There's not a lot this fall that has me jumping for joy, but this show was one that stuck in my mind, which is something since I can barely remember anything about Chase. The pilot has promise -- it's a slickly produced show about a con artist who has a lot on his plate juggling a wife, a girlfriend, several cons and his pushy father who wants nothing more than for his son to follow in his disreputable footsteps. Not sure how future episodes will fare, but this has some promise and at least makes me want to tune in for some more.
We open on a young Bobby in a motel-looking apartment scrambling and throwing things out of his closet and into a suitcase, while his father is by the front door trying to hold it shut to keep away a very angry sounding man. The father comes in, chastises young Bobby for not keeping his life in the case, and then tosses him out the back window with the keys to what will be their getaway car. We hear the door being smashed in, as we zoom in on the very bare closet.
We then zoom out on a quite well stocked closet filled with clothes and blankets and are informed that it is 20 years later in Midland, Texas, and we put together that the handsome young man standing in front of this closet is a grown up Bob. He's packing a suitcase and his girlfriend comes over wrapped in a towel asking him why he's got so many things for a four day trip. Well, see, girlfriend, Bob was scarred at a young age to over pack or else leave his belongings behind, so it is a surprise that he hasn't grown up to be a hoarder with all his items in suitcases stacked floor to ceiling. Instead, he shrugs her off and she tries to waylay his trip to the airport with sex. Unsurprisingly, this works.
Eventually he heads out to the car with his ginormous suitcase. And scans his house, with "Linds" (the aforementioned girlfriend who apparently owns no clothing, only robes and towels) standing in front. He tells her not to let the neighbor kid mow the lawn anymore, because he likes to do it... makes him feel manly or whatever. Poor neighbor kid, he only charged five bucks. That's quite a deal. Anyway, Bob's done with the lecture about landscaping and is now moving on to party planning. This of course involves talk of meat and kegs and moon bounces. She gives him an ugly key chain with a gorilla on it. He says he'll treasure it forever. Then he's off to the airport.
Once there he's all chummy with the check-in lady and his fellow passengers and his luggage even arrives unscathed. Where is this mythical place? Is he somehow George Clooney in Up in the Air? I need to get some frequent flier miles if this is the case. He gets in a fancier car, takes out his luggage and walks up to the door of a stranger and introduces himself to some guy as Robert Allen and starts in on his sales pitch about shares in some sort of rock blender. He does this over and over to a number of guys who are seemingly home in the middle of the day and happily write him checks. Then it's back to the airport with another super peppy check-in lady and pleasant fellow passengers with no screaming children and another bag that arrives promptly in the baggage claim.
In another car he's driving into Downtown Houston and is on the phone with Lindsay telling her that his day went well and that he's pulling into his hotel. But before he gets out of the car he takes his wallet and cell phone and switches it out for another wallet and cell phone that is in the storage console in the center of the car. He seems a little OCD about how he specifically ties them together with rubber bands, but maybe that's just me. He then steps out of the SUV, and we see that he's not at a hotel, but rather at a sizable McMansion. Same suitcase though. He's home, greets Friday Night Lights's lovely Adrianne Palicki as "honey." She says he's early and then tells him they've got a charity event to attend. He advises her to cancel and to tell the charity folks that her husband is sorry he can't get out of bed. Then there's some more sex, and a zoomed in shot on the gorilla key chain.
Apparently one of the requirements of living Bob's double life is finding women ready to drop everything they are doing and have sex with him at moment's notice. He and Palicki (aka Cat Thatcher) are interrupted (seemingly the day) by a call from her dad who wants to know where they are. This call kills the mood as said father has summoned them to brunch.
Drew has a hangover cure that he bills as "medicine" and says that you can barely taste it when it is mixed with alcohol so that you never actually get drunk. Hmm... we just used to call that hair of the dog around the old homestead. But apparently in the Thatcher family, it is some fancy newfangled medicine. Skeptical brother Trammel turns down a taste, but Bob and Cat gamely give it a whirl, only to realize that the flavor has not been masked in the slightest. Drew says that they just need 50 grand more to make the flavor palatable, but Trammel says they are in the oil business, not throwing money away as venture capitalists.
No matter, all this fun and game "medicine" business is tossed aside when Clint shows up. This stern patriarch doesn't even sit down before he's making digs at Cat for not wanting to come and lecturing the rest of the family on how he used to do some old-fashioned manual labor back in his day and helped dig and lay pipe for his very first well thirty years ago. His point is that the only things that last are those that are made with your own hands, and he fired Doug Phelps, the turnaround specialist who had just been hired. Trammel tries to talk him out of it, but Clint is super stubborn and even though he doesn't know a thing about PowerPoint (even what it is called), he does know that Bob is making money hand over fist because he's out on the streets busting his ass to make sales every day. Clint decides that Bob is the person to fill the empty office, much to Trammel's clear disgust and Bob's obvious shock. Clint says there is no need for discussion. Bob asks to sleep on it, and Clint grants him a little leeway.
