Palm Royale - apple tv

Ricky Martin, living his life getting younger looking

Is this Ryan Murphy's The White Lotus 😄

Started watching this around about when it aired. The cast looks great and I figured the story looked interesting. It is, to a point. Starts off well enough, Kirsten Wig as Maxine who sneaks her way into a country club in Florida frequented by America’s high society. She’s been reading about this place and these people since she was a kid and grew up in poor circumstances, winning beauty pageants until she meets her husband, a son of one of these wealthy types who has run away from it all to be a pilot. That’s the premise.

I found the show ok up to a point. I’m up to episode 8 of a 10 ep run. The show so far has been about Maxine ingratiating herself into the wealthy group, finding out how it works and kind of staying grounded through her friendship with another one of the wealthy ladies kids, played by Laura Dern, who has decided to forego the money and live in the real world. Her father in the show is played by Bruce Dern, her real life dad and they were the best thing about the show IMHO.

Episode 8 turned me off. It’s not normal for a side to jump the shark in its first season but this kind of manages it. Not literally but a beached whale is a major part of the episode. The whale’s unteaching was the jump the shark moment for me. By now Maxine’s spunky can do attitude is getting unlikely, the country club people are idiots and someone as smart as Maxine should see through this straight away. She doesn’t seem to. Her husband has quit his job and returned home to become an annoying douchebag. Ricky Martin plays a pool boy in the estate who starts out looking like a good foil for the machinations of Maxine but now has been reduced to a lost gay guy. Laura Dern’s character mingeruted the estate and is off screen freaking out behind a closed door. I could go on. I just haven’t seen a show with some decent promise fall completely apart like this before. Not on the likes of Apple at least. I might see it out but I’m done with it after that.