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The FK

by DICK CHENEY

StartUp
creator Ben Ketai
Crackle

Adam Brody's girlfriend Taylor (Ashley Grace, Topher Grace's real-life wife) is the kind of woman who feels that because she loves someone it is okay to put down certain parts of him. During sex, she demands Adam Brody put on various Enya-sounding music while he fucks her. She asks, often, whether or not this or that is "OK" in the bedroom, and tells him that he doesn't have to go down on her, like it is some kind of imposition.

Adam Brody is the kind of man who enjoys sex with Topher Grace's wife at the end of a hard day. You can feel he has a general angst that he is exacting on her during intercourse. Adam Brody is focused on acting very mature during his new series StartUp because at the end of the day there is really no reason he could not be playing a high school student. His face and body have barely changed at all in ten years, whereas Jason Priestley looks like he was run over by a truck.

Adam Brody is a white man living in Miami. He is completely unhappy with his job at an investment firm. He meets Izzy (Otmara Marrero), a Cuban woman who went to Stanford. She has created a currency called GenCoin — maybe she was unaware BitCoin already existed? Everyone is like, haven't you heard of BitCoin...? but only Adam Brody is stupid enough to believe this is a new, revolutionary idea. He gives her two million dollars that his dad gave him.

Before her big break, Izzy was living in the Florida Keys with a man she described as a "key rat"; she had debatably consensual intercourse with him because he paid her electric bill. There is a lot of sex on StartUp, most of it completely cynical, because without these tiny little expressions of emotion there would be absolutely nothing exciting about this story.

I had to look up what a key rat was, because the only time I've ever been to South Florida was with my eyes closed. According to my internet sources, a key rat is "someone who lives anywhere on Key Biscayne except the Grand Bay or the Ocean Club, attended KBCS, smokes the chronic, is generally an undesirable character, likes Budweiser, and has spent excessive time at the skihole." This led me to look up what a skihole was. I never did find out, because I got distracted by Lynne asking me whether I thought Taylor Swift had breast enhancement surgery.

Substantially more interested in Adam Brody than his girlfriend is Phil Rask (Martin Freeman). Martin Freeman is doing an American accent that is top of the line. He is introduced on StartUp running on a treadmill, and Martin's new body is absolutely phenomenal. Phil Rask is a federal agent of some kind who has an ex-wife who looks like an underwear model and he goes around South Florida like every single person in his path is nothing more than a hurdle to be surmounted. I immediately loved this man.

When Phil Rask meets Adam Brody, he says, "Huh?" a lot and generally makes him feel uncomfortable. They talk about how much Adam Brody loves to fish, which is a strange topic of conversation, given that there is no way Adam Brody has ever caught a marlin in his entire life.

On the plus side, StartUp features a very ethnically diverse cast. On the negative side, none of these actors seem to be very comfortable with one another or share any emotional connection at all. StartUp is so derailed by Adam Brody stammering through various scenes that Martin Freeman's evil agent becomes a protagonist-in-waiting.

In order to cleanse the taste of this Crackle original series from my palate, I took a trip down memory lane this week and started watching some episodes of The O.C. For people who had never seen Beverly Hills 90210, The O.C. was somewhat watchable until Josh Schwartz' writing became painful. Adam Brody was a better actor in 2003 than he is now. Martin Freeman is the kind of versatile performer who can play anyone, Adam Brody should only play a self-effacing rabbi in a Coen Brothers movie if he wants to reinvent his career, because this is not it.

Dick Cheney is the senior contributor to This Recording.