“We’re all just putting on a show,” says Jinx the ex-wrestler. “Entertaining, as Lace or Jinx or…”
“HungryGhost,” says his daughter, Margo the OnlyFans model.
All her father’s earlier bluster about how “people of honor don’t do this” regarding her nude modeling is gone. Hell, from where he’s sitting, in the medical tent at the wrestling convention, getting paid to off your shirt without getting body slammed afterwards probably looks pretty good. Earning a real injury from having the fake crap kicked out of him by real-life wrestler Chris Jericho (playing himself) and fake wrestler Lace (played by Nicole Kidman) has given him perspective on things.
At last, her father sees what she sees: that what she’s doing is different only in degree, not in kind, from the waitressing at Hooters and the wrestling at the WWF that her mother and father were doing when they had her together. It’s all a form of performance.
Wait, did I say “at last”? I meant “about two scenes after finding out and getting mad in the first place.” That’s the frustrating thing about Margo’s Got Money Troubles: It feels like it’s being plotted on easy mode.
Think of how many times Margo’s obstacles, in the form of judgmental roommates or job interviewers or babydaddy’s moms or whatever, have made their nature as obstacles known by being so obnoxious they might as well be twirling their mustaches. To use wrestling parlance, they’re heels, garnering “cheap heat” — easy negative fan reactions — by doing lowest-common-denominator shitty stuff to the babyface, Margo. Jinx himself does it in this episode, telling his own daughter she doesn’t want to be “one of those girls.” This gives Margo an opportunity to monologue righteously, like she’s Cody Rhodes or “Hangman” Adam Page grabbing the mic and blasting Roman Reigns or Swerve Strickland. (Trust me.)
So it’s no surprise when Jinx discovers Margo taking topless pics with Susie (her costumer/photographer/daycare provider), freaks out, and makes his peace with it in less than the time it took for the Undertaker to defeat Mankind after tossing him off and through a steel cage in Hell in a Cell. (Again, trust me.) When he immediately does something incredibly stupid and breaks the hand of the professor who knocked Margo up, that’s a real basic move too: instant conflict escalation, just add a pro wrestler who decides to ignore difference between a work (a fake attack) and a shoot (a real one), brother.
Margo’s career is proceeding with the same kind of artificially increased pace. Her gag idea of comparing penises to Pokémon (“Your penis is filled with a quiet menace”) nets her some subscribers and diaper money, but not enough to make a real living. For that, she turns to a pair of nearby content creators, KC (musician Rico Nasty), aka WangMangler99, and SucculentRose (Anora’s Lindsey Normington), for advice and collaboration. It takes a grand total of two DMs, one of them a series of expletives, to win their trust and be invited to their place to feel out working together. You’re never gonna guess what they decide to do!
I will say that this episode of Margo comes closer than ever before to containing actual laughs. That line about some guy’s dick’s “quiet menace” was pretty good, right? I also like the way Jinx gently but firmly needless his ex-wife about her new life as an Episcopalian lay minister’s fiancé: “How is church, Shyanne? Are you enjoying church? What’s your favorite song?” Margo responding to Rose and KC’s pitch that she use visual effects to create the illusion of “infinite puss” by saying “I’ll marinate on it” is the kind of evocative word choice that makes you realize why the good professor saw promise in her writing.
For me, the main attraction here is Nick Offerman and Nicole Kidman wrestling, and not just for the obvious reasons, although for those too. This isn’t a perfect representation of how this stuff works — any convention that doesn’t want to be sued into oblivion is not going to let a guy get in the ring and wrestle an impromptu match without being medically cleared, and also you can’t send old wrestling equipment via media mail — but it’s a respectful one. It honors the idea that while this art for may be silly, as silly as taking pictures of your boobs with the word BOOBS written on them for example, it is still an art form, with artists who care about their craft and viewers who derive great happiness from watching their incredible bodies at work. If that doesn’t also describe erotica and pornography, I don’t know what does.
Sean T. Collins (@seantcollins.com on Bluesky and theseantcollins on Patreon) has written about television for The New York Times, Vulture, Rolling Stone, and elsewhere. He is the author of Pain Don’t Hurt: Meditations on Road House. He lives with his family on Long Island.