This overlooked sitcom skewered Hollywood better than The Studio

Sydney Morning Herald

5 days ago

Hollywood loves little more than making stories about itself and this year, there have been two standouts in the genre: The Studio focused on the existential-financial crises of making movies, while the fourth season of comedy Hacks turned its crosshairs to the sorry state of late-night television.
Both shows are sharp satires about whether success and creative integrity are oil and water in Hollywood, with plenty of bite aimed at a scared industry reluctant to take leaps as it faces a chasm.
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In Hacks, veteran stand-up Deborah Vance (Jean Smart) lands her lifelong dream gig as a late-night host, but she and head writer/whiny millennial protégée Ava Daniels (Hannah Einbinder) immediately face cancellation, as the genre itself faces extinction in the age of streaming.
Meanwhile, Seth Rogen pulled in every favour he could for The Studio, a sleek and star-studded satire for Apple TV+, with everyone from Martin Scorsese and Ron Howard to TikTok star Charli D'Amelio and Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos playing themselves. Co-created by Rogen with long-time collaborator Evan Goldberg, the comedy focuses on a Hollywood studio head (Rogen) trying to produce genuine art in a corporate industry focused on maximal profits and bankable IP.
Both series are also love letters to Hollywood – their characters may be power-hungry and occasionally amoral, but they are talented and guided by a true love of art. But isn't that a generous depiction?
What about the true hacks of Hollywood, the grifters who seemingly care about little but their own fame? Enter the namesakes of The Other Two – one of the past decade's most criminally under-seen satires, and a quick three-season watch on Max.
Created by former SNL co-head writers Chris Kelly and Sarah Schneider, the show focuses on these two aimless 30-something siblings, former dancer Brooke (Heléne Yorke) and struggling gay actor Cary (Drew Tarver). When their 13-year-old brother Chase (Case Walker) becomes overnight pop sensation ChaseDreams after his (completely asinine, Friday -esque) song Marry U At Recess goes viral, the two ride his coattails.
Brooke decides to girlboss without direction, eventually becoming his co-manager; Cary rides the success of ChaseDream's second single My Brother's Gay and That's Okay! to land more roles.
Neither Brooke nor Cary are particularly talented or, necessarily, smart – The Other Two isn't the story of the compromised artist as in Hacks or The Studio. Instead, it's one of jaded people thrown an opportunity, trying to make a mark (and money) however they can.
The show is particularly biting on self-branding masquerading as activism. Brooke dabbles in slacktivism to feel as though she's making a difference, while Cary equally positions his acting career as a battleground for LGBTQ representation.
There are plenty of other nefarious sharks circling Chase, too, as manager Streeter (Ken Marino) and label exec Shuli (Wanda Sykes) work him to the bone. They sell his armpit pictures to Rolling Stone for $8 million, set up fake relationships for cross-promotion and wring out countless brand partnerships, including a mobile phone company (much like Ryan Reynolds), nail polish line (much like Harry Styles) and an oil pipeline (kinda like RuPaul, who has been criticised for allowing fracking on his land).
And Chase's mum Pat – Molly Shannon, in a career best – may seem like a mid-western sweetheart, but she's just as shrewd, soon becoming a celebrity in her own right as an Ellen-like daytime talk show host with a not-so nice private side.
But ChaseDreams isn't the Bieber brat you might expect. For the most part, he's relatively level-headed, even as his surroundings should distort him into an absolute nightmare.
Instead, he's the straight guy in a surreal famescape, with the show more about clawing towards celebrity from the sidelines.
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It's a position that Kelly and Schneider presumably know well from SNL, where each week they'd work with – or tiptoe around – a host's ego and persona. (Perhaps not incidentally, SNL castmate Bill Hader once called Bieber, who hosted under Schneider and Kelly's tenure, the worst-behaved host.)
With rapid-fire dialogue reminiscent of 30 Rock – a writing style forged from SNL, where Tina Fey also came up – there's a real frantic, occasionally over the top energy to the show, mirroring Cary and Brooke's desperate reaches for power. And plots are delightfully ludicrous with the second and third seasons matching the general hysteria of the 2020s.
While a critical darling, the show struggled to find an audience while airing. Some of its Simpsons -style predictions have given it a second life online, however, with several of its more ridiculous plot lines coming true in the past year.
Back in May, supermodels Gigi and Bella Hadid's announcement that their father had a secret daughter was oddly reminiscent of a season two plot around the ultra-secret reveal party of the 'third Hadid sister' hosted by Vogue, where she stood in the corner underneath a white sheet.
And while The Other Two didn't take Katy Perry to space (that was Jeff Bezos), Brooke went twice in one episode, when two consecutive men she's dating become billionaires, and their immense wealth suddenly renders Earth boring. Sound familiar?
Naturally, the show's most prescient element was more meta: The Other Two, a satire of ego and resentment curdling people's values and behaviour, was marred by allegations that its creators Kelly and Schneider had created a toxic workplace environment, with the former accused of verbally abusing writers and overworking staff and the latter accused of enabling that behaviour.
One insider told The Hollywood Reporter, 'There's a lot of Chris and Sarah in the show … I think a lot of their frustration comes from not being on camera… These are two people who started off as improvisers. This is a show about people who are hungering for fame.'
The allegations were made public before the show's surprisingly sweet finale in 2023, but a statement from the creators said the show's end was already planned. Neither have publicly commented on the allegations, but sources told The Hollywood Reporter that a formal investigation cleared the two of wrongdoing during production. Max, Kelly and Schneider were all contacted for comment in this story.
For better or worse, acidity corroded The Other Two into the dark, cynical and deeply funny show it is. While Cary and Brooke have redemptions written in, Kelly and Schneider haven't yet announced any follow-up projects. Meanwhile, several of the writers have gone on to great success, including recent Tony Award winner Cole Escola and Paul W. Downs and Lucia Aniello who form two thirds of the team behind Hacks… who also cameoed as themselves in The Studio.
Like I said, Hollywood really loves going meta.