If you've seen the commercials for Something Borrowed, you basically know what you're going to get. If you were going to see it or, probably more accurately, if you were going to be dragged to see it, this review will neither sway you nor will it save you.
The Film
Something Borrowed opens at the surprise 30th birthday party of Rachel White (Ginnifer Goodwin, looking more like early season Cameron from House than ever). It's the type of surprise party that probably costs thousands of dollars and boasts more guests than a wedding. In a quick slideshow montage that serves as easy exposition, we're introduced to the main players. There's Darcy (Kate Hudson), Rachel's lifelong best friend, a showboat, and a lush. We also meet Jim Halpert (John Krasinski), who writes novels under the pseudonym Ethan. In the “Ducky” role as Rachel's whipped male friend, he was one of Rachel and Darcy's elementary school pals. And then there's Dex (Colin Egglesfeld), Rachel's former classmate from law school and Darcy's fiancé (they plan to marry in 61 days; observant viewers try to keep track of the time). Although these four make up the bulk of the film, two other significant supporting characters round out the cast. Claire (Ashley Williams) is “obsessed” with Ethan and looked down upon by everyone aside from Darcy for being “crazy,” which seems to be synonymous for forward. Marcus (Steve Howey) is Dex's friend. He looks like the offspring of Matthew Lillard and Jason Segel, wants to nail Rachel, and is the stereotypical slacker/skateboarder/idiot.
After Dex escorts the severely trashed Darcy out of the party, he returns at the end of the affair to find his fiancé’s $2,000 handbag and runs into Rachel. On a cab ride home, she admits having a crush on him. He admits he has a crush on her. And they do it. I don't really think I'm spoiling anything as all of this occurs before the title Something Borrowed appears on screen.
At this point the movie can go several routes. It could be a screwball sex comedy of errors considering the variety of love triangles going on; there's even a private house in the Hamptons where the six of them regularly spend weekends. Or it could highlight the seediness of a scandalous affair that betrays one's best friend and the other's future wife. It could focus on Rachel torn between her best friend and her role as her best friend's fiancé’s mistress. But the film opts for none of the above, choosing instead a surprisingly bland tone that has too many slapsticky moments to be a drama and not nearly enough laughs or attempts at laughs to be a comedy. However, to best describe why this movie doesn't work, let's talk about characters.
Characters
Rachel is a workaholic who is depressed and miserable with her life and desperately wants a man. She also briefly rues taking the career route and not having children. It's a throwaway line at the beginning of the film, but I feel it's worth mentioning. She's the special type of movie workaholic who never actually seems to do any work, goes out to bars often on weeknights, can seemingly get away to the Hamptons every weekend, and can even take two intercontinental flights in two days. She also owns the special type of gigantic New York City loft/duplex complete with its own inner staircase that few low-level, fourth year junior associates can afford without roommates or rich relatives. After Rachel sleeps with Dex, it's practically impossible for her to concentrate on anything or anyone else. It also never seems to truly bother her that she's violated Darcy's trust. Her only struggle seems to involve wanting to get Dex to commit to her and being too much of a coward to force Dex to commit.
Darcy, as mentioned above, is Rachel's best friend since they were children. Rachel appears to hate Darcy but, as oblivious as she is, Darcy actually does seem to treasure Rachel's friendship. She also clearly has an alcohol problem, but it's neither played for laughs nor is it treated seriously. Additionally, Darcy is off-kilter and delusional enough to consider the group's condemnation of Claire for being “crazy” somewhat hypocritical. However, despite her selfishness, she's the only one of the main characters strong enough to say what she wants and take it.
Ethan, on the other hand, is the only main character who seems to have a passion other than pure self-interest. Although he has his own motives, for the most part he handles them better and more maturely than the rest of the characters. Although his condemnations of certain characters and their actions might be tainted by his own personal desires, it does not make his assessments any less accurate. Nevertheless, he is also a coward and refuses to discuss his problems with Claire, opting to constantly run away from her instead. Like Rachel, he seems to hate Darcy but will not/cannot stand up to her.
Finally, Dex, a moneyed WASP, plays the important role of staring dumbly, looking pretty, and smiling. He pulls this off to a T. Like Rachel and Ethan, he's also a coward and miserable with his life. He refuses to take a stance, tries to balance both girls at once, and twice invites Rachel to a beach house where she has to watch him and Darcy fool around and listen to the two have obnoxiously loud sex. But he's pretty, so I guess he's a catch.
