Josh Reviews Rooster Season One

Rooster is the latest series co-created by TV genius Bill Lawrence (Scrubs, Ted Lasso, Shrinking) and Matt Tarses (who was a producer on Scrubs, as well as Sports Night).  The show stars Steve Carell as Greg Russo, the author of a series of popular adventure novels about a character named Rooster.  Greg accepts a temporary position teaching at a small, New England liberal arts college as part of a deal with Walter (John C. McGinley), the college president, to save Greg’s daughter’s job.  Katie Russo (Charlie Clive) has been teaching at the college for a few years, but her marriage to fellow teacher Archie Bates (Phil Dunster) has fallen apart after Archie cheated on her with a graduate student.  Katie (somewhat unintentionally) burned down Archie’s house, which was owned by the college.  And so Greg — who some of the students call Rooster — winds up a teacher, something he never wanted to be, and he doesn’t at first fit in too smoothly with this era of liberal college students…

I enjoyed watching Rooster.  Each of these ten episodes was well made.  The cast is terrific — a great mix of veterans I already knew I loved along with some extremely talented new faces.  The show has many of the hallmarks that make me love Bill Lawrence’s TV shows so much.  It is funny and also sweet.  It is not afraid to explore the sometimes difficult emotions brought up by what the characters are going through.  It has an inherently joyful, optimistic attitude, and many (though not all) of the characters grow into better versions of themselves as the season unfolds.

It’s a shaggier show than I expected, especially at the start.  It took me a while to get a bead on some of the characters, and what the show was trying to do.  For instance, there’s a lot of comedy in the early-going about Greg’s constantly getting himself into trouble and accidentally offending his students, to the point that he keeps getting called before a board of inquiry at the school, composed of other professors.  It seemed like the show was going to be about this generational clash of cultures.  But 1) I wasn’t sure what statement the show was making, as it didn’t seem to be picking a side between Greg and his young (and easily offended) students, and 2) that didn’t wind up being nearly as much a part of the show as I expected, and that plot thread mostly went away after the first few episodes.  On a similar note, John C. McGinley is hilarious as the blunt, old-school (pun only semi-intended) president Walter, who seems several degrees more out of touch with modern young-person sensibilities than Greg is, so much so that Greg spends much of the season trying to avoid spending too much time with Walter.  But I wasn’t sure how the show wanted us to view Walter.  Were we supposed to be laughing at him or with him?  Should we be rolling our eyes at him, or sympathetic to all the silly young-person stuff he has to deal with, running a college?  The show never seemed to take a side.

At first, this seemed strange to me, and for the first half of the season, while I was enjoying watching these episodes, I wasn’t sure what type of show this was trying to be.  By the finale, the show had settled into the type of hang-out comedy/drama mixture that Bill Lawrence does so well, in which we have a group of oddballs who have somehow found one another, and who we (the audience) enjoy watching bouncing off of one another.  The plot matters less than the enjoyment of watching these weirdos interact, and eventually grow as people.  That was definitely a key aspect of both Ted Lasso and Shrinking, and while Rooster isn’t as great as either of those two all-time-classic shows, I quite enjoyed this first season and I am eager for more.

I fell in love with Steve Carell on The Daily Show, and The 40-Year Old Virgin, and The Office.  I haven’t been so interested in many of his projects in recent years, but Rooster makes strong use of Mr. Carell’s talents.  It’s fun seeing back leading a TV show!  While I found Greg’s characterization a little scattershot at first (as noted above), ultimately I like that the show allows Mr. Carell to both be the butt of the joke (the way Michael Scott always was) and also the voice of reason.  There’s a sweetness to Greg that I find endearing (such as his obsession with one of the local store’s cups of hot chocolate), and Mr. Carell plays that note extremely well.  I also enjoyed the way the back half of the season allowed us to dig into the ways that Greg, like his daughter, was also somewhat stuck after the ending of his marriage.  That gave some layers to Greg that I think were beneficial to my view of his character over-all.  I really like the glimpses the show gave us of Greg’s writing seminar, and I like the way we saw him develop a relationship with the various students.

Danielle Deadwyler blew me away in The Harder They Fall, and she was also compelling in the terrific adaptation of Station Eleven.  She’s wonderful here as Dylan Shepard, the poetry teacher who becomes Greg’s first friend at the college.  I loved Ms. Deadwyler’s dynamic with Mr. Carell — their scenes together had a lovely sparkle.  I enjoyed watching their flirtatious friendship.  Ms. Deadwyler can play intense like nobody’s business; it’s also a pleasure to see her smiling and playing comedy here.  She’s fantastic.  I appreciate that the show didn’t just make Dylan a will-they-or-won’t-they potential love interest for Greg.  The writers gave Dylan a ton of juicy storylines this season, as we saw her reluctantly pushed into the role of school administrator, and then discovering that she’s great at the role and enjoys it, and then realizing she’ll have to fight for it if she wants that position to become permanent.

