Lodge 49 Season 1 Review: Shell Game of the Gods

It takes talent to make a brutally honest point without talking down to anyone. Lodge 49 is like a low level LSD trip at your own intervention. I can't remember anything in print or film skewering my life choices as deftly as this. The kicker is it does all that while never being a total downer. It's a tight, intense, hug of a show. But you gotta jump in with both feet and roll with it.

The death of his father and the demise of the pool shop they ran together puts Dudley in a state of denial. His sister isn't any better off emotionally what with her hooters-esque waitress job and her dad's crushing debt. This sounds like it should be either boring or depressing but there's just something about the characterization and the way every scene flows that keeps you hooked. Plus once Dud stumbles into the lodge The gears shift into the rest of the season's comfy and occasionally terrifying groove.

The series branches off into two distinct halves. One with Dud and Ernie (plumbing salesman and Luminous Knight of the Order of the Lynx) trying to keep the place afloat in the wake of a leadership vacuum. The other is Liz's soul flaying journey of self destruction. This show is clearly written by service industry veterans and it all hit so close to home I jumped ahead more than once out of sheer PTSD. Dreaming I was at work was my last straw too.

Her story didn't arc the way I expected it to. Nothing arced the way I expected it to. Each story thread ends like a shaggy dog only for a new thread to pop up to make you forget about the other one. Then, If you really pay attention, answers you had for questions 3 episodes ago seep through almost like background gags.The Lodge's restraint from ever going full Twin Peaks is awe inspiring. It's got some fun mythology but it knows everybody is showing up for the character drama. A scene involving someone telling their mom that they hate her is the most brutal 2 minutes of acting I've seen all year.

 

The Lodge might be too weird for you and that's ok. There's a lot of purposely weird and dreamlike dialogue. I get that some people need to be in the right kind of mood for that. Or at least the right kind of inebriation. Do it. Fill that tumbler to the brim and ponder the eternal with Dud and the gang. You're gonna see some weird, messed up sh*t, man. Then you're gonna see those characters go straight back to work the next day. I frikkin' love it and hope you give it a shot.