Running Point Season 1, Episode 8 Review – “The Streak”

“The Streak”, Running Point‘s unceasingly inept eighth episode, opens with a scene about the “evil eye”, the belief that misfortune can befall someone just by looking at another with jealousy or envy; and though it exists in the cold open mostly so we can learn Isla Gordon banged her college professor, it also purports itself as the thematic center of the Waves’ sudden, improbable push towards the playoffs. In theory, it should set up Running Point with a thoroughline for its running plots to draw from; in practice, it is unfortunately another disappointing episode of Running Point, continuing to waste a suite of solid performances on middling, superficial – and most criminally, largely unfunny – stories, tethered loosely together by some of the laziest sports writing I’ve seen in a long time.

At least for those first twenty seconds, it felt like Running Point was taking a step back to explore the Gordon siblings from a different angle; but all pretense is thrown to the wind when Isla learns their coach has been suspended for punching someone in a nightclub, throwing their 10-game win streak into jeopardy – a streak which we see precisely zero seconds off, a three-week long winning streak that begins in the space between the end of “A Special Place in Hell” and and this episode. It’s a jarring moment, one whose only mystery comes from the fact we know nothing about Jay beyond him being an attractive dude who might (?) be a good coach (he went from having the worst season ever, to a potential playoff run? Would be nice if we saw him coach at some point) – and as the episode begins to unravel Jay’s underlying motivations, it quickly devolves into an incredibly confusing and disappointing affair.

After being suspended by the league’s ancient commissioner for refusing to apologize, “The Streak” Jay reveals to Isla he is getting divorced, and his soon-to-be ex-wife is taking his children to live in Boston. Before this episode, we knew nothing about Jay except he had horny eyes for Isla in a couple scenes; to this point, the show has done nothing to establish his character or beliefs, his only motivations coming from opportunities to give horny eyes to Isla, or when the show wants to shortcut around showing anything about the Waves’ and their inner team dynamics. To suddenly try and make him an empathetic character – while also revealing his ex-wife as a total bimbo with the world’s biggest fuckboi new partner – is laughable in how egregiously miscalculated and self-righteous it is; there’s no real investment made in Jay’s story, only a drama that informs Isla’s attempts to try and prove her dead father wrong, so trying to suddenly make it an emotional focal point feels forced at best, and woefully unearned at its worst.

(also, the fact the show’s already teasing writing him off by Isla magically restructuring his contract so he can move to Boston after the season… what is even the point then? If he stays, then it just undercuts everything he says about his kids in this episode; he leaves, and Running Point just wasted this entire episode on a character we’ll never think about again.)

Regardless, Jay’s journey in this episode holds no thematic meaning to “The Streak” and Isla’s superstitions; Jay’s personal drama is only an obstacle for Isla to fold into the many other things swirling around her – which in “The Streak”, include Charlie getting robbed by a Grindr date he was trying to fuck in the shower (an event that would be financially devastating for millions of people, but that he shrugs off as a minor inconvenience), and Marcus and Dyson teaming up to confront Travis about his resurgent pill addiction.

If that sounds like a trio of incredibly imbalanced stories to try and shove together, you’re right – but “The Streak” certainly tries to, while also ending the episode on both a good-feeling sports moment when the Waves (who again, were having THE WORST SEASON IN FRANCHISE HISTORY but a few episodes ago) make the playoffs on a buzzer-beating shot, and a mysterious cliffhanger when we see Cam try to scam his way out of rehab early (presumably mad at Isla’s… success?). None of it makes any sense; one can squint and see an emotional core somewhere, with Running Point continues to build out the Ness/Charlie dynamic (which is wonderfully pleasant in their scenes together, then turns to mush when it tries to get us to care about Charlie’s neurotic romantic emotions) – but there’s nothing giving their interactions any weight, Charlie’s overwrought emotions completely dissonant from anything else the series is trying to do.

It makes for an incredibly strange episode with a bunch of elements that never come together; a naked and despondent Charlie, Travis’s sudden, deep addiction, an underutilized Deidrich Bader as an assistant coach with stepfather issues who almost throws away the season, and an Isla/Jay dynamic Running Point wants to have, but has no coherent ability how to build (or even tease)… these underwhelming stories are all happening in their own little vacuums, with only Isla’s presence in all of them to hold it all together.

Throw on top of that the undercooked sports movie cliches with jokes about “twunks” and Olivia Ann wanting a “farm in the Berkshires”, while Isla talks about how she lets her personal life affect her work (even though the series plainly states the opposite is obvious), and it becomes incredibly difficult to figure out what Running Point is trying to accomplish as a series. “The Streak”, which posits itself a weird amalgamation of Ted Lasso, Winning Time, and Succession – but one that never commits to any idea, emotion, or tone, is certainly not the winning formula (on or off the court) it’s looking for. With only two episodes to go, aggravatingly underwhelming waste of potential – and with only two episodes to go, it doesn’t seem the series is poised to find its footing and finish on strong note.

Grade: D