A side note regarding Dex: At one point in the film, he implies that his mother had severe bouts with depression when he was a child. Whether this affects his attraction to the clearly miserable, practically dead inside Rachel is unexplored.
Friendship
Although Rachel is supposed to be close friends with all three of the characters, Ethan is the only one with whom she seems to have an actual relationship. She has lunch with him (from a place with food that can apparently last off ice for over 8 hours) and talks to him about her problems. Despite his unrequited feelings for her, he indulges her whines and neediness and does not burden her with issues.
But I think that the film's strongest friendship is meant to be the one between Rachel and Darcy. This doesn't work, not even with an out-of-place dance sequence harkening back to a middle school talent show. We never get a sense of why these two people like each other with the exception of Rachel naturally being a submissive doormat. Plenty of people have friends from their younger years whom they have grown out of but cannot escape, particularly with someone such as Darcy. The existence of their relationship is not particularly unrealistic, nor is Rachel's passive aggressiveness towards her pal, but it significantly affects the story when Rachel seems to utterly lack guilt over the affair. Also, although Darcy is something of a self-absorbed bitch, she's not a particularly heinous one. She does not seem to abuse Dex and any abuse she levies on Rachel comes at least partially from Rachel's inability to speak her mind. In some ways, this turns Rachel (and Dex for that matter) into something of the villain, although the film does not treat them that way.
Rachel and Dex's relationship is even more confusing. We see through a series of utterly useless flashbacks that they attended law school together and flirted while studying for a torts exam. He meets Darcy through Rachel, Darcy and Dex accidentally date for six years, and then they get engaged. Yet we never receive any indication that Rachael and Dex have a connection outside of being in Darcy's inner circle. At one point Rachel says that a life without Dex would be unimaginable, which is surprising since they have the chemistry of two people who are just friends of a friend.
The Big Question
RING
With any romance film, the question that must be asked is: do these people (i.e. Rachel and Dex) belong together? The best answer for this film is...“sure, why not?” Rachel is cowardly, self-absorbed, obsessive, and bland. Dex, for the most part, is also self-absorbed and bland but too wishy-washy to be considered obsessive. In real life, that makes up many a typical couple. Average, boring, pretty people leading average, boring, pretty lives. To this end, I'll end by citing to arguably the greatest romantic comedy of all time, Annie Hall
Post Script (the Actors)
Although John Krasinski essentially plays the same role as on The Office, his charm is very audience friendly.
Ginnifer Goodwin seems to have a knack at fitting into the world of the “romantic comedy.” She has the likeability lacking in most actresses currently aiming for the title of rom-com queen including Katherine Heigl and co-star Kate Hudson.
When the trailers for Zack Snyder's Sucker Punch first hit theaters/the Internet, it became one of this year's most anticipated movies, getting more interest than many of the upcoming Marvel properties and DC's Green Lantern. Hot chicks in the 1950s/60s (around the time of Girl, Interrupted) going on crazy adventures in a dilapidated mental hospital (compared by some to Sam Fuller’s Shock Corridor) contrasted against outlandish and brightly colored dream sequences developed by a very visually adept director (The Wizard of Oz comparisons are easy). People didn't really expect art, but many expected a good time. A non-comic book property that would appeal to fanboys, maybe some sort of female empowerment tale that would also appeal to fangirls. Yes, the T+A+E(xplosions) were there, but there was a near universal hope and expectation of something greater. With the team of rebel girls concept, I was personally expecting something with elements of 1996’s The Craft.
When people finally saw Zack Snyder's Sucker Punch- well, let's just say the 300 and Watchmen (which I maintain is the best comic book movie ever made) filmmaker probably thanked God he already signed the deal to direct the upcoming Superman reboot. Oddly enough, Sucker Punch is in many ways like Superman Returns. An epic scope, a respected and proven director, seemingly interesting source material, and so many things seemed to click- that is until we saw the movie.
Both films are mistake upon mistake upon mistake. Dialogue, characters, plots, themes-everything went wrong. These aren't movies you dislike. These are movies you nitpick, these are movies you passionately discuss with people who hate them just as much as you do to just so you can cover every base of what failed.
