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“Margo’s Got Money Troubles” is an exercise in acceptance. In terms of its message, David E. Kelley’s latest series — and the first to star his wife of 33 years, Michelle Pfeiffer — aims to help the audience believe a woman can embody two historically discordant roles at the same time: that of a good mother who’s also a sex worker.
But as we watch Margo (Elle Fanning) provide for her newborn baby by posting on OnlyFans — first as a satirical writer, then a performer, and, eventually, a green-skinned alien called The Hungry Ghost — we also need to accept we’re watching a story unfold. It’s a piece of fiction. It’s rooted in reality, but it’s a reality controlled by the whims of storytellers, and thus a relatively safe reality dictated, to a certain degree, by convenience. Margo isn’t going to sign up for OnlyFans on Monday and go back to waitressing by Friday. She’s going to attract followers. She’s going to make money, at least enough to take us further down an online rabbit hole that’s still unknown territory for most Apple TV subscribers (although I shouldn’t make assumptions).
Clichés are deployed with abandon. Heartstrings are tugged with relish. Conflicts escalate at a steady pace, so as not to scare anyone away from a comedy that pays lip service to real danger without ever considering a truly dark turn. That Kelley acknowledges so many guardrails within the show — often bluntly, through Margo’s intermittent narration — doesn’t excuse them as much as it asks for them to be excused, which is… nice.
I’m sure some viewers will still say no. The instinct to recoil from convention in a story that enjoys pretending it’s strange is understandable. But that instinct didn’t strike me. “Margo’s Got Money Troubles” manages to marry its meaning and method effectively enough to make its bubbled perspective more soothing than exasperating. Once you give in, it’s quite charming. And it sure helps to have Pfeiffer, among a sterling cast, making the most of a part tailor-made for her pronounced talents.
That, too, begs a certain allowance. Everything about “Margo’s Got Money Troubles” screams “Emmy campaign,” from an awards-targeted Spring release and esteemed creative team (including Emmy-winning director Dearbhla Walsh and a producing team that consists of Kelley, Pfeiffer, Fanning, and Nicole Kidman) to its impressive cast (including Kidman) and their sweet-yet-serious roles, so perfectly calibrated to woo viewers and voters alike.
As written by Kelley (in his first non-crime drama in over a decade), Fanning’s titular lead is smart but fallible. Margo can see how things look — like when she sleeps with her professor against her friends’ advice — without succumbing to their associated assumptions (like that any professor who sleeps with his students is a scuzzball). Sometimes, her belief in people bites her in the ass (hello, unplanned pregnancy), but sometimes, it benefits her — especially when she believes in herself.
After nearly three full episodes setting up the show’s actual premise, Margo joins OnlyFans on a whim. She’s struggling to find employment conducive to her resume (as a college dropout) and availability (as a single mom). She was raised by a mother, Shyanne (Pfeiffer), who claims she’s “terrible at everything except being pretty,” and her roommate (Thaddea Graham) is into cosplay, wrestling, and the general right to free expression. Paired with Margo’s active imagination and love of writing, getting paid to describe dicks as Pokémon characters is worth a shot, right?
That’s not all she does, but “Margo’s Got Money Troubles” is refreshing in its open-minded approach to pornography and sex work. There’s wit and personality to Margo’s messages with followers, development and design for the characters she crafts, and a combination of determination and passion for what goes into building her brand. The effort is evident on her end, while the discovery is fun on ours.
Nick Offerman and Thaddea Graham in ‘Margo’s Got Money Troubles’Or mostly fun. The eight-episode series (with running times between 35-45 minutes) carries its fair share of heavy issues. Margo’s father, Jinx (Nick Offerman), is a former professional wrestler who formed an addiction to painkillers after too many in-ring injuries. Shyanne hides her daughter’s pregnancy and profession from her boyfriend Kenny (Greg Kinnear), a reverend who may not want to marry into a family living in so much sin. And then there’s the OnlyFans of it all, whose labor force can get threatened, doxxed, and worse by the site’s most toxic members.
Thrusting a baby into Offerman’s burly arms works wonders to soften up Jinx (as does the actor’s vulnerable turn), and Kenny’s arc proves surprising in the right ways (save, perhaps, one late-arriving twist). Both actors thrive, as does Fanning, who’s long been adept at smashing her presumed porcelain delicacy into sharp, striking edges. (See also: “The Great,” “The Beguiled,” and “20th Century Women.”)
But this is Pfeiffer’s show. She brings Shyanne, a character easily conceived as caricature, down to earth, filling her with earned wisdom and instinctual fear. When she hears about her daughter’s plans, first for the kid and then for how she’s supporting said kid, there’s an acute understanding fueling Shyanne’s position. She’s not happy, but her despondency has layers:
There’s a layer of disappointment, more so for what her daughter is giving up than what she’s done; there’s a layer of fear, more so for her daughter’s future than her own, but only by a hair; and then there’s a layer of anger, more so for how she knows Margo will be treated by a world that’s already unkind to women — let alone single moms, let alone poor single moms, let alone poor single moms who are also sex workers — than for the new role suddenly and unwelcomingly thrust upon her: grandmother.
Shyanne doesn’t want to be someone else’s caretaker again — not now, not when she just finished raising her only daughter. Knowing that’s how she feels yet also knowing she can’t go around blabbing about it lends Pfeiffer ample opportunity to clue us in to Shyanne’s evolving identity using all the tools in her toolkit. She delivers telling reactions only legible in her expressions, and she gives explosive speeches that somehow carry equal amounts of fury and comfort. She is, at once, a flawed human being and an ideal mom.
Seeing is believing, as they say, and in these moments with Shyanne, Jinx, and their daughter, “Margo’s Got Money Trouble” shows us enough to make buying in more rewarding than clinging to skepticism. Sure, what happens to Margo isn’t a realistic result, or even a likely one. But that’s not the point. The point is to look beyond those first impressions and see the possibility of something better. Kelley, Offerman, Fanning, and especially Pfeiffer do enough of the hard work to make acquiescence rather easy — and the ensuing journey a worthy reward.
Grade: B
“Margo’s Got Money Troubles” premiered Thursday, March 12 at the SXSW Festival. Apple TV will release the first three episodes Wednesday, April 15 followed by a weekly release through the finale on May 20.
English (US) ·