Thirty minutes into the first episode of “On Becoming a God in Central Florida,” Showtime’s new satire from Robert Funke and Matt Lutsky, Travis Stubbs (Alexander Skarsgård) drives his car into a swamp and gets eaten by an alligator. It’s a bold narrative choice – killing off miniseries darling Skarsgård and leaving us with 15 more minutes of the episode – that immediately reveals the show’s balls-to-the-wall dedication to zaniness. “On Becoming a God” barely dwells in tragedy before zeroing in on its protagonist, Travis’s hardscrabble wife, Krystal (Kirsten Dunst), as she is left to reassemble her life in an “Orlando-adjacent” town in 1992. Stuck with a mountain of debt after Travis gave everything he had to a pyramid scheme called FAM, Krystal tries to figure out how to eke more money out of her job as a water park attendant by manipulating FAM’s rules. The show barrels on through ten episodes as Krystal is caught up in a surprisingly dangerous life of uplines, fraud, and water aerobics.
Billed as a satire, ‘On Becoming a God’ often sacrifices dark absurdity for actual comedy. This produces some of the show’s most striking moments – Krystal performing a demented dance with two mannequins, inept salesman Cody (Théodore Pellerin) murdering a pelican to impress his idol – but it also undercuts the inherent tragedy of a story centering on a single mother awash in her former husband’s economic stupidity. Krystal seems barely fazed by her husband’s death, casting her can-do gumption with an oddly hard edge. There is some narrative justification for Krystal’s grit – “I won’t be poor again,” she threatens Travis, in a strange echo of another prestigious miniseries by Showtime’s biggest competitor – but on the whole, it undermines her sympathetic potential. This choice rings strange not only in terms of character development but also because the aforementioned competing miniseries hinged entirely on the death of Alexander Skarsgård.
Kirsten Dunst still shines through her character’s uneven scripting, producing a performance laced with her downhome “Fargo” charm and backed by bite. But she’s not tasked with carrying the show, whose supporting cast is equally – at times more so – adept. Little Havana native Mel Rodriguez (“The Last Man on Earth”) gives a wrenching performance as Krystal’s overly empathic neighbor Ernie, a family man who finds his place in FAM after recruiting in Latino communities. And Théodore Pellerin (“It’s Only the End of the World,” “Boy Erased”) is a scene-stealer as spineless twit Cody, a role he imbues with unexpected dramatic heft and, as the show progresses, erotic daring.
“On Becoming a God in Central Florida” meanders, even falters, as it struggles to find its tonal footing, but it remains completely, unapologetically unpredictable. It’s hard to decide who to root for in this show (aside from the standout behind-the-scenes contributions to its performances and artistic direction), but it’s also hard to stop watching. If “On Becoming a God” gets a second season, it will have a lot of rich, refreshing material from which to build. [B]