Unlike Superman Returns, however, it's difficult to imagine any defenders of Sucker Punch. To put another way, more people probably liked Superman Returns, and at least Sucker Punch seemed to take the stance that rape is bad.
What Went Wrong?
Smarter people than myself have written tomes about the “hero's journey.” The centerpiece to most fiction, the character arc is essential to a story. The journey doesn't have to be good, it doesn't have to lead to a happy ending, and the audience does not necessarily have to identify with the “hero” - but there has to be something. Sucker Punch presents the bizarre situation where there is no hero's journey. And I don't mean a bad hero's journey or a poorly thought out one, but I mean no hero's journey at all. In fact, this movie takes it to an entirely different realm where the time between the first ~20 minutes (after we enter the brothel reality) and the last ~5 minutes (after Baby Doll gets lobotomized) is totally irrelevant.
Description
I guess I should explain the film at this point in the review. Extensive spoilers. Feel free to skip it.
Like Inception, the film is split into three realities. Reality 1 involves Baby Doll (Emily Browning), a young girl forcibly committed to a mental hospital by her step-father. This occurs after he discovers Baby Doll's mother, whose death kicks off the movie, left her entire inheritance to her two children in her will. Angry, the stepfather tries to rape Baby Doll before trying to molest Baby Doll's younger sister. Baby Doll then attempts to shoot him, accidentally killing her sister in the process. I know I'm making it sound bland, but it actually is by far the best part of the film, which probably sounds like a backhanded compliment but it shouldn't. The sequence was atmospheric, chilling, and an excellent introduction to a film that didn't even try to live up to it.
The hospital is run by Carla Gugino's Dr. Vera Gorsky, a psychiatrist who seems to care about her patients and utilizes alternative forms of therapy, such as dance. Baby Doll's stepfather bribes an orderly named Blue (played by Oscar Isaac and sounding like Action’s Jay Mohr) to have her lobotomized in five days.
Then the hospital becomes a brothel where Baby Doll meets four other patients Sweet Pea (Abbie Cornish), her sister Rocket (Jena Malone), Blondie (Vanessa Hudgens), and Amber (Jamie Chung). Blue becomes a pimp and Gorsky becomes a dance instructor/Madame that acts and sounds like Bart's ballet instructor in that episode of The Simpsons where Homer drives the limo with Mel Brooks.
The only difference between Real Reality (Reality 1) and Brothel Reality (Reality 2) is that the sets kind of changed. There’s no noticeable change in filming style, camera movements, coloring, etc.; it’s still dark and dim and lifeless. I admit originally thinking that the mental hospital was just a front for a whorehouse and that the “show” at the beginning was so the people admitting the patients didn't think “oh wait, I’m sending my disturbed teenaged daughter to a whorehouse. I am probably entitled to a percentage of her whore fees.”
At this point, the film doesn’t (or if it does, it’s very rare and negligible at best) return to Reality 1 until the very end. This leads to a question asked by many viewers: “Why is a brothel (and forced sexual servitude) better than a mental institution?” It’s a query that implicates a lot of darkness but it can be answered, albeit not by the scenes in this movie.
Then, Baby Doll has to dance (to make her lucrative to potential Johns) and her “dance” is so ridiculously sexy that it puts everyone into a hypnotic trance. During her dances, she enters the dream worlds (Reality 3) that make up most of the trailers where she's fighting Germans, dragons, robots, and other zany stuff. Also in Reality 3, the Wise Man (Scott Glenn) briefs them on every mission.
In Reality 2, the dance is meant to distract guards so her fellow inmates can get the objects they need to escape (map, fire, key, knife, and a question mark). The bulk of the movie is then made up of ‘determine object dance/action sequence steal object end dance’, and it very redundant. Nevertheless, I will go into depth about it later.
Long story short, Rocket gets stabbed by a chef, Blondie and Amber get shot by Blue, Baby Doll stabs Blue, and Sweat Pea escapes as Baby Doll lets herself be caught. All of this takes place in Reality 2. As for Reality 1?
We cut back to Reality 1 as Baby Doll is getting lobotomized. Dr. G. calls her a handful because she helped a patient escape, and Dr. G finds out that Blue forged her name on the lobotomy papers, which she probably should have realized earlier but whatever. Blue (who was, in fact, recently stabbed) gets arrested, Sweet Pea (in Reality 2 presumably) gets on a bus driven by Scott Glenn as the Wise Man, and a closing narration from Dr. G. tells us to believe in ourselves, fight for our future, and all that hogwash.
