WHO’S IN IT?

Fuckin’ NOBODY

THE PREMISE

A based-on-true-events story about legendary traitor Aldrich Ames

WHAT WORKS

WHAT DOESN’T

First of all, the first character we see is Aldrich Ames walking into a restaurant. He looks like the love child of Michael Keaton and Richard Harrow (the man with half a face on Boardwalk Empire), which is NOT the look. He orders a martini straight-up, yet when it arrives, there is an olive in it. That is not straight-up. Then we get to meet the “star” of this show, a CIA employee named Sandy Grimes. Let’s get into Sandy for a moment. She went to the same acting school as Agent Keen from The Blacklist, and she failed all of her classes too. She is fucking terrible. She has a husband and two kids, a teenager and another one. At one point, the teenager comes downstairs in something whorish and both parents object and make her change. When she goes upstairs, Sandy thanks her husband for “having her back.” Did I mention this takes place in 1985? I am pretty sure that was not a saying in 1985. By the way, Sandy looks like a super brokedown Jan to Betty Draper’s Marsha. Bitch is busted.

This show is a fucking turd. The acting, casting, writing, production values, etc. are all bottom-notch. Who wanted this story to be told? Who the fuck paid for this to be told? Timothy Hutton already did a TV movie about this guy in 1998 called Aldrich Ames: The Traitor Within. That was 16 years ago?! Not only is this not timely, it is horrible. The two most eye-rolling scenes, among many, involve our Sandy (you know she auditioned for TNT’s The Looker). After some shit goes down at work, she is at home going through it. And by “going through it” I mean she is standing in front of an open fridge staring into the abyss. Teenager comes downstairs and tells Sandy that she needs some T to the 4th power Y because she wants to go to some party. Without warning, Sandy blurts out “NOT NOW” in a shrill, poorly executed, bark. Teenager walks away, then Sandy looks back into the abyss and says in a near whisper, “That was bad.” Just like this show, bitch.

In an earlier scene, she is at a bar after work (in Panama) blowing off steam… which is a politically correct way of saying bitch is in the sauce. Sandy is sitting at the bar, and a guy (an asset that dies later in the episode that she mourns by staring into the abyss) comes and sits by her and starts chatting her up. I blacked out due to boredom for a second, and when I came to, she was flashing her wedding ring trying to shoo him away. Nobody is clawing to get into this catbox. If they hadn’t already established at the beginning of the episode that she was married, I would have pegged that ring as a decoy to keep unwanted advances away. But look at her! The only thing “advancing” on her is the monster from the Zicam commercials, and he only wants to give her ass a cold.

THE GRADE: F.

UPDATE: This bargain basement shit show was cancelled after two episodes.