The new HBO comedy “Run” is one of those high concept, “What if?” shows that doesn’t quite hang together.
It’s not that the talent isn’t there. Boldface names — several Emmy award winners — abound, but the energy they bring to the screen doesn’t stop the show from running out of steam by Episode 3.
Imagine the pitch meeting in Hollywood: “We’ve got this guy and this girl who made a bond when they were in college that whenever they texted the word ‘Run’ to the other, they would drop everything they were doing, meet and run off together. And then what? So nearly two decades after college, when life has soured on them, they do it! Yeah! And the guy, let’s call him Billy (Domhnall Gleeson), he’s a writer of self-help books but basically a fake, texts his college girlfriend, Ruby (Merritt Wever), while she’s sitting in her car, parked at a mall in California, bored to death. She texts him back and they’re off!”
“Run” creator Vicky Davis and executive producer Phoebe Waller-Bridge (“Fleabag”) are hoping that the frenetic activity of their leads deflects from the lack of plotting. Billy and Ruby run through airport terminals, scamper through train cars and whirl around in train stations, wondering if they can go back to being 18 again. We all know the answer to that question. Part of Ruby’s fantasy is thinking she’ll have torrid sex with her old boyfriend, but the abundance of verbal foreplay and not sex finally drives Ruby to ask some unpleasant questions.
From the looks of it, her undergraduate honey is a fraud fleeing a spurned girlfriend (Fiona, played by Archie Panjabi) and a terrible business decision. It doesn’t honor an actress of Wever’s intelligence to have Ruby be such a feckless creature. Waller-Bridge apparently likes female characters who dither about, creating problems and being drawn to something they really can’t have (i.e., happiness). That worked when the impossible object was the Hot Priest on “Fleabag.” Andrew Scott’s charisma would make anyone invent sins just to stay longer in the confessional booth.
Poor Billy comes across, instead, as a ne’er-do-well who destroyed his life –and more. Perhaps the writers think this makes him more sympathetic, vulnerable and desirable, but if your goal in life is to sound like the last song on a Joni Mitchell album, have at it. Otherwise, with all the trains, planes and automobiles available on “Run,” keep going.
There are redeeming moments. Wever has a hilarious scene with Panjabi ā;where she literally falls out of a department store fitting room with a cocktail dress pulled over her head. Writhing on the floor in a fuschia tube of fabric until Panjabi comes to the rescue gives Wever a chanceā to display her considerable comic gifts.
Questions arise throughout the viewing of the show. Why do these two characters still have each other’s phone numbers 20 years after college? Would Ruby really be texting Billy? After her husband freezes her credit cards post-escape, would she really continue with this charade, especially as there is still no sex. You can feel the writers coming up with new ideas to keep Billy and Ruby together — Let’s have them book a hotel room they can’t afford! Let’s have them shop for fancy clothing! — but it’s pretty obvious that they don’t have much in common anymore.
Wever is having a great year, having aced her first lead role as a homicide detective in Netflix series “Unbelievable,” but this does not add to her luster. Panjabi has been out of circulation for too long following her mysterious exit from “The Good Wife.” Waller-Bridge needs to exercise better judgment before she attaches her name to another project. Or they might take back one of those awards she won for “Fleabag.”