What Went Wrong? (redux)
In other words, everything between “then the hospital becomes” and “We cut back to Reality 1” is meaningless. All we know about the bulk of the movie is that Baby Doll stabbed the orderly and a patient escaped.
False Depth/Whose Story Is This?
Sucker Punch is one of those movies that attempts to force weight into its hollowness by throwing out random terms and potential themes in hopes that at least one will connect with the audience. Ideas like guardian angels appearing in random guises throughout one's life, the question of “whose story is this,” and fighting for reality are casually used but never truly explored. The film even uses the “narrator telling the audience to believe in themselves over a black screen at the end” trick, which also found favor in this year's lackluster The Adjustment Bureau (another disappointing Philip K. Dick adaptation), which was also about fighting for one’s future/reality/free will/whatever.
None of these thematic claims make any sense within the context of the film. For example, at the end of the film, Baby Doll helps Sweet Pea escape by sacrificing herself after realizing that “this is her [Sweet Pea's] story.” But is it?
The way the film is set up, without allowing us to have any significant Reality 1 moments with any of the characters (including Baby Doll, opening sequence aside), the most likely candidate for whose story the film is about is Dr. G. At the beginning of the movie, Dr. G. is presented as a psychiatrist who cares for her patients. At the end of the movie, she realizes that one of the orderlies is forging her signature and getting patients lobotomized for some quick cash. That is the most complete story for anyone in the film.
Apropos of nothing, Abbie Cornish starred in this year’s surprisingly enjoyable Limitless.
I just realized that Sweet Pea and Sucker Punch have the same initials. Maybe it really was her story.
But what about Sweet Pea’s escape? Well, do we know if Sweet Pea escaped? All we know, according to Dr. G., is that Baby Doll helped a patient escape. It could have been any one of a dozen patients, including the “dead” Rocket, Amber, or Blondie because we do not know if any of those three actually died. It's doubtful considering how nonchalant Dr. G. was during the lobotomy sequence. You'd think if one of her patients died, let alone three of them, a couple of days earlier she'd show some sort of emotion about it. At least there should be police investigating several brutal murders the day before. Or, when Dr. G.'s discussing how Baby Doll was such a handful that she helped one patient escape, she'd throw in “and killed one (or two or three) others.” Of course, she also didn't mention that Baby Doll stabbed an orderly, so who knows?
Additionally, since Reality 2 Rocket's death spurred Reality 2 Sweet Pea onto her Reality 2 escape, Rocket 1 Rocket possibly (probably) not dying further challenges what happened at the end. Considering how we can never be sure of how Reality 1’s characters mesh with Reality 2’s characters (e.g. Reality 2 Sweet Pea would never abandon her sister), Sweet Pea's escape could be a very bad thing indeed. She could, in fact, be a very damaged and dangerous girl roaming the streets unable to deal with the real world.
Fighting for one’s reality, the most over used motif in the film, also doesn’t work in Sweet Pea case. The one who “escaped” spent most of the movie bitching and moaning about the escape plan and barely did any “fighting.”
The Fantasy Sequences
Yes, they looked (mostly) great and Zack Snyder has a distinctive visual eye but, as this film proved, so what? By the dragon sequence, I was already bored and half-annoyed because there were no stakes in Reality 3 and, when you accept that Reality 2 is similarly fake, no stakes there either. But with dream sequences, you don't really expect anyone to die, which is why in most films dreams symbolize something. Anything. This film had perfect openings to explore different avenues of Baby Doll's psyche as theoretically these sequences represented therapy sessions, but Snyder didn’t even seem to attempt to try. Hell, A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: The Dream Warriors did it better.
When Baby Doll enters her firstfantasy world, she receives her weapons (a sword and gun representing nothing other than chicks with swords and guns are hot) from Scott Glenn and fights giant samurai men (like in Terry Gilliam's masterpiece Brazil) with machine guns (unlike in Terry Gilliam's masterpiece Brazil). Do these Samurai men represent anything? I don't know. Her home didn't seem to have any Japanese mementos. Could her stepfather have fought in the Pacific? Maybe. Could the Samurai men have represented something? Definitely. Her step father. The orderly. Other bits of evil sprinkled throughout the film. For a film that had the makings of a female empowerment tale, destroying giant men could have been a great first step down that path. But it wasn’t.
