Trigger Warning for sexual assault.
The Major Players:
Lisa Nova is played by Rosa Salazar. You’ve probably seen her in Alita: Battle Angel and The Divergent Trilogy. You should make a point to see Rosa Salazar’s work as the star of Amazon Prime’s Undone. It’s a rotoscoped show about loss, mental health, and spirituality that touched me to my core. I can’t wait to get destroyed again when season two drops.
In the pilot, “I Exist,” Lisa Nova is destiny personified. She uses her confidence and determination as super powers as she wades her way out of filming a project in the wilderness and into the ultra-abusive world of Hollywood. Lisa admits that she can get lost in a project and doesn’t fight others who tell her that she can use people to get what she wants. But Lisa seems to be a good soul. One who is followed by a mysterious biker that she kind of recognizes. She thinks she’s about to make her directorial debut, but a gross mogul steals it from her. Lisa seeks revenge.
Boro is played by Katherine Keener. You should know her from a ton of stuff like Being John Malkovich, The 40 Year Old Virgin, and Kidding. When we first see Boro, she’s hiding from Lisa in the shadows while watching cats eat a dead coyote. Boro does formerly introduce herself to Lisa later and warns her that things will not go her way. Lisa should call on Boro in her hour of need.
Late in the pilot we find out that she is President of an eerie motorcycle club. Although she is seen giving a signature back-tat to a member of the MC, Boro is no Clay Morrow or Jax Teller. She’s way more hard core. None of the Sons of Anarchy were ever able to make someone spit up a kitten like a hairball.
Lou Burke is played by Eric Lange. You’ve seen him in TV and movies like Narcos and Antebellum. The first time I saw him was as Stuart Radzinsky on LOST. If you watched the show and remember that super cool, glow-in-the-dark blast door map, you remember his character.
In the pilot, Lou Burke is controlling from the start. He carries himself like he’s in some kind of recovery. Even if you didn’t read anything leading up to the show, you get the vibe that Lou is not a great guy and he’s up to something suspect. And, he totally is. Lou hasn’t had a hit in a minute. He finds Lisa’s short movie and loves it. He steals the movie away from Lisa. All he offers her in return is writing credits, death threats, and coke fueled acts of sexual harassment.
Code is played by Manny Jacinto. You’ve seen him in The Good Place and Bad Times at the El Royale. You can catch him in the upcoming Nine Perfect Strangers and Top Gun: Maverick.
In the pilot, Code is Lisa’s best friend and possible former boyfriend. But he wouldn’t agree with the boyfriend part. There is a clear bond between Lisa and Code that feels like it was forged in something deep. He is the one character that isn’t overly suspicious of Lisa or trying to take advantage of her.
Roy Hardaway is played by Jeff Ward. You’ve see him in Marvel’s Agents of S.H.E.I.L.D. and Creed.
In the pilot, Roy is a big time actor who’s face is plastered on billboards in downtown LA. He seems beholden to Lou in some way. Roy also seems to know what Lisa is set to experience. He is slightly sympathetic towards her.
Christine is played by Hannah Levien. You may know her from the Divine Tragedies and Killer Body.
In the pilot, Christine is Code’s girlfriend. She’s in real estate and helps Lisa score the top apartment of an abandoned building. It’s totally not the penthouse. Christine is a chill person. She’s also the only one to look through Lisa and see some hidden energy or intensity. This doesn’t make Christine hate Lisa. She’s just guarded around her.
Jules Brandenburg is played by Jayson Blair. You may know him from Whiplash, Freefall, and the New Normal.
In the pilot, Jules helps Lisa by reading her contract with Lou. While he warns her that no director is irreplaceable, Jules insists that the contract specifies Lisa as the director. By the end of the episode, Lou has stolen Lisa’s movie from her and made Jules the director. He may also have had his girlfriend get plastic surgery on her face.
Zelda is played by Skylar Radzion. You may have seen her in Supernatural or The 100.
In the pilot, Zelda’s face is heavily bandaged. When the bandages are removed, she should look like Darryl Hannah. Also, she makes good breakfast pastries. They looked like either French Toast or something else from scratch.
Brand New Cherry Flavor, episode 1 “I Exist,” is directed by Arkasha Stevenson. She’s directed episodes of Channel Zero and Briar Patch. Plus, she directed “Chapter 24” of Legion. I love Legion. I loved that episode. Check it out.
