FX's new series is unremarkable on first glance. It's not as easy to take to as other recent FX offerings have been. That being said, it operates on an interesting premise -- what star Eddie Izzard deems "the theft of the American dream."
The show is centered on a family of grifters, members of a community of gypsies (so-called Irish Travelers) who're parked in Alabama. Mom, Dahlia, (Minnie Driver) fresh out of jail with Dad, Wayne, (Izzard) running the family's three kids around the South working their grifts. The community doesn't sit well with Wayne, so a few thousand dollars from the boss' safe and a few thousand miles later the family finds itself in Louisiana.
Coincidentally enough, they fall upon a dead couple with a brand new mansion. It's a big leap to make for viewers who have trouble with much easier suspensions of disbelief, and the subsequent identity assumption seems done before.
If the show steps out of the cookie-cutter assimilation plots -- it has one advantage in that its assimilating Americans into America and many basics are already established in the family's lives -- it will have a chance to succeed. But we'll see as, predictably, the kids try to make friends, Mom (while kicking heroin) joins a book club or something, Dad has to learn to be a lawyer, and they all have to learn to stop being thieves.
At a time in the artistic growth of American entertainment media where stories you see are rehashes of rehashes, what sets things off is their ability to be unique. That's what this show needs. It has the talented cast and the dedicated network promoting it. It just needs to stand out.
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