John C. McGinley was always comedic gold as the abrasive Dr. Cox on Scrubs.  It’s great fun to not only see him back this year on the Scrubs revival, but also given this fantastic new character to play!  (Presumably Ms. McGinley’s major role on Rooster was why he wasn’t in every episode of the Scrubs revival.  He’s so good in Rooster that I’m OK with this!)  Walter has some of the blunt abrasiveness — and attitude of frustration with what he views as the lessers he’s surrounded by — that characterized Dr. Cox, but his warm and cuddly inside is closer to the surface than Dr. Cox’s was.  He’s clearly lonely and desperate to be friends with Greg, and he does his very best to help his student mentee Sunny to achieve everything she’s striving for.  As I noted above, I had some trouble figuring out how the show wanted us to view Walter in the early going, but Mr. McGinley was so funny every moment he was on screen that this never bothered me too much.  As with many of the characters, I liked how the show settled into a good groove with how they used Walter in the back half of this season.

Phil Dunster was phenomenal as Jamie Tart on Ted Lasso, and he’s a hoot here as the extremely self-absorbed Archie.  This academic, obsessed with Russian literature, is a far cry from the athlete Mr. Dunster played on Ted Lasso, but it’s fun to see Mr. Dunster in such a different role.  (And actually, though they seem different on the surface, Jamie and Archie share similar arrogance and self-absorbtion!)  Archie is the closest thing this show has to a villain, and Mr. Dunster makes him so fun to hate.  This is a great performance.

I wasn’t familiar with Charly Clive’s work before watching this show, but she’s a stand-out as Katie Russo.  I love how delightfully daffy Ms. Clive makes Katie, while allowing her to still seem competent as a teacher and as someone we’re desperately rooting for, even when she makes some very bad decisions.  (And Katie makes a bunch of bad decisions this season!)  Ms Clive is so funny, and at the same time, she has an endearing emotional realism as she portrays Katie’s ping-ponging emotions as she struggles to right herself after the upheaval of Archie’s actions.  She holds her own easily in her scenes with Mr. Carell and Mr. Dunster, no easy feat!

Lauren Tsai is also tremendous in her role as Sunny, the graduate student with whom Archie had an affair.  Sunny felt like a minor character at first, but by the end of the season I think she was the character I was most invested in.  I love the way the writers developed Sunny as a character, and Ms. Tsai played the role with tremendous nuance.  Her deadpan delivery was hilarious, and she could express so much emotion with a silent look.

Annie Mumolo (Bridesmaids, Confess Fletch!) was a hoot as Walter’s emotional assistant, Crisle.  (I loved the true story of her name!)  This show did a terrific job utilizing Ms. Mumolo’s tremendous comedic talents.  I loved watching her flip out as much as I loved watching her in seduction model, once Crisle set her sights on Greg.  Rory Scovel was a lot of fun as Officer Donnie Mullins, who quickly becomes Greg’s nemesis on campus.  Robby Hoffman basically steals this show out from under the feet of the headlining talents as Sunny’s roommate Mo.  Someone create a spin-off show centered around Mo!!  Maximo Salas is wonderfully lovable as Tommy, the sweet but struggling student to whom Greg becomes a mentor.  I loved all the other students on the show, especially Madison Hu as Eva.  Alan Ruck (Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Succession) plays a terrific jerk as Dean Vincent Riggs.  Connie Britton (Friday Night Lights) lights up the screen every time she appears as Greg’s ex-wife Beth, though this was another character about whom I had a hard time figuring out how the show wants me to feel.  She’s wildly inappropriate at times, and seems to be a narcissist and/or a self-absorbed sociopath, and yet she’s also played mostly for laughs.  It’s strange.  I was happy at first that the show didn’t make Greg’s ex-wife a hatable character, though then she has a turn towards villainy at the end of the season.  I’m curious to see how they play Beth’s character in season two.

I had fun watching all ten episodes of this season!  While at times I wish the show was clearer with its storytelling, and what if any statement it was making about the experience of students and faculty at liberal arts colleges these days, there’s enough that I enjoyed here that I am eager for a second season.  I’m interested in seeing where all of these characters go next.

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