You may sense from the headline that I’m of two minds about the latest Audacity. And you would be correct: There’s a part of me that wants to proclaim “Sandbox” the pinnacle of the show’s first season, a title earned through some ingenious last-minute twists and a clear delineation of the warring factions within the series. Yet there’s also a part of me that raises an eyebrow at those battle lines being drawn during an episode where Anushka and Duncan exchange actual, verbal declarations of war one scene after the former strides onto Carl’s at-home re-creation of a historical battlefield. That fixation with military history factoring into Anushka’s endgame in the HyperGnosis boardroom nearly had me on my feet later in the episode; the earlier shot of Anushka stepping on Duncan’s face as she climbed the stairs to her new office had me sighing, “Aw, c’mon!”
So you can understand why I’m wavering, right? “Sandbox” is defined by the things I’ve enjoyed about this first season of The Audacity, as well as those that make me temper my praise. The pros: Everything snaps together in just the right way at just the right time, and while it does, the characters trade wicked barbs. The cons: Some of those characters still feel thinly defined (like Harper, whose only apparent loyalty is to their algorithm) or conveniently pliable (like Carl’s sudden, all-consuming interest in and encyclopedic knowledge of past wars), and some of the symbolism remains as blunt as Duncan giving his “favorite truffle pig” a $4,000 truffle. And yet I applaud that “fungi”/“fun guy” pun, and the perfectly placed title card drop that punctuates it.
This may be more feature than bug. Satire requires caricature and heavy-handedness to get its points across, and “Sandbox” has plenty of each. Witness Duncan’s post-HyperGnosis rebound, P.I.N.A.T.A. (no “ñ”), or “Privacy Is Not A Thing Anymore,” an acronym that would feel right at home on Rocky And Bullwinkle or in the pages of MAD Magazine. Or consider the scummy automaking bros on the receiving end of that pitch, who toss off quips like “tech lives matter” with a straight face and shoot down Anushka’s vision of a more virtuous HyperGnosis by saying “We don’t sell cars. We sell data collection devices on wheels with heated seats.” Look around the show’s version of Silicon Valley and you’ll find this model of smug sleaze all over the place: The real estate agent selling JoAnne and Gary’s house shares a shark-eyed smirk and suit-plus-open-collar-dress-shirt look with the guys from Torren.
But as the last TV series Jonathan Glatzer worked on proved, satire can also get at some profound truths and some touchingly human moments that The Audacity falls just short of this week. The depth and the soul are there, but they’re obscured by displays of human frailty that are limited almost exclusively to violent outbursts like Anushka bludgeoning the Xander tablet or Duncan throwing Tom into a table full of board meeting snacks.
I can’t say that those are the characteristics of good TV. But I am confident in saying that it’s pretty clever how those types of actions underline a new, complementary thesis to The Audacity’s takes on greed, privacy, permission, and hubris in the tech world: This is also a show about how there’s no predicting human behavior.
With all the sides being chosen in “Sandbox”—HyperGnosis versus P.I.N.A.T.A., Duncan versus Anushka, Duncan versus Lili, integrity versus selling out, privacy versus open access—it’s easy to overlook the unspoken conflict between JoAnne’s work and Harper’s. They’re competitors in separate fields, each pulling from vast reserves of knowledge and information in an attempt to explain to their clients why people act the way that they do. And while JoAnne can give someone like Anushka to a better understanding of themselves, and Harper can give the Torren guys a better understanding on who’s jacking off in their self-driving cars, there are still limits to what they can foretell. All the data flowing through Gnodin couldn’t have calculated that Anushka would secure her CEO seat by having Tom play to the only sympathy Carl seems to have. Despite JoAnne’s clinical background and untold hours of sessions with Duncan, she couldn’t have expected that he would buy her house. And that’s some smart, exciting TV writing.
Likewise: There is no “code” that Orson could’ve cracked that would’ve made Tess lean in for that kiss. (As if he could crack any code—kid didn’t even think to check the back of that lock for a combination.) Because no matter what the ripped weirdos on the internet or master salesman like Duncan might make you think, people aren’t computers. Computers don’t have desires, ethics, or morals. A sophisticated system like Xander can mimic those qualities, but it still required Anushka, and whatever guiding principles remain beneath the spite that’s currently driving her, to pull Tom out of that bottle at the VFW hall.
While it sets the stage for its killer apps to square off against one another, The Audacity is just starting to dig into the complicated muck of life in the physical world. Taking Orson’s words to heart, Duncan embraces his identity as “a bad, bad man,” the result of some soul-searching that puts even more distance between him and the crusading Anushka. (And, in a move that works well for the black-or-white extremes of a satire, places them on opposite ends of a good/evil spectrum—though I’m not totally convinced the actions Anushka takes to get Martin and Xander on her side are entirely genuine.) Meanwhile, the situation with JoAnne’s house pushes her dalliances with insider trading beyond the realm of right and wrong. Having Duncan’s six-figure bribe to jump off from, she’s presented with a quintessential question of the ends justifying the means: Isn’t keeping a roof over her family’s head worth committing a little securities fraud? And by accepting that bribe, does that create a new string that ties JoAnne to the man who has no misgivings about calling himself her puppet master? I guess buying the house himself—after JoAnne tells him to do something with his money—provides all the string he’ll ever need.
All this grappling and coming to grips is still in its infancy—this week, there’s more time devoted to underlining how thoroughly the average person has submitted to data harvesting, and how they couldn’t care less about it. (Remember the billboard from the premiere: “You agreed to this.”) The time has come to crack these characters open and see what’s inside. Not what makes them tick—they are, remember, not machines. It’s something less precise, and with the potential to take the show to a whole new level. If it can pull it off with the impact and panache of the twists and turns in “Sandbox,” I just might be comfortable with calling The Audacity both a smart and good show.
Stray observations
- • Kudos to the way the first glimpses of the World War I reenactment were shot and edited. For a few seconds, the filmmaking grammar of the show completely and convincingly changes—and made me wonder if I’d fired up the wrong screener.
- • It’s telling—but not surprising—that only Harper raises their hand when Anushka asks the gnomes if they reject all nonessential cookies while visiting a website.
- • It’s the slightest little thing, but adding that quick shot of JoAnne listening in on Anushka and Martin in the waiting room while Orson and Tess snoop on JoAnne really drives home the lack of privacy in The Audacity’s offline spaces.
- • He’s still going really big when the occasion calls for it, but Zach Galifianakis is doing some great, quiet supporting work on this show. He’s really putting that Baskets training to good use in the scene where Anushka crashes and burns with the Torren guys.
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