jake Johnson, please!
“Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed” premieres Wednesday on Apple TV.
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