The second fantasy world involves a quest for a map. While Reality 2 Sweet Pea gets the map of the hospital in Reality 2, Reality 3 Baby Doll brings her own version of Sweet Pea and the other gals on a quest in World War 1 to get a map. (No, the Reality 3 and Reality 2 sequences never match up in any way.) I am a fan of World War 1. Well, fan is an odd word. I personally find World War 1 the most fascinating war. A lot of great art came from the experiences of The Great War: All Quiet on the Western Front, Johnny Got His Gun, The Grand Illusion, Paths of Glory, Black Adder Goes Fourth (you think I joke but that final episode is chilling), so a tripped out take on that war was actually something that could have been unique.
But it doesn’t fit. See, for a teenage girl in the late 1950s/early 1960s, World War 2 wouldn't merely be more recent, it would very well be something she witnessed. And while I would love to see more work about World War 1 (or, as in this case, World War 1 by way of Castle Wolfenstein), this should not have been the film.
Fantasy world three concernsgetting fire to cause a distraction*. Reality 2 had Amber seducing an evil naughty mayor to get his lighter while Baby Doll did whatever the hell she does. Reality 3 had the gang fighting dragons to get crystals that would ignite a flame. To get the crystals, Baby Doll slays a baby dragon then must slay its mother. Decent enough concept, except the movie began with the death of Baby Doll's sister and mother. The parallels aren't just easy, they're ridiculously blatant. Not picking up on them (or, probably more accurately, not doing anything with them) requires amazing skill.
* In Reality 2, getting the flame is the difficult task despite one of them working in the asylum kitchen, which probably requires matches to light the stove. Anyway, the distraction occurs when Baby Doll and Sweet Pea light a Molotov cocktail and burn a room. Getting the flammable liquid requires literally no effort whatsoever.
The final fantasy world revolved around obtaining a knife. In Reality 2, Baby Doll sought to get a knife from the kitchen by seducing a chef with her dancing. In Reality 3, the gang is on a high speed train with a bomb about to explode a major city while fighting robots. For whatever reason, I thought about Heavy Metal during this portion, but that's neither here nor there.
The 1940s and 50s were chock-full of classic science fiction/alien films with a distinctive visual style, many of them focusing on Earth’s threat of annihilation as an allegory for the Cold War. Films like The Day The Earth Stood Still, The Thing From Another World, When Worlds Collide, and Invasion of the Body Snatchers as well as B-movies and serials like Attack of The The Eye Creatures, Teenagers from Outer Space, and Buck Rogers probably would have found an audience in Baby Doll. So her fantasizing a future with the sheen of a 2011 film, I found kind of disappointing. I spent more time wondering if Baby Doll was prescient than enjoying her escape from the hell that was her life.
It is also during this sequence that Reality 2 Rocket gets stabbed (Reality 3 Rocket martyrs herself with the bomb) when Reality 2 Baby Doll stops dancing. But Reality 2 Baby Doll keeps dancing after realizing that Reality 2 Rocket was stabbed, which removes emotional impact by forcing you to wonder a) how close to Reality 1 Reality 2 is or b) maybe Baby Doll really is just nuts.
For those who haven't seen the movie but want to get a feeling about what these sequences were like, let me help you. Scott Glenn explains the mission. Shoot. Shoot. Shoot shoot shoot. Stab. Scream. Stab. Stab. Shoot shoot. Scream. Danger? Danger averted. Shoot. Stab. Pose.
Like I mentioned above, because all this is happening in Reality 2 Baby Doll's mind, nothing really happens or can really happen to the characters. When I first saw the trailers, I thought these moments would be closer to some sort of mass hallucination the characters engage in while on their quest for the object with the enemies some exaggerated-but-“real” threat. Or some sort of delusion from one of the characters putting their bland lives in an over-the-top situation but still involving the Reality 1 characters. After all, if the Reality 1 characters were all participating in Reality 3, then we might get some character development. I mean, what's more typical in a war movie than characters bonding during the battle? And in this movie we had four battles. As the movie stands now, not even the Reality 2 characters are in Reality 3. .
