‘Big Mistakes’: An organised riot

Remember that time when you were lying in a half-dug grave of a stranger, trying to retrieve a diamond necklace? Obviously not. But that’s the thing about TV. It helps you live vicariously.

And when it comes to Dan Levy and Rachel Sennott’s ‘Big Mistakes’, there’s plenty of pleasure to derive. The sibling duo of Nicky and Morgan, a half-in-the-closet pastor and a failed New York City actress, respectively, get embroiled in the underbelly of organised crime after committing a big mistake — inadvertently stealing a local gangster’s $75,000 diamond necklace.

What follows is a series of misadventures that bring the two polar opposites closer, even if it takes putting them into life-and-death situations every seven minutes.

For better or for worse, the early parts of the series unfold like a cross between Levy’s ‘Schitt’s Creek’ and the Sennott-starrer ‘Shiva Baby’. It might feel derivative, but is still funny and relatable.

The garrulous start quickly establishes family dynamics, but there’s a looming shadow of the opening introduction for the Roses from ‘Schitt’s’. The family matriarch’s wake, meanwhile, offers insight into the claustrophobic nature of community expectations, and in turn, into the clash between the private and the public. However, it lacks ‘Shiva Baby’s’ incisive touch.

That said, fresh characters provide the potential to break new ground. In one of the series’ (very few) quieter moments, Nicky’s self-preservation instincts take a back seat as he comforts his mother. There’s rare restraint in Levy’s voice — one that is so effective in establishing the character’s calling as a priest. It’s in fact the moment where, for me, Levy goes from being David to Nicky.

Co-creator Sennott doesn’t star in the series, but Taylor Ortega, who plays Morgan, more than justifies her casting. There’s a lot riding on the character’s shoulders. After all, it is her choices that set (and keep) the ball rolling. Ortega is slick — she’s loud and funny, but leaves just enough chinks in Morgan’s voracious exterior to let the viewer peek into her weakness, her insecurities. The failed New York actress in her gets plenty of real-life situations to shine and that’s precisely what both Morgan and Ortega do.

‘Big Mistakes’ is a crime comedy and the pace is fittingly frenetic. Characters jump in and out of frames, deals are made in shady basements, the camera is always on the move and poor choices keep piling on one after the other.

Boran Kuzum anchors the criminal arc with the political correctness hardly ever afforded to jewel smugglers. Here’s a man who, just like Nicky and Morgan, is still learning the tricks of a trade that was handed to him. Sure, he’ll brandish a gun at you, but in this universe, he’ll also take offence to being labelled a Russian solely based on his accent.

There’s also a subplot about small-town politics, with the beaming Laurie Metcalf at the centre. Make what you want of a street-smart single mother in her late 50s running for Mayor against Ivy-league education and millions in campaign funds, but just watching Metcalf in a power suit makes it all worth it.

You know, we all make choices, some with consequences bigger than others. And we’re not always right.

But by putting characters, and by extension the viewer, in a stranger’s half-dug grave contemplating those choices, the series tries to tell you that big mistakes don’t always look like stolen necklaces or cheating on your fiancee with “finger stuff” (watch out for Jack Innanen in yet another breakout comedic performance). The real, actual big mistakes are more everyday choices — not standing up for your sibling, giving up on a career too easily, keeping the door half-shut on the closet and, at times, simply being too scared to make a mistake at all.