In the US: Tuesdays, 10/9c, Bravo
Con artists aren’t very nice people. They lie, cheat and steal from people to benefit themselves, those people typically being old, trusting and/or not very rich, and who therefore typically end up penniless, destitute, futureless and/or suicidal.
What. A. Downer. Huh?
It’s no surprise, therefore, that shows that have focused on ‘flim flam’ men and women, such as Leverage or Perfect Scoundrels, have usually taken no time at all to give their anti-heroes epiphanies in which they realise that their ways are indeed wicked. Before the end of the first episode even, they’re off fleecing the deserving – aka people who are both rich and dicks.
Shows that don’t? Downers.
That’s certainly how you think Imposters is going to be during its first episode. It sees Rob Heaps playing a sensitive young Jewish man who works for his family-owned firm. He sacrificed everything for his family, including his dreams of seeing Paris, and ends up thinking his life will never amount to anything. Then along comes Belgian breath of fresh air Inbar Levi, the two fall madly in love, and before you know it, they’re married and Heaps dares to dream once more.
But before you know it (again), she’s emptied their bank account, maxed out the credit cards, taken out a second mortgage on their home and stolen cash from the firm, leaving a parting video explaining that a folder of incriminating evidence will be used to destroy his parents’ marriage if he comes looking for her.
All looks bleak and Heaps even tries to commit suicide. Then comes a knock at the door… and the show changes.
Had I not fallen a little behind with my viewing schedule, I might not have bothered watching episode two of Imposters, that first ep is so fundamentally miserable. But since I hadn’t watched episode one by the time episode two aired, I ended up watching both en masse. Surprisingly, this is actually probably the best thing you can do, since episode one is less the foundation to the show than its prologue; it’s only in episode two that you find out what it’s really doing.
It would have helped if the show had stuck to its original title of My So-Called Wife, because oddly enough, Imposters is a buddy-buddy comedy. At Heaps’ door is another of Levi’s victims – Parker Young (Suburgatory, Enlisted), a knuckle-headed former quaterback and alpha male car salesman. Together, he and the equally penniless and heart-broken Heaps are going to go on a road trip together to find Levi and get their money back. Along the way, they’re going to learn the ways of the con artist, be spectacularly bad at them, develop their own code of honour, help each other to get over their former wife, and get on each other’s nerves. A lot.
Meanwhile, Levi has moved onto the next job allocated by mysterious boss ‘the Doctor’ to her and the rest of her team, who include Katherine LaNasa (Deception, Satisfaction) and Brian Benben (Dream On). With their help, she has to woo a seemingly dickish, cuckolded darts-playing bank CEO (Battlestar Galactica‘s Aaron Douglas. Yes, it’s filmed in Canada – how did you know?), who turns out to be surprisingly sweet. But she’s distracted by the possibility of true love with coffee-shop chance encounter Stephen Bishop (Being Mary Jane). Is it time to get out of ‘the life’ or will the Doctor punish her and Bishop if she tries?
All this is good frothy fun that manages to find both a little depth and a lot more jokes amidst everyone’s misery. Levi, who did little as a button-downed Israeli commando on The Last Ship, here demonstrates a really surprising range and is hugely appealing, even when she tricks and misleads everyone she meets. Young and Heaps’ routine is both funny and suitably dorky, and their slow crossing over to the dark side is entertaining to watch as they foul up time and again but slowly get better. Their ‘code’ also shows how morality can blur when you need it to, as they initially write off children and old people as potential marks, settle on ‘assholes’ as their preferred targets, then decide that ‘asshole>old people’ in their moral hierarchy when spying a particularly dickish senior with an attractively bulging wallet.
Later episodes are set to add Uma Thurman to the mix, as well as another former spouse of Levi’s – a wife this time (Marianne Rendón) – which is bound to change the dynamic of the show once again. Despite its subject matter, while black, Imposters is certainly still a comedy and well worth a try. But you’ll need to commit.