Also disappointing is that we never got to see the items used together. We never got the World War 1 map mixed with the dragon fire crystals, but I digress...
Other Nitpicks
There are a lot of other things to bitch about with the movie. The dialogue is horrendous and many scenes, especially Reality 3 scenes, would have been better served had it been mostly silent except for Scott Glenn's exposition and occasional grunts. Even little sentences like “Get down!” could have been removed to create a better effect. Similarly, maybe Baby Doll should have spoke as little as possible, as she was completely silent for most of the first part of the film. Her saying random nothings lessened the allure of the character.
Why was Amber the pilot in every fantasy? Did they ever show her to have any interest in aviation?
Why did they all wear the same outfits in every Reality 3 sequence?
Summing Up
Sucker Punch is not just a catastrophe, but a startling one, which makes it an interesting one. For a movie set in a mental hospital, it's ironically beyond analysis. It's empty to a fault, pointless without having a quirkiness or cleverness to fall back on. Nevertheless, the mistakes it made, everything it did wrong (and it did everything wrong), makes for a fun discussion.
While I'm sure that there are people who enjoyed the movie and will use the argument “well critics hated it, the audience hated it, but plenty of cult classic movies started out that way and now they're beloved!” But most of the time, movies hated by critics and audiences alike just end up eternally despised. The only way this movie can be the next Blade Runner is if the sure-to-come director’s cut does to Sucker Punch what Ridley Scott’s director’s cut of Blade Runner did to that film. This is not impossible, just very, very, very, very improbable.
There was a single scene in The Adjustment Bureau that gave a sense of what the movie could have been.
It occurs early on when David Norris (Matt Damon) visits his true love Elise Sellas' (Emily Blunt) dance studio for the first time. At this point, David Norris has already met the Adjustment Bureau and somewhat understands it, its remarkable power, and that it is committed to keeping him from Elise. That “God” himself wants to prevent David from getting with Elise. That he is in danger of being lobotomized if he continues on his quest. Yet he won't give up.
In this one scene, David non-creepily watches Elise from behind a closed door while the “angels” plead with him to just let it go. It’s a small scene but one in which everything works.
We (and David Norris) begin to get a sense of just how powerless these individual "angels" (John Slattery and, I think, Anthony Mackie) actually are. Clumsy, ineffectual, in over their head- they are nothing but insignificant bureaucrats in an omnipresent entity. Despite their organization controlling our universe, they are as worthless as the humans they try to dominate.
The way David converses with them in this scene shows a man accepting that while he can never beat the game, he can fuck with the players. There's an implicit, almost sad connection between the two parties over their mutual impotence that leads to David Norris thumbing his nose at these authority figures rather than outwardly rebelling against them. In that singular moment, the film had the makings of a true Philip K. Dick film. Unfortunately, nothing else in the film had that weight (although the performances, particularly of the two leads, were good).
NOTE 1: I started writing this last week as soon as it was announced that CBS fired Charlie Sheen from the hit sitcom Two and A Half Man. It should have been obvious to everyone that the Charlie Sheen media blitz was coming to an end. When vocalizations of insanity get co-opted as catchphrases for t-shirts and bumper stickers, it loses its appeal. Sure, we had a fun week or two, but how long can it last after the initial shock? People were getting tired and, worst of all, bored with the situation. Even Charlie seems to have come down from his manic frenzy but still has to maintain the character long after the novelty has worn off and he wants to move onto different projects. He has become typecast in his own life. Then the Japanese earthquake/tsunami/earthquake happened and Charlie Sheen has moved off the front page completely. So obviously, I'm a bit behind the curve when it comes to throwing in my two cents to the situation.
NOTE 2: I've never seen Two and a Half Men so, like everyone writing about a topic they know nothing about, I relied on Wikipedia. (Fun Fact: Half Man is Jon Cryer's character's son.)
NOTE 3: Just bear with me. Or don't read.
With last week's announcement that CBS fired Charlie Sheen from Two and a Half Men, everyone (well, a lot of people) was (were) left wondering, “What’s going to happen with the show?” Well, Charlie Sheen himself practically wrote the show's next season.
As the show's ninth year begins, Charlie (a genuine warlock) is missing. Following the loss of their patriarch, Jon Cryer and The Kid must don their cloaks and go on a grave adventure of endless forests and enchanted castles to find their hero. As Charlie is a warlock, so is his brother, Jon Cryer. The Kid serves as an apprentice.
