Spoiler alert: this recap assumes you’ve seen episode eight of Vinyl on HBO or Sky Atlantic. Don’t read on if you haven’t.
‘It’s the Peter principle – you’ve risen to the level of your own incompetence’
In the space of one cigarette, Richie Finestra’s world falls apart. Vinyl is as guilty as any macho prestige drama of fetishising smoking. But that final sequence was something elegant, as the cops’ case against Richie became unavoidable and he pulled on the thing way into the filter. Despite everything, you might feel sorry for Richie after Joe Corso fitted him up for Buck’s murder. But his antics in Vegas last week, gambling the rest of the company’s money away and letting Zak think it was his fault, have rendered the guy pretty much irredeemable by this point.
By contrast, another solid and enjoyable episode finds things coming together for everyone else. As Lester’s charming schooling of the Nasty Bits in the blues proved, it was as simple as ... well, E A B. Lester gained a sense of purpose beyond screwing Richie over, establishing a genuine bond with his charges and finding an outlet for his lost creativity. And by co-opting one of Lester’s songs, the Bits become the band they were always threatening to be. Even James Jagger put in a performance that approached relatable.
Also fulfilling his potential as more than just a bankrupt doofus is Zak, who actually seems to be on to something with his wheeze of repurposing the wedding singer from his daughter’s Bat Mitzvah as a MiniMe-Bowie. Scott certainly thinks so, and while there’s something creepily Mormon about Gary/Xavier there’s no denying the eerie beauty of his vocal (as voiced again by Trey Songz in the body of Douglas Smith).
Richie will be kicking himself because of Clark, too: he was supposed to be the white man to co-opt black culture and capitalise on the emerging hip-hop. All it took the hapless schmuck to catch a break was being nice to Jorge in the postroom by sharing the office coke supplies. Not only did he discover he could dance, but he was taken beyond the curtain into this magical world of “people playing two records at the same time”. If there was something a little touristy and “ooh look at all these exotic black people having fun” about Clark’s revelation – well that probably is what it would have felt like to a guy like that.
Yes, as New York swings into various new ages, Richie’s hubris finds him missing out on all the fun. And now he’s incarcerated having just borrowed $100,000 from a dangerous gangster. This cannot end well.
‘My friend and I are only here for the night, and I hear if you hang around long enough you might meet a famous person’
Also flourishing away from Richie is his wife, as the emancipation of Devon Finestra continues, finally at speed. It may or may not be significant that she doesn’t appear to really notice her kids, but here is a woman in bloom, as she and Ingrid revel in their arty past. A night out at Max’s Kansas City sees Devon barely noticing The Wailers onstage as she proves herself quite the smooth operator when freed up and living off her wits. She shrewdly secures a photograph of John Lennon where photographer Billy McVicar had failed. The subterfuge turns her on, which turns Billy on, and before the prints in the darkroom have even dried, Devon is finally cheating on her husband. Before, her woes were the frustrations of a relapsing junkie’s wife. Now, it’s moot whether she even wants her old husband back. Can news of his predicament change that?
Fact and fiction
Devon comes across Lennon out at Max’s in the midst of his Lost Weekend. The woman with him is May Pang, the assistant with whom Yoko Ono insisted he have an affair. Lennon’s 18-month stint in Pang’s New York apartment saw him complete three albums, Mind Games, Walls and Bridges and Rock’n’Roll. An unorthodox way to save a marriage, but it worked. “I was very aware that we were ruining each other’s careers and I was hated and John was hated because of me,” Ono said later of their rocky patch. “I needed a rest. I needed space. Can you imagine every day of getting this vibration from people of hate? You want to get out of that.” For her part, Pang reckoned “it was with her permission. She wanted him to go out. They were having problems. He was ready to go out with somebody, whether it was me or anybody else.”
Sound and vision
This week was notable for the UK rock duo Royal Blood’s comeback with the thunderous Where Are You Now? The track was written especially for the show, and took inspiration from Richie himself and his cokey ways. Frontman Mike Kerr told Noisey: “Hearing Richie Finestra talk about the first time you heard a song that made your hairs on the back of your neck stand up or made you wanna dance or kick someone’s arse, I just wanted to write a song that gave me that sort of buzz.” Kerr may want to exercise caution in taking any more lessons from our protagonist.
Elsewhere, there’s fun to be had with repeated mentions of American Century’s current biggest hit, Hocus Pocus, by ridiculous Dutch prog yodellers Focus.
But this week’s classic track can only be the dangerously funky Wild Safari from Barrabas, as Clark has his epiphany.
Sleeve notes
Incredible fierceness from Andrea: “Guess what Hal, cakes are already shaped like records!”
The Finestra kids threw the cat down the stairwell because they thought it would just get up because of the nine lives thing. Even better was Devon’s nonplussed reaction to it. Go, parenting!
A few weeks ago I wondered whether Julie would turn out to be the label’s inevitable closet gay. But no, it’s definitely Scott the lawyer. The way he gazes adoringly at Gary/Xavier more than once this week puts the smart money on that relationship being a storyline in season two.
Having said that, next week’s episode is titled Rock’n’Roll Queen, so they might be going there sooner than next season.
The latest confirmed residents on the American Century roster: Doctor Hook and Slade. Richie’s forced rendition of C’mon Feel The Noize is (really not) quite something.
Is it time to ask for a spin-off series for Detectives Whorisky and Renk? I think it is.
