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Margo’s Got Money Troubles first gives us the why. Margo’s got money troubles because Margo got pregnant. Margo got pregnant because she is so young, and she thought her English professor writing her a poem was A Good Thing (poems written by English professors are never A Good Thing). She started having sex with her English professor and their combined brain power clearly didn’t extend to contraceptive deployment. Margo stayed pregnant because there’s no story in “young woman has termination, goes on with the rest of her life pretty untraumatised, actually”. Margo had the baby. And that is where the money troubles start.
David E Kelley’s new series is an eight-part comedy-drama, adapted from the pugnacious romp of a 2024 bestselling novel by Rufi Thorpe, and directed by Dearbhla Walsh. It stars Elle Fanning (as great as she is in The Great) as the eponymous heroine and Michelle Pfeiffer as her mother, Shyanne (which, along with her role in The Madison, might signal a proper career renaissance for the actor – Kidman-style, but less boring).
Shyanne herself got pregnant young via a one-night stand with a customer at the Hooters restaurant where she was working – a professional wrestler called Jinx (Nick Offerman) who turned out to be married. He has drifted in and out of their lives ever since, but Shyanne carries a torch for him that refuses to be extinguished by his absence or the fact that she is now involved with an Episcopalian minister (Greg Kinnear), who promises her a life of security at last.
Pfeiffer gives us all Shyanne’s grief, disappointment, frustration and resignation at the news of Margo’s pregnancy and decision to keep the baby. “Will I love him? Of course. Just as I loved you from the moment you were born … But this life as you know it – this life that you never got to know – is over. I can’t rejoice in that.” It’s a powerful scene and gives Pfeiffer something worthy of her talents. But the fact that it represents the most extreme and complex moment of the series demonstrates the show’s great flaw: despite the introduction of sex work (as Margo discovers a niche market for sci-fi OnlyFans accounts), the return of Jinx after a spell in rehab and Marcia Gay Harden’s richly malevolent mother, it remains a firmly David E Kelley production.
Which means the drama stays light, bright and firmly on the side of the angels. Nothing in Kelleyland is allowed to get too serious, or be too thoroughly interrogated. Perhaps the closest he has ever come is with Big Little Lies and its dark themes of domestic abuse and female desperation – but, even then, the guardrails were still firmly in place. There was no question that true justice would be served, and the glossiness of everything detached us from ever feeling the real horror that would have attended a more realistic set-up.
Here, every punch is carefully pulled. When Jinx learns how his daughter is making her money, he is only briefly shocked, only briefly judgmental – and soon afterwards, sorry and supportive. His and Shyanne’s trajectory is never really in doubt, and the pastor is set up from the start as little more than a vehicle to show the hypocrisies of religion (he’s not as good a guy as the recovering drug addict!). And it is a former wrestler turned lawyer (played by Nicole Kidman, breaking out a grin that has been in storage since at least Big Little Lies’ debut in 2017) who represents Margo against the maternal malevolence because you should never underestimate people. Because we all contain multitudes, and – uh – sex workers and wrestlers are people too. And then there’s something about the images and stories that both jobs require their practitioners to construct.
So, it’s a comedy-drama heavier on the former than the latter, best enjoyed as a cosy commentary on the importance of family and the unimportance of how you construct it or the mistakes you make when trying along the way. It’s got charm, and it’s endearing if you’re not allergic to the schmaltz just begging to break through the surface. But, with the three main talents involved, it could have been so much more.
