Running Point Season 1, Episode 7 Review – “A Special Place in Hell”

Running Point somehow manages to be a show with both too many plotlines, and nowhere near enough stories; though there’s always things happening with the Waves or the nucleus of the Gordon family, there’s little tangible emotional weight attached to the many disparate threads it has tried to establish as recurring arcs. These trends unfortunately continue with “A Special Place in Hell”, which is slightly more watchable than some of the show’s worst entries (it’s definitely an improvement on “The Yips” and its schmaltzy, bullshit ending) but it’s still plagued with the same issues the series has struggled with since the beginning, incoherently tethering a disparate, consistently disappointing set of stories together and turning the entire episode into a mush of half-formed, maddeningly unresolved ideas.

There is a modicum of an idea within “A Special Place in Hell” about the dangers of opportunity – but the amount of mental gymnastics it takes to unify the arrival of Travis’s mother (played by the always-welcome Nicole Sullivan) and Sandy’s breakup with Charlie getting chlamydia from fucking too many Waves groupies is a clear sign it wasn’t exactly intentional, and doesn’t work within the text of the episode. It doesn’t help that Bonnie’s sudden, overbearing presence on the Waves is the leading story; a compilation of Florida redneck and shitty mother stereotypes, Bonnie’s antics as she purportedly “helps” her son manage his career (and the knee injury they’re trying to hide from everyone until he can sign a contract extension in the off-season) add nothing but a bunch of noise Running Point can’t afford to distract itself with – and look no further than the strange mix of girl boss comedy and drug addiction drama the plot turns into through the course of the episode for a sign of how little this series has a sense of identity.

Bonnie’s arrival should provide a more cogent avenue for Running Point to define Travis as a character (in a more meaningful way than say, “The Travis Bugg Affair” tried to do); instead, Running Point leans even into shallow predictability, in an attempt to turn Travis into some semblance of a sympathetic character. There are hints of interesting bits of tension – like Travis being more self-aware of his mother’s exploits than he lets on – but instead of leaning into something with a bit of complexity and darkness, it runs away from it, trying to earn its way with the audience through an undeniably cheap, out-of-nowhere plot about Travis’s knee injury and him potentially falling (back) into addiction, especially once Isla runs Bonnie and her reality show production team out of town.

However, Running Point never does the legwork to make this a plausible plot; instead, it spends its time further complication the Sandy romantic subplot absolutely nobody in the world could possibly be invested in. Is there a coherent reason we needed to see Sandy freak out because his ex is already in a serious relationship with someone else, with so many other things going on in this episode (like Isla and Jay having a flirty moment at the bar, a random and charmless moment I’m dreading the show returning to)? “A Special Place in Hell” really has no idea, either, fumbling away another terrific bit of comedic gags with Ness (like how he orders meals, or talking about his flabby lats) with this endlessly neurotic plot line about two people who Running Point have never made a convincing arguement are a good couple.

What are we supposed to be invested in here exactly? “A Special Place in Hell” never really even tries to make a case for it, simply shoving it alongside the Travis/Bonnie scenes, with the underlying story of Jackie catching an STD and pissing off the one other Latino character on the show (Ramirez, the chairmen of the board we’ve seen approximately twice). Jackie getting chlamydia is an early contender for Most Pointless Plotline of 2025; if I were to squint hard enough to give myself an aneurysm, I might be able to make a convincing argument that Jackie’s sexual health issues are a physical manifestation of the indulgences Travis and Isla find themselves facing – but again, there’s no attempt to try and find cohesion with the other stories of the episode; Jackie just runs around on the fringes of the plot, learning extremely simplistic lessons tied to absolutely nothing meaningful about the episode, or the series itself. Running Point is just kind of like “here’s a plot with no jokes – is this funny?” – and it is as bizarre as it sounds, a filler plot that is uncomfortably emblematic of the fundamental issues this series willingly walks itself into episode after episode.

With only three episodes left in the season, it remains to be seen how Running Point is going to pull all of these random bits of plot and character together into something that is even remotely coherent (forget funny or poignant; this series seems to have forgotten those concepts exist) – there will obviously be the upcoming playoff run (there’s maybe a mention of the team at some point, but the team is just about completely forgotten for the entire episode), but how they pull together the threads of each Gordon family sibling remains to be seen, and “A Special Place in Hell” is quite the scatterbrained example suggesting the series may not even care to figure it out.

Grade: D

Other thoughts/observations:

• Jackie not remembering the names of the women he might’ve given chlamydia too is played as a joke, but it might be the saddest character trait I’ve seen from any TV character so far this year. This kid suuuucks, and there’s really not enough attention paid to how Isla just kind of lets it slide.
  
• Bonnie offers up bits of comedic gold like saying “the brave Megyn Kelly” or talking about how salmonella is a “deep state lie”, or eating breakfast Whoppers in spite of how they inflame her gout. Also, her husband was a serial killer executed by the state, and she can’t say the word ‘identity’ correctly. What a fun character!
  
• Isla doesn’t know who Malala is?
  
• Ok, I did like when Travis tried to explain how he felt about his mother: “you know that song ‘Dear Mama’ from Tupac? I don’t feel that way at all!” Hanks is not great in this role, but once an episode, he gives just enough that I want to see more from his performance.
  
• The Waves had their worst record ever last episode, but now are only three games out of the playoffs? Make it make sene.
  
• That Scott Dissick cameo was super pathetic; the ADR’ed dialogue, the stand-in used for half the shot he’s in, how the show somehow tries to treat his presence as important or meaningful…. it’s all real fucking embarrassing, and makes a strong case this show is not an endeavor anyone is actually invested in.
  
• Ramirez insists Jackie is being held to a higher standard, but… nobody gives a shit about what he’s doing except him? Isla pretends to care, but only in how it affects her. A perfect example of this show trying to reach for something it hasn’t done any of the legwork to make logical.