Coziness is a virtue only very good sitcoms can thrive on. The Fall And Rise Of Reggie Dinkins, in its seventh episode, packs in a rap beef, several callbacks, genuinely hilarious physical comedy, meaningful character growth, and a final big twist with the ease only a seasoned team of comedy ringers can deliver.
Written by Mamoudou N’Diaye and Evan Susser, “The World Is Full of Beaks” pecks away the remaining barrier between documentary maker and subject, as Reggie goes all in to help the lovesick Arthur, while Monica and Brina’s evolving friendship does the same. (Brina’s troubled relationship is with Chloe Troast’s OnlyFans rapper Jynnysyz over video-game royalties for their new collab.) All the while, C-team Rusty and Carmelo continue to deliver from the sidelines.
There’s still narrative drive behind the typically packed comic shenanigans. Reggie takes Arthur on a tour of his childhood Brooklyn neighborhood for the kind of searching walk-and-talk interviews you need when the NFL still denies use of game footage. And Monica’s connection to her ex-husband’s business and personal life expands as she delves into Brina’s world of impossibly youthful internet fame. (Brina, marveling at Monica’s skill in teaching her to actually read contracts before signing, has formally appointed Monica her manager.)
The fact that each of these stories spins out into its own comic cul de sac would be worrisome (especially with just three episodes to go in the season) if not for how effortlessly charming it all is. His blinkered privilege aside, Reggie is openhearted to the extent that Arthur’s practiced British artistic remove has no chance. The discovery that Arthur is still stammeringly smitten with Megan Thee Stallion’s postal worker Denise is Reggie’s starting gun. If Arthur can’t see that Denise’s distanced dapping denotes “casual thing” and a phone full of unreturned blue texts shrieks desperation, then Reggie Dinkins is going to leap into the breach.
The chemistry between oddest-of-couples Tracy Morgan and Daniel Radcliffe is the show’s heart. What feels like high concept on paper is irresistibly attractive to watch, their two differently damaged former stars’ vulnerabilities meshing with ease. Arthur might protest that their bonding is just part of the documentary process, but Arthur and Reggie’s “bro-ing out” is affectingly hilarious enough that professional decorum can go hang.
Does the truncated season order rush this unlikely friendship along? Sure. Reggie, consoling the disconsolate Arthur after a grand romantic gesture goes predictably awry, might joke about the cliché of a wise older Black man advising a white guy over a shared meal of soul food, but Morgan’s way of couching utter sincerity in absurdity is unmatched.
When he, stroking Arthur’s shoulder, punctures his self pity by noting, “Everyone dies alone—unless it’s a Pompeii situation,” Arthur rightly surmises that Reggie wiping fried fish grease on his shirt and Reggie reaching out in genuine concern aren’t mutually exclusive. As Reggie notes, sagely, “Two things can be true, Arthur Tobin.”
Two things are true about The Fall And Rise Of Reggie Dinkins. The series’ initial elevator pitch (disgraced football star tries to rehab his image) recedes a little more each week. And it doesn’t truly hamper the show’s success as a character-driven hangout comedy. If Reggie Dinkins occasionally feels about as immediate an experience as Reggie and Carmelo sitting down in Reggie’s mansion to watch the new episode of true-crime show Blonde, White, And Gone, well, it’s not a bad place to be.
Erika Alexander’s Monica seems a thankless role by design. With two variously silly men to corral each week, the level-headed Monica could come off as a real killjoy, but Alexander resolutely refuses. There’s a lot of pain lurking around the Monica-Reggie relationship that the show merely hints at as Monica breathes deep every time she has to swoop in to fix one of her childish ex’s messes. Tossing a neurotically self-impressed Brit onto the couple’s carefully rebuilt foundation only increases Monica’s will to keep the life she’s built from crumbling. At the same time, Alexander exudes such pragmatic decency that you buy that this woman who once gave up her meager earnings so that teenage Reggie could commute to a more promising football school would still be invested.
The rap beef between Brina and Jynnysyz is broad stuff. (Jynnysyz’s vapid catchphrases hide the fact that she’s actually Jenny Sussman, daughter of Manhattan’s number one conjoined-twin-separating surgeon.) But Way and Alexander have sketched out a mutual respect that’s deeply refreshing in the annals of old-vs.-new-wife storytelling, and their adventure here prickles with tossed-off jokes that’d be the centerpiece of a lesser show.
Ronnie Chieng’s sleazy sports agent Barry scales new heights as a capitalist douche-bro, his initial smugness in repping Jynnysyz to rip off Brina collapsing once Monica reveals how she’s monetized the ladies’ now-performative online feud into literally hundreds of dollars. “Monetize?” Chieng’s Barry snaps in beady-eyed avarice. “Like money? Money’s the best! What’s going on?” (Thwarted, Barry spitefully hires away Monica’s assistant Chad for $250,000, ensuring more wacky office turnover.)
All three main characters bet big on themselves (Reggie literally) and lost. So when Arthur’s intermittent haunted looks when mentioning a past romantic partner pay off in the episode’s big cliff-hanger, it’s incumbent on the show to match Arthur’s disillusionment to Reggie and Monica’s. And here’s where I’m not totally sold.
Obviously, all Radcliffe’s askance glances whenever an unnamed mystery woman came up were going to pay off. And I am in no way suggesting I’m anything but happy to see Anna Camp show up (in flashbacks and then on Reggie’s doorstep) as Narcissa, the exquisitely named ex-lover Arthur claimed was his one true downfall. (Dr. Squeeze being a distant second, one imagines.)
As seen in her role as Deirdre Robespierre in Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Camp’s eyes sparkle with the sort of dangerous, manic mischief one can only imagine crippling a helpless Arthur Tobin’s health, Uber rating, and professional standing. When Arthur confides to Reggie that he’s genuinely unsure he’d still be alive if he hadn’t ghosted his three-year relationship, we believe him, and so Narcissa’s arrival just as Reggie’s counsel has seemingly set the romantically obsessive Arthur right is a suitably distressing twist.
And yet, we’ve already had more than one hint at Arthur’s fall from arthouse grace in his MCU flameout and his implied drinking problem, so I’m not sure how much we need a third—especially when laying all Arthur’s issues off on one “crazy ex-girlfriend” feels suspiciously hackneyed. And yet (again), The Fall And Rise Of Reggie Dinkins has conditioned us to assume that there are steady hands guiding its zippy season arc. Radcliffe has been a revelation as Arthir Tobin, turning the uptight Brit stereotype inside out with expertly executed cutaways to his past forays into obsessive parkour and “the shuffling lifestyle” leveling Arthur’s craziness up to Reggie’s level.
Stray observations
- • “So you and Monica really had kind of a Romeo And Juliet thing going on.” “Yeah, including the part where the priest poisoned her. But he was poisoning everybody.”
- • “She’s in her room listening to The Cure. I think she’s sad, but it might mean something different when you’re not a white teenager.”
- • A “Page Six” story about Reggie’s post-divorce dating habits (“Don Juan De Park-o”) also features items about Pharrell’s hat and the sure-to-endure ice-bucket challenge.
- • Radcliffe’s parkour (as Mr. Ricochet) was a nifty stunt swap, but damned if it didn’t look like he actually leapt over Reggie’s car hood in the callback. (He’s definitely doing his own Melbourne shuffling.)
- • The title refers to Reggie’s mom letting him learn about penguins the hard way.
Dennis Perkins is a contributor to The A.V. Club.
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