As they progress along their peril-filled journey, we (and Jon Cryer and The Kid) learn about Charlie's kidnapping. While practicing magicks, Charlie peered through the looking glass and saw the world as it truly is. Evil Trolls (Racist Jewish caricatures like Billy Crystal in The Princess Bride) control the money; the Brothers Warner control the people through mead and traveling propaganda troupes; and the Catholic Church controls the government. When Charlie attempted to warn the people of the shire, the Warriors of the Joint Venture captured him.
See, Charlie is no ordinary warlock. His tiger blood and Adonis DNA exist in the perfect proportion to make him the most powerful warlock of the land. If the bad guys can harness his essence, it will grant them one thousand years of total control. Furthermore, each evil party has their own plans for Charlie. His ability to turn tin cans into gold (similar to Rumpelstiltskin) can drastically affect the economy, and Trolls love gold. The Catholic Church wants to torture Charlie because his work as a Vatican assassin cost them hundreds of their top spies. And the Brothers Warner want to brainwash Charlie, bring him back into the fold, and use him to further manipulate the townspeople who eat their slop like pigs at a trough.
Jon Cryer and The Kid collect most of this information from Knights of the Realm, who are on their own quest to destroy this tyranny, during a 5-6 episode storyline early in the season.Ring Wraith-ian creatures obliterate the Knights during November sweeps.
Meanwhile, also in the story, Jon Cryer and The Kid learn about their wizardry powers as the audience learns about the strange new world they inhabit. For example, when Troll King Chaim tries to infest the two with his poisons (similar to the poppies scene in The Wizard of Oz), all they need is their minds to break free of the addiction. No matter how many drugs they ingest, they don't just survive but throw parties of legend, told for generations through myth and song. They encounter Goddesses like April Bowlby, Holland Taylor, Courtney Thorne-Smith, and Melanie Lynskey in bodices. I guess throw in a Sword of Winning needed to defeat some dragon or cross a bridge or something.
The series ends with the gang finding a captive Charlie about to die, still unwilling to submit to his captors even at the expense of his own life. A battle ensues. A Troll fatally wounds Jon Cryer. A ward of the Brothers Warner is about to slice the throat of The Kid. And Charlie, with his last breath, expels his life force into the villains.
Troll children and sons of the Brothers Warner weep over their parents' exploded bodies. The Kid, the lone survivor on the side of good, finally accepts his destiny and understands that they're like animals. And he slaughters them. Like animals. He hates them. No longer an apprentice, he rides into the horizon, ready to bring peace to the land.
Failing that, there's always Apocalypse Now. We know real Charlie has a penchant for the movie and that fake Charlie is a jingle writer. Fake Charlie knows the truth about advertising, manipulation, and brainwashing the gullible public into buying garbage. He has seen the inner workings of industry, the patheticness of man, the emptiness of souls dying to be filled with cutesy slogans and emasculating beer commercials. Fed up with this bullshit, he hides out in Canadian wilderness sending out tweets and u-streams exposing our depraved society. Charlie's employers contact Jon Cryer and request that he terminate his brother's contract, with extreme prejudice. As Jon Cryer travels up the Pacific Coast, he begins to identify with Charlie, understand his message, and view the world as hopeless and broken. When he arrives at the Charlie's compound consisting of Midwesterners that made a pilgrimage to their leader's camp, as well as a half-mad photographer from Entertainment Weekly, he's torn but knows his duty.
Rachel is a workaholic who is depressed and miserable with her life and desperately wants a man. She also briefly rues taking the career route and not having children. It's a throwaway line at the beginning of the film, but I feel it's worth mentioning. She's the special type of movie workaholic who never actually seems to do any work, goes out to bars often on weeknights, can seemingly get away to the Hamptons every weekend, and can even take two intercontinental flights in two days. She also owns the special type of gigantic New York City loft/duplex complete with its own inner staircase that few low-level, fourth year junior associates can afford without roommates or rich relatives. After Rachel sleeps with Dex, it's practically impossible for her to concentrate on anything or anyone else. It also never seems to truly bother her that she's violated Darcy's trust. Her only struggle seems to involve wanting to get Dex to commit to her and being too much of a coward to force Dex to commit. 
