Trust Me“Before and After”
Original Air Date: Jan 26, 2009
Kara – TwoCents Staff Writer
kara@thetwocentscorp.com
Trust Me follows Mason McGuire and his copywriting partner Conner in the world of advertising. Conner is all about the one tagline and he and Mason bounce ideas and images off of each other like they're playing a highly caffinated game of tennis. They're working to come up with a good campaign for cell phone company Arc Mobile and Conner has come up with Spar-text-icus, which I kept insisting was a terrible idea. Conner didn't listen but I didn't expect him to.
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[photo: TNT]
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Trust Me
ReplyDelete“Before and After”
Original Air Date: January 26, 2009
Kara – TwoCents Staff Writer
Trust Me follows Mason McGuire and his copywriting partner Conner in the world of advertising. Conner is all about the one tagline and he and Mason bounce ideas and images off of each other like they're playing a highly caffinated game of tennis. They're working to come up with a good campaign for cell phone company Arc Mobile and Conner has come up with Spar-text-icus, which I kept insisting was a terrible idea. Conner didn't listen but I didn't expect him to.
Stu, the creative director (played by Jason O’Mara, who channels Jeremy Piven in the role), throws a tantrum after the idea he’s been working on for six months gets shot down. He shuts himself in his office and is found dead by the new girl, Sarah, who wanted to discuss how she didn’t have the window office she was promised. The next day, Conner, who up until this point has been the least serious part of the firm, goes into Stu's office and lies down on his floor in a rare and beautiful display of vulnerability. It's subtle but poignant. Equally strong of a moment is later, when Conner finds out that Mason has been promoted to Stu's position through a memo handed to him during a brainstorming session with Mason. He posts it to their idea wall with a thumbtack slammed through the photo of Mason's face and storms out.
New girl Sarah is used to being the best and has many awards on display on her desk to prove it. Her only weakness in copywriting is shampoo but even Conner admits that's a tough one. She's undoubtedly the sore thumb of the group, standing out amongst a group of slightly neurotic men. Her solo act is interrupted when she helps out the two guys with cubicles next to her, the very same guys who looked through her stuff earlier. They need a catchprase and lose a debate against Mason about whether or not having a tagline is the thing of the past. Mason effortlessly rattles off a dozen of the most memorable taglines in the past few decades. Sarah finds a tagline and a good one, buried within their presentation notes.
With Conner MIA, it's up to Mason to come up with an idea, any idea to pitch to the client so that rival Simon Cochran doesn't take over the account. The client dismisses Simon's idea as too safe and explains that he wants an idea that sort of scares him. Mason takes the opportunity and describes an ad where a man is losing everything, his wife, his job, his house, all because he can't think of the one big idea at an important meeting. We see all of this acted out through a dream sequence like moment, showing Mason as the man losing it all. Finally, the man thinks of an idea and rushes on a bicycle to the meeting but knows he won't make it in time. He texts it while riding the bicycle and feels victorious. Mason goes a bit too far and describes the man getting hit by a bus and flying into the arms of Mike Ditka but brings it back around with a text message from Conner that simply says, “What can you do with one hand?” And they're golden.
Trust Me is every bit the show I hoped it would be and then some. I'm a Tom Cavanagh fan from the Ed days and while I loved Ed, I think he's really hit it with this show. His character, Conner, is so captivating, he makes me think of how Jeffrey Donovan gets swallowed up in a character, like his Michael Westen from Burn Notice or David Creegan from Touching Evil. In my book, when the Jeff Donovan comparisons get broken out from their box, you're doing something very, very good.
Tom Cavanagh and Eric McCormack seem like they're brothers and pull off being friends for seven years very well. There's a natural dynamic between the two that makes you wonder if anyone else could have played the roles and produced anything near as electric. I also like Monica Potter's character, Sarah. She's a bit quirky and displaced in the firm but it works. One of my favorite scenes was a Breakfast Club-esque moment with Conner hiding under Sarah's desk. I forsee a great deal of competition between the two copywriters, laced with some good old fashioned sexual tension.
So, what did you think about Trust Me? Do you love it, hate it or are you somewhere in between? Do you think we'll ever find out Conner's last name? Do you hate Spar-text-icus as much as I do? Tell me your TwoCents in the comments!