This is a noir of several varieties. The color is vivid all the time, but the lighting is dark and shadowy exactly where it needs to be. I love the mockumentary style editing of shows that aren’t really mockumentaries like Brooklyn Nine-Nine. There are a lot of hyper focuses one after the other. They add empahasis to a joke more than a laugh track ever could. Here, similar edits, focuses, and pans are made in slow motion. They’ll be a quick montage of classic downtown LA, street signs, and palm trees. But the city looks a little off. The street signs are spray painted with multiple tags. And, man alive, those palm trees look sinister as can be. Arkasha Stevenson does this by focusing the shot and then letting it fade in ever so slightly. It’s an effect you might feel in real life if you were staring at something for too long. It feels like it’s getting closer. I couldn't help but feel that some of these establishing shots were from the POV of someone with a thousand-yard-stare: just looking out into the open until something startles them. Arkasha Stevenson sets an atmosphere and goes off.
What Happens:
It’s November of 1990. Lisa Nova speeds into Los Angeles from the film shoot she was directing in the wilderness. She’s followed by a motorcycle that stops and watches her get into a phone booth. Her old friend and possibly ex, Code, let’s her crash on his couch. His girlfriend Christine is cool with the situation in the morning.
Lisa goes to a sushi joint where she meets Lou Burke. He’s an Oscar winning producer who hasn’t had a hit since 1986. He says it was fate that led him to watch Lisa’s short film. He’s loves the intense nature of the film and agrees to option it. He writes her a check for $10,000 on the spot.
Christine uses her real estate access to find Lisa a perfectly creepy apartment in an abandoned building. It appears the previous owners just up and left. Christine warns Lisa about the coyotes in the neighborhood. On her first night alone, Lisa thinks she hears a coyote. When she goes downstairs to check, she sees a dead coyote being eaten by several feral cats. When Lisa goes back inside, we meet Boro for the first time. She was in the shadows watching Lisa. Did Boro kill the coyote and feed it to the cats? Did the cats kill the coyote and eat it? Is the answer to both questions yes?
Meanwhile, Lisa and Lou forge a working relationship. Lou tries to come off as a quirky, fatherly type. Lisa starts to doubt herself. She has signed a contract that Code’s friend, Jules, goes over for her. He warns her that even Steven Spielberg could be fired, but Lisa is set to direct her movie per the terms of the contract. Lisa holds on to this as the process of selling herself to producers becomes more difficult. Lou’s reliance on the term “sell-yourself” makes the odds of him being total slime fairly high.
On the way to a big meeting with the producer who funded Sex, Lies, and Videotape, Lou declares that Lisa and he make a good team. He puts an exclamation on this by firmly grabbing Lisa’s inner thigh. Lou is also acting as if he’s high. At the party, he tells Lisa to look cool and wanders off.
Big time actor Roy Hardaway shows up and talks to Lisa. He points to a strange woman that has been watching her. It’s Boro. She formally introduces herself and immediately tells Lisa that her meeting is happening without her. Boro forces her cat onto Lisa and writes the cross streets of her home Lisa’s arm. She then asks Lisa to focus on being inside of Lou’s body. Once there, she asks Lisa to break something. Boro takes her cat back from Lisa and tells her that when she comes to see her, she should bring her cat back to her. Odd.
When Lou returns, his nose has started bleeding. He explains that he had the meeting with the producer at adjoining urinals. As it turns out, all the producer needed was Lou’s assurances. But then what was the point of coming to the gallery? On the drive back, Lou tries to force himself on Lisa. When she says no, he leaves her and drives home.
At home, Lisa feels dirty and used as she sits in the bathtub. All of a sudden, Boro’s cat shows up. It’s an adorable kitty that lets out the yelpiest meows. Lisa picks her up. The next morning, she is zoned out on the couch when Code shows up and breaks the news: Jules is now directing her movie.
When Lisa goes to confront Lou, it’s clear to her that he used her. Lou appeals to Lisa by suggesting she could have a long career if she goes along with this new arrangement. Lisa just wants Lou to admit this is punishment for not sleeping with him. Lisa threatens to tell his wife and storms out.
Lou follows and choke slams Lisa on to the hood of her car and threatens her to keep quiet.
Heartbroken, Lisa drives straight to Boro’s. She discovers that the biker following her is with Boro. She is the president of a motorcycle club. Boro asks where her cat is. Lisa does not have it. She’s crying and asks for her movie back and revenge on Lou. Boro agrees, but demands first payment immediately. Boro wants the fire behind Lisa’s creativity. Lisa starts writhing in pain until she chokes up a newborn kitten like it was a hairball. Boro tells her she can keep the other cat. The revenge pact is made.
What Stands Out:
Rosa Salazar’s performance is the driving force behind the pilot. Eric Lange proves to be a great scene partner, as well. It’s their relationship that serves as the main story in “I Exist.” Lisa Nova could easily be a generic character who is dead set on being a director as fast as she can. But Rosa Salazar plays her with such warmth and soul. There’s a lot of eye acting, here. She’s confident enough to look everyone in the eye, but she does it with a smile in her own eyes. Her voice is even but full of emotion whenever she speaks. There’s not a hint of coldness within her.