After brunch, Bob is at a storefront that has some busted up office equipment in it, but not a whole lot else... aside from some mail. John's there though. He was worried sonny boy had gotten arrested, and Bob says that he had a busy morning. What with being offered an executive position at a big oil company and all that. John doesn't give him a chance to explain and lodges into his current dilemma about how someone wants to see the mystery well that they've been hawking door to door. Bob, all grown up now and not able to be shoved so easily out windows, interrupts him and tells him about the position he's been offered. John's eyes light up, he says he's in, that this is what they've been working for. The big con. Bob isn't as excited and says that he wants the job for real. Not just as a con. John looks utterly perplexed by this. He tells his son that he doesn't know anything about real. That he's a con man, and a really amazing one at that. I guess that's sort of a pep talk. But just in case his son has any lofty aspirations, he reassures him that Bob was not raised to be an oil and gas man and can't just actually be one. That he's just got to keep his eye on the prize, and that's the keys to the safe at the oil company.
Bob asks what to do about his wife Cat. John says that she's the mark and not his real family. Cat's just the foothold into the corporation and John is the only person Bob can trust. Poor Bob, he's like little baby Sawyer from Lost, a con man who almost occasionally tries to do right... well, except hopefully Bob's mother met a kinder fate. John moves on to trying to figure out how to put off the guy who wants to see the well, and plot how to get big bucks from big oil. Bob looks like he wants to cry, but instead he smirks as he goes outside to call and accept the job.
thing we know Bob is back to conning. He's out at a well site and introduces himself as Ted Lanford, a location scout who is looking to show a director a potential movie site. He slips the man in charge a hundred for the trouble. And then he's in his car filling up a suitcase with wads of cash. He's got his hard hat and the briefcase, and the guy who wants to see the well. John's pretending to be the foreman and they show them around the fake movie site well. There are even some fake blueprints to show Larry with the cowboy hat, who is still quite skeptical... well, until Bob turns on the charm about how he'd rather buy out the sale and earn Larry's trust and friendship instead, and offers him the briefcase of cash. Larry tells him to keep the cash, and says that he's happy and would like to buy two more shares and he's off to get his checkbook. After Larry walks away John compliments him on his moves and says he's really the best con artist he's ever seen. Though he looks pissed to find out that Bob is heading back to Midland, even though that place has been "milked dry" and the clock is ticking out there.
In a super swanky hotel lounge, Bob is approached by a lovely young lady in a suit who wants to know if she saw him heading to Dallas the other day. She sits down with him to chat, and the thing we know he's explaining about the magic medicine that you mix in with a drink so as not to get drunk. He claims that something is wrong with his room, and he's waiting for it to be fixed... she invites him to take advantage of the ample room that she has available and he smiles and fiddles with his wedding ring as a sign. The girl doesn't care that he's married, she just wants some fun because marriage sucks the sexy out of a relationship. We see him on the phone alternately listening to Lindsay and Cat tell him about their days. He asks hotel chick about something that is real and lasting, she said that people are only nice to each other when they have something to hide. She assures him that no one would ever have to know and asks for one good reason. We see him telling Cat and Lindsay he loves them, and then telling pretty random girl that he's got two and takes off to his room where there's actually a maintenance man fixing the hot water. I for sure thought he was conning his way into a free room and didn't have a place to stay. Go figure.
The morning he's at a jewelry shop, back to the clean and friendly airport and driving back to see Lindsay. Then he's mowing the lawn without a shirt on. She doesn't seem to be complaining.
At a football game, Drew and Trammell are talking about their glory days and Tram's son's prospects. Trammell wants to stop Bob, and Drew doesn't care. Trammell thinks their dad could be losing his edge because he used to crush slimy salesmen like Bob. But Drew says Clint recently punched out a thieving roughneck so he's totally fine. How's the roughneck? Drew continues that Bob's family, so they really have no say. Trammell refers to a mysterious Uncle Roy who is now dead, and Drew looks about as pensive as his limited brain will let him. Tram says he'll take care of Bob, so long as Drew's behind him.
Bob's having a huge backyard barbeque in Midland, complete with moon bounce. The aunt from Sabrina the Teenage Witch (not Caroline Rhea, the other one) is Lindsay's mom. She and Lindsay's dad are so excited about the well and the profits they are going to get that they are already planning their trip to Europe. They continue to unwittingly make Bob feel like shit by going on about other people losing their retirements while they and their friends are off buying new cars thanks to the well.
Later there is a poker game outside, and some guy named Travis is hitting on Lindsay. Travis claims that Linds calls him all the time when Bob's away because she's all lonely. Bob punches him. And inside Lindsay reassures him that it isn't true, but she kind of loved that he punched Travis anyway. She tries to woo him with sex, but he has to go take out the trash and get the bag from the jewelry store. But while he's outside, John's waiting there like a stalker, saying that Bob has to get out now because there's a lawyer in Midland requesting the deed and that when the truth comes out Bob's going to get lynched by the town people and/or tossed in jail. But Bob says he can't leave, and walks back in the house.
