Top 3 reasons that make “The Return of Jezebel James” sound like it’s worth watching before you’ve even seen a single moment of the show:
1. It stars indie film goddess Parkey Posey.
2. It co-stars former “Six Feet Under” star Lauren Ambrose.
3. It’s the brainchild of “Gilmore Girls” co-creators Amy Sherman-Palladino and David Palladino.
The premise of the series involves Parker’s character, an editor of childrens’ books at Harper-Collins, deciding that she wants to have a baby…but when she finds out that she can’t carry the child herself, she decides to kill two birds with one stone by renewing her relationship with her younger sister and asking her to carry the baby for her, offering her free room and board at her apartment while she’s pregnant. The writer sitting next to me said that the premise struck her as vaguely creepy, like the younger sister was basically trading the use of her womb for access to free cable, but, hey, my wife and I did in vitro, so I know what it’s like to desperately want a kid of your own…and I know full well that if it’d reached a point where we needed someone to step up and carry our child for us, my sister would’ve been ready to roll.
Okay, possibly too much information. But my point is that, ultimately, this is a show about family…which, of course, is an area in which the Palladinos have considerable experience.
“I like family dynamics,” says Amy, “because I can’t figure out mine. I really just enjoy it. ‘Gilmore,’ to me, was — yes, it was a mother and daughter, but I also looked at it like Emily was sort of the third Gilmore. It was a multi-generational, sort of three women and their trials together, but the relationship was very different. You know, that was a relationship about two people who were instantly vested — they were so bonded, they finished each other’s sentences. They absolutely knew who they were. This relationship to me is so interesting a departure because it’s two women who just don’t know each other at all. They’ve never formed any sort of bond. It’s weird because they’re adults, but they’re just now starting to figure out who they are, how they react, what they like, what they don’t like, how they’re going to make each other crazy, how they’re not going to make each other crazy. And it’s just a wonderful dynamic.
“I think that there’s not always the best parts on television for women,” she continued, “and I feel like maybe if you can throw a couple of great woman parts out there, why not? There’s a lot of “the bullet entered here” going on out there, but these are real, you know? It’s just really multi-dimensional characters, and that I like. I would like it in men. I would like it in chipmunks, two nice squirrels talking to each other, I’d be fine with that, too. Just as long as the dynamic is interesting and there’s places to go.”
And the dynamic is, indeed, interesting. You can bet on that. Otherwise, Posey wouldn’t be stooping – my term, not hers – to taking a TV gig.
“I read the script in Albuquerque, New Mexico, working on ‘The Eye,'” she revealed. “I read it at the laundromat, and I read it from start to finish. and I laughed, and I actually got really touched at the end. And I called my manager, and I said, ‘I’m shocked. I feel like I’ve read a play.’ I feel like the voice of this is so inhabited. Nothing was pushed, and it was all character-based, and I loved it. I look to play parts like this in film and in television and in theater. Like, I love it. It was fully dynamic. And I had never seen ‘Gilmore Girls.’ I didn’t know the genius behind Amy Sherman-Palladino…and then we met. It was, like. ‘This feels really right.’
Co-star Scott Cohen – a “Gilmore Girls” alum, you may recall – felt almost exactly the same way that Posey did about the script. “The first time I read the script,” he said, “I had an emotional experience at the end of it, basically crying at the end of it, which you never have when you read any script that comes to you. Pilots — you know, around March, you get so many pilots in February. You get so many pilots and you kind of read through everything and everything is pretty much the same, and you try to figure out, well, what character do I want to play? Or do I really kind of fit into this? And this just hit me like a ton of bricks, and you’re — immediately just wanted to do. There wasn’t even a question in my mind of wanting to do it.”
Best anecdote from Amy: “We had about 25 washer/dryers that were stuffed in our offices, that were all from ‘The Cosby Show’ wardrobe department. And at first, it was like, ‘Oh, isn’t that charming?’ And then it was like, ‘Can you get these fucking washer/dryers out of our offices so we can work?’ It took forever to get the ‘Cosby’ washer and dryers out of our offices. There’s your television legacy, ladies and gentlemen.”
Most appropriate question: “Daniel, eventually is there a time when you drive home and Amy gets very quiet, and you get to talk?”
* Daniel’s answer to the reporter: “Every once in awhile.”
* Daniel’s aside to Amy: “I will defend your honor afterwards.”
* Amy’s answer to the reporter: “Look, I am charming and delightful, and I’ll fucking come down there and show you how. All right. It’s a treat living with me. Trust me.”
