Until its final minutes, this episode of Margo’s Got Money Troubles feels like the show in its ideal form. Fittingly, it’s about Margo assuming her own ideal form as well.
Paying off the imagery from the show’s visually striking, candy-colored opening title sequence, the episode sees the debut of Margo’s new OnlyFans persona — or gimmick, in pro wrestling terms — Hungry Ghost. She’s a blue-skinned alien in a cone bra, new to our world and eager to learn. It’s a “Born Sexy Yesterday”–type deal, in other words, in which her naiveté is eroticized. But with Margo and her friends in complete creative control and making it real weird in the process, it’s hard to complain about the trope.
Indeed, the episode feels like it’s about 80% musical montage and/or dance scenes, as Margo and friends recreate the Hungry Ghost of Margo’s fantasies and rake in subscribes and cash as a result. Jinx, who’s assisting with fight choreography and general hard-earned storytelling knowhow, points out the irony here. Margo’s pregnancy, which forced her to drop out of college, also guided her to a career where she’s now become a professional writer anyway, even if it is anonymous.
It was around this point that I noticed how often Margo’s anonymity was being emphasized, and on this show that could mean only one thing. In an ill-advised reunion with her judgmental bestie Becca, Margo heads to New Year’s Eve house party and gets outed on the spot by a couple of assholes who recognize her as Hungry Ghost. All of her socials immediately flood with misogynistic harassment, as creeps slap her real name on her nude pics and upload them alongside her college ID. Even the Facebook account of her mom Shyanne, back from her honeymoon with Kenny, gets inundated.
On a show with a plot as predictable as Margo’s, it’s remarkable how zigging just a little when you’re expecting a zag can get you. Instead of freaking out and acting like an old-fashioned church lady when Shyanne, Margo, and Jinx break the news of Margo’s career to him, Kenny’s great. First of all, he really doesn’t feel he was owed any kind of information or explanation in the first place. Okay, so maybe his comparison of Margo to Mary Magdalene wasn’t the greatest metaphor, but he’s quick to declare, with obvious sincerity and without a note of disapproval or condescension or pity, that he’ll be there for Margo no matter what.
It’s gently moving to watch Shyanne watching Kenny as he speaks with such kindness to her daughter, realizing that he’s not just quote-unquote “a great guy,” he’s a great guy, for real and true. But when Jinx realizes the same thing, it triggers a panic attack. As he tells his ex-wrestler-turned-lawyer friend Lace, whom he consults about the restraining order he gets from Margo’s babydaddy Mark, he’d been hoping to get back together with Shyanne. Discovering she’s married to a real mensch is devastating: Not only does he no longer have any hopes, he wouldn’t want to break up this relationship even if he could.
Speaking of Mark, he’s looking ragged when Margo and Susie see him at a Christmas fair with his kid. But when he sees Margo, she waves, and he waves back, and it feels like they’ve made their peace with the situation and are ready to move on.
But Margo has suffered from the start from a tendency to mistake people just being huge assholes to Margo for compelling conflict. Mark’s evil mother and her Cruella de Ville hairstyle are outraged that Margo’s OnlyFans career might get traced back to her through Mark. She’s also pissed at Mark for telling his wife, calling him a pussy. She can’t risk the “humiliation” that her tangential connection to Margo might trigger.
So she makes her son…file for full custody? What? A protracted legal battle against the only parent the baby has ever known, whom you’ve already forced to sign an NDA and paid off because you didn’t want the baby in your lives, so that you can add the baby to Mark’s already struggling family is less humiliating than just leaving well enough alone? This woman is supposed to be some brilliant legal mind, but her scheme here is like something the Hungry Ghost alien would concoct after watching too many soap operas.
For most of this episode, however, Margo stays out of its own way. The result is a charming little confection of an episode that’s sweet, colorful, sexy — Elle Fanning looks incredible — and at times laugh-out-loud funny. (Jinx reassuring Margo that “People file restraining orders every day!” got me good.) There’s even a real surprise in the form of Kenny’s A+ reaction to Margo’s big revelation. I’m bummed that the show appears headed in the direction of a custody drama, the outcome of which seems as predicable as the twist itself.
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.