But in bed, he gets up in the middle of the night and tells Lindsay that he has to go because there is a problem with the wells and he'll be away for a while. Actually, not a total lie. She just sleepily says OK, as he packs and takes off. He looks wistfully at their little yellow house with the freshly mowed lawn as he drives away. At a convenience store he sees a father taking advantage of the fact that his son works there and pockets a bunch of stuff and only pays for gum. The son tries to stop him, but to no avail. You know that's coming out of his pocket. Poor kid. Bob pays for his 95-cent soda with a fifty-dollar bill and tells the cashier that it is to cover for the last guy. Aw, boys bonding over the fact that their dads are crooks. Cute.
When Bob gets back to the car he sees the jewelry box and the two cell phones and he just
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starts crying and beating on the steering wheel in frustration. He stares at a trash can for a while before he drives off, and then we pan back to the garbage to see the jewelry bag and cell phone in it.Then he's suited up and heading to the executive level of the oil company, where he's greeted by Clint, who introduces him around and shows him the lay of the land before dumping him in a conference room with binders filled with stats on oil wells. Drew walks by and Bob stops him to ask about a wind farm deal that Tram had shot down. Bob thinks they should get in the windfarm business because they could make a good return on it, and that they just need a couple hundred acres for a test farm. He tells Drew he thinks it could be a good play, and Drew just seems flabbergasted that someone would actually think that he had a good idea and respect him enough to include him.
Bob heads over to a greasy spoon to meet his father for breakfast. John's got a list of plays on how they can scam the most money and is about ready to start rattling off the options when Bob stops him and says that he's not working an angle. That he's just working because he doesn't want another Midland situation. John says that's his own fault because he always taught him that he can play characters, but not himself, so that he can easily walk away. Bob isn't so easily dissuaded this time and says that he's not faking, that he can do this job, that in the process of pretending to know things, he actually learned it and knows how to do this job. He offers to let his dad live with him and be on staff as a consultant. John takes offense at the offer of a job. Job? Why, when conning is such easy money? He wants to move to a tropical island with topless women and not be stuck in a cubicle. I mean, I take his point here, but Bob seems to have topless women all around him anyway, so it isn't such an issue for him. He wants Bob to focus on how to make the deal. Bob, who is filled with pent up anger at this point, doesn't punch his father in the face like he rightfully should, but instead says he'll get him however much money he wants if he just doesn't make him do cons anymore. John agrees to let him do it his way. Bob in return tells his father that he loves him.
At a very swanky party, that may be in the office, Drew's hitting on girls and Cat goes around gossiping with Bob about who has had plastic surgeries. Tram dampens the mood by drilling Bob about some hotel owner who doesn't know Bob even though Bob claimed to have stayed there three nights a week for the past year. Bob honestly says he's never stayed there, says he buys their stuff in bulk and the embarrassing truth is that he stays in motels because they allow him to get his work done. He only claimed to stay at the fancier places because appearances matter to their family and he'd hate to besmirch the Thatcher name by staying at a Motel 6. He says that Tram should definitely keep his eye out for slippery characters in the business and Clint (who has been listening) chimes in that he's seen more than his share... but none that have gotten away with it. Then he bandies about his brother Roy's name, and the fact that he's dead. Clint says that he sees everything that happens in the company, and will be the first to know if he wanders into trouble. He then asks to see Bob's keys... with the gorilla keychain... and puts a new key on it to some mysterious room on the 30th floor that will give him all the opportunities in the world.
He is in another office having a panic attack when Cat comes in to calm him down. She thinks he didn't want to take the job, but he did, but doesn't know if he can do it. She says that people who believe they can have it all get it all. Make your own luck and whatnot.
Then he's back at the jewelry store to buy something else, says it's been a good week. Then we see the suitcase and the cheery folks at the airport, intercut with him looking at blueprints of Midland and calling Drew for approval to purchase a plot of land (for a million dollars) for their windfarm. He explains this to his father, saying that he'll actually own the land in Midland, so when the fancy lawyer pulls the deed he won't get in trouble. But John thinks this will leave a trail and is a huge mistake. Bob's plan is to basically steal back from his real job to pay back the Midland folks, but somehow make everyone money and make it all work. He turns around so we can see he's dressed in a tux and in Vegas, and he tells his father that he's doing this whole thing because he's in love. With whom? The fake wife or the fake girlfriend? John wants to know and so do I. The answer: both. Lindsay comes out of the bathroom in a wedding dress saying that it is bad luck to see her before the wedding, and he says that he makes his own luck. Then he grabs the new box from the jewelry store, the happy couple goes off and we're stuck looking at the full suitcase until week.
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