NBC’s Dramedy Fails to Flower

Until I saw NBC’s Grosse Pointe Garden Society, I’d never thought about how far it might be possible to take a gardening metaphor. Each of the four episodes sent to critics is threaded with voiceover narration, always from a different perspective but invariably laden with floral language comparing individual personalities to specific species or unwanted houseguests to pests.

To the extent that this series has a distinctive edge, it might be its commitment to this specific bit. A tiny part of me hopes it runs for a hundred episodes just to hear how tenuous or obscure the plant-based symbolism can get.

A much larger part of me, however, cannot bring myself to care whether it sticks around or not. Alice (AnnaSophia Robb) might liken herself to a wild geranium or her bestie Brett (Ben Rappaport) to a hardy dandelion. But the show they’re on is the TV equivalent of baby’s breath: a filler flower, fluffy and inoffensive but ultimately forgettable.

The premise is promising, if familiar. Essentially, it’s another entry in the ever-growing list of dramedies about picturesque suburbs whose idyllic facades are shattered by a shocking act of violence. In the present day, Alice, Brett, perfectionistic realtor Catherine (Aja Naomi King) and sloppy socialite Birdie (Melissa Fumero) are garden club buddies dealing with separate personal issues, like dead pets, unfaithful spouses and child custody battles. But from the opening minutes, frequent flash-forwards promise that in six months’ time, they’ll be scrambling to cover up a murder in the dead of night. Who’s been killed, and how, and why, is the driving mystery of the series.

The issue is that Grosse Pointe Garden Society never does figure out how to make that formula its own. With a generic setting, a noncommittal tone and few vivid characters, it’s not so much an unpleasant watch as an unmemorable one. To watch it is to keep thinking about all the other, better works it evokes. It’s HBO’s Big Little Lies without the sharp satirical bite or the devastating emotionality, or ABC’s Desperate Housewives minus the cheeky self-aware humor, or NBC’s Good Girls (GPGS creators Jenna Bans and Bill Krebs’ previous outing for the network) sans the lively and immediate chemistry.

This show tries to be a little bit of a lot of things, and not too much of anything. It finds some soapiness in Catherine’s torrid affair with her colleague Gary (Saamer Usmani), but pivots before things can fully heat up. It’s lightly snarky toward rich bitches like Marilyn (Jennifer Irwin), who rules the garden society with an iron fist, or the gossipy hypocrites of the local PTA, but never enough to draw real blood.

There’s some gesturing toward class commentary — schoolteacher Alice and landscaper Brett are painfully aware of the fact that they’re living on middle-class salaries in a one-percenter neighborhood — but nothing much deeper than “rich folks, am I right?” Perhaps that’s because Garden Society’s Grosse Pointe isn’t really specific enough to separate it from any other nondescript upscale suburb on television.

The series seems most earnestly interested in the bonds between the central foursome — particularly the budding romance between Brett and Alice, the Jim and Pam of Grosse Pointe. But it’s difficult to root for two people written to be so unobjectionably “nice” and “relatable” that they don’t have personalities at all. Let alone when the show’s idea of “nice” and “relatable” is a guy who pines so openly after his supposedly platonic gal pal that it’s tanked his own marriage (to Nora Zehetner’s Melissa), and a girl who works so hard not to notice that even her inattentive husband (Alexander Hodge’s Doug) is getting fed up.

Grosse Pointe Garden Society does have a few bright points. One is King’s finely calibrated performance as Catherine. Even as Catherine continues to project an outward image of perfection — she’s a pillar of the community, a thriving businesswoman, a doting mom to an adorable kid and the loving wife to a hot, successful husband (Jocko Sims) — King finds ways of conveying the sadness or frustration or fury beneath her frozen, placid expressions. Meanwhile, an unlikely friendship with Birdie adds a touch of warmth and humor to the otherwise buttoned-up character.

And then there’s Birdie herself, easily the highlight of the whole thing. Brash, impulsive, inappropriately attired and frequently soused (as far as she’s concerned, the three olives in her martini count as “appetizer, entrée and dessert”), she’s a 180 from Fumero’s girl-next-door roles in Fox’s Brooklyn Nine-Nine or Netflix’s Blockbuster. The actor seizes that opportunity, and runs with it. She’s a delectable femme fatale in scenes with a local cop (Matthew Davis), and a hilariously spoiled princess with her housekeeper.

But Fumero also balances Birdie’s loud personality with softer shades of sweetness or regret, especially in scenes with Ford (Felix Wolfe), a young scholarship student in whom she takes a complicated interest. In her performance, you can see what should have worked about Grosse Pointe Garden Society. Fumero creates a comically exaggerated portrait of a certain kind of bored and irresponsible socialite, but also a flesh-and-blood person you can feel for.

To go back to those gardening metaphors for a second — as Alice says in her voiceover, “Once you mix a bunch of different flowers together, we may all look perfect on the surface, but you never really know what’s growing underneath.” Birdie stands out because you can sense the heart beating beneath her designer dresses, the bittersweet pangs of longing propelling her forward. The same unfortunately cannot be said for Grosse Pointe Garden Society as a whole. Sure, the gang’s plants look pretty. But there’s not enough dirt or air or sunshine for this series to blossom into anything impressive.