Other characters ask or tell her that she has a tendency to use people. Lisa admits that she can be a bit much during production on her short films. Many people, especially James Gunn on his IG stories, will tell you that one key to being a good director is to take an acting class. You learn what your actors are going through. Plus, an acting class might help Lisa mask what she is really feeling and present a warm, confident mask to the world. I’m not saying Lisa is fake. I think she has love in her heart. And she’s earnest. But she is definitely controlling the persona that she presents to the world. Like many people, Lisa probably does this to protect herself from predators who might otherwise perceive her as naive.
Rosa Salazar walks with soft steps that are also confident strides. She leaves tiny pauses before she speaks. You almost miss them, but once you see it, they are always there. The character will interrupt if the conversation drifts to screenwriting that needs to be edited. Salazar is playing a character within a character. There’s the real Lisa and the one she presents. It’s a heightened version of herself. It’s a version that she may like more than her regular self. That can easily present as a snarky, irritating character. But Rosa Salazar humanizes it and made me feel the earnest nature of her character. That makes everything that happens to her suck that much more.
Eric Lange really made me root for Lou to not be a creep. But from the start, he is controlling and knows that Lisa is going to be an easy mark. He just needs her to sign the contract so he owns the rights to her movie. Then he can go for his disgusting bonus: trying to force himself on her. I get that this still happens today. But he makes it feel so compulsory. Like, Lou almost forgot the part where he’s supposed to try and assault Lisa.
Even though he is a garbage person, Lou starts off with enough eccentricities to come off as an okay guy. Eric Lange does this by also playing a character within a character. Where Rosa Salazar is trying to diffuse vulnerability with a powerful warmth, Eric Lange is trying to transform his disregard for other humans into something less horrific. He does this by playing Lou as a bit aloof. He has some tells, as well. At their first conversation in the sushi joint, Lou looks genuinely aggravated at Lisa’s blunt question: “what are we doing here.” But, Lange quickly switches that aggravation into a look of hurt. His response is essentially, “I want to help make your movie. But if you don’t want help…”
I mentioned that Lou seems like he’s coked up when he tries to assault Lisa. Later on he mentions he gave up coke as a promise to his wife. Maybe he uses coke in his affairs that don’t include his wife. Or, something more sinister. When anyone talks to someone new, there’s that anxious feeling that slides up from your tummy to your chest and makes you almost start shivering. It’s probably feelings plus adrenaline. (You can say that you never feel that. This is the Internet. That’s fine. Meanwhile, you totally feel that, reader!) I think that is the feeling Lou is having in the car on the way to the gallery. It makes it even grosser. Like. This is how he meets people. He exploits and emotionally maimes them. Then goes for their body. Lange made me feel that, anyway. It was like Anthony Anderson asked for the real Lou Burke to stand up and he did.
I zoned in on Lisa and Lou’s use of the word “not.” Lou defines her as “obviously not from LA.” When Lisa tries to make declarative statements about herself in a confident tone, Lou refers to them as puzzle pieces. He’s trying to negate her being from the start. He interrupts her continuously. He acts like he’s having a horrible time until Lisa lets her guard down and sounds a little to earnest when she asks “You’ll help me make my movie?” This is the first time Lou smiles. He has her.
From then on, Lou has Lisa working on how to sell herself to Hollywood. There’s almost no double entendre there. He’s trying to tell her that she’ll need to open her legs to open doors. Lou is doing it nicely, by which I mean heinously. All of a sudden, Lisa is qualifying herself: “I know you’ve heard this before. But I’m not like other directors.” Lou knocks that down and slams her for saying what she is not. He knows he has control. He tries to appeal to her with a sob story about an injury from when he was a kid. Is it real? Could be. IIt doesn’t matter because it’s just a tool to suck her in.
When Lou gets Lisa to admit her audience is the mom that left her shortly after childbirth, Lou knows that Lisa totally trusts him. She’s impressionable. They’ve shared things with each other. He can now move forward with what he really wants. For me the most telling of all the most telling aspects of the Lisa and Lou relationship was the start of the confrontation scene. Lou is holding his pet falcon. Falcons are predators like Lou. But he has a shield over the falcon’s eyes. Sure. That’s part of being a falconer. But here is Lou holding a predator that has been rendered benign. It’s Lou being Lou. Lisa, on the other hand, has the shields off of her eyes and she’s ready to eat her prey.
One last thing: Rosa Salazar does play Lisa as this warm, earnest person. She has her movie taken away from her and she essentially becomes disassociated from the character she is playing. My heart broke for her. Who knows what she really did to get where she was at. And in an instant, it all was taken from her. Lisa’s rush to get revenge is understood, but seems awfully dangerous. I have OCD, anxiety, and depression. Also I’m sappy. So, I cried with her.