Love that scene! There was also some insanely ballsy humor around color and race (at the pool party) that they handled quite well. This show had no issues making Merchant look like a total ass.

“Chicken Wings!”

Merchant wrote Hello Ladies, correct? The writing on this show has made me want to seek out stuff he's done since Hello Ladies ended.

IIRC, Belzer had terrible auditions for L&O. So bad that Belzer himself didn’t want to do the show.

But the producers loved him and believed in him and pushed him to take the role. I think it’s cool that he had that much longevity after bombing so hard from the start.

ETA: "Barry Levinson, executive director of Homicide, said Belzer was a "lousy actor" during his audition when he first read lines from the script for "Gone for Goode", the first episode in the series. Levinson asked Belzer to take some time to reread and practice the material, then come back and read it again. During his second reading, Levinson said Belzer was "still terrible", but that the actor eventually found confidence in his performance."

Right? I felt the same way. I was wondering how that movie came about. Were they contractually obligated to do it or did they pitch it to the network? I’m not sure.

Of all the crud in the past three years I’ve watched that did not deserve a second season, I’m bummed they didn’t get a round 2.

The same goes for HBO’s Enlightened which I was obsessed with. That deserved two more seasons at least.

Yep, it's officially the 9th episode of the series on HBOMax. It was OK, more saccharine than I hoped for, but still good.

Amazing character arc that was only realized in the movie, unfortunately. I loved him.