Honestly, NBC had me at “Zachary Quinto slaps a kid.” I’d watch the hell out of that, cause kids are super annoying (especially this one, which we’ll get to in a bit). But that’s not all that The Slap is about. I think what it’s trying to explore is the notion that normalcy can be toxic and it can ruin you; just look at all the simmering resentments between this group of friends.
The Slap has a pretty interesting approach, too: each (occasionally-narrated) episode will focus on one of the principal players. The series debut focused on Peter Sarsgaard’s Hector. Sarsgaard can play disaffected ennui in his sleep, so Hector is a natural fit for him. Hector has just been passed over for a job with the city government (when discussing who was hosen instead, he troublingly describes her as “a woman and a Latina”), and his mother won’t stop busting his wife’s (Thandie Newton) chops. He’s also having an affair with the babysitter Connie (played by Makenzie Leigh, last seen on Gotham), which doesn’t look as though it’s been consummated.
With the single-character focus and narration, The Slap often plays like an independent film, which makes sense seeing as how “Hector” was helmed by indie darling Lisa Cholodenko, who directed The Kids Are Alright, which I absolutely despised, but other people seem to have liked – but that’s neither here nor there. The editing reflects the indie sensibility as well, with characters talking over each other, and scenes having no hesitation escalating into discomfort.
Discomfort is on display a lot in “Hector”; that’s that simmering resentment I was talking about earlier, which results in a near-fistfight, at Hector’s birthday party, between Gary (Thomas Sadoski) and Hector’s cousin Harry (Zachary Quinto). This gets worse when Harry slaps the shit out of Gary’s son Hugo.
This is where The Slap really begins – and where it begins to get problematic. Don’t get me wrong, it’s incredibly well-acted, but some of the characters seem a little too broad for believability. Gary and his wife Rosie, for instance, coddle their possibly autistic son, and Rosie breast feeds even though he’s probably too old for that. Harry snidely dismisses Gary as a “lazy hippie,” which is hard to disagree with, but Harry also shows up in a Range Rover, asking Hector where he can park it “that it won’t get jacked.” Hector lives in a nice neighborhood, Harry! At least The Slap wastes no time in establishing Harry as a dick.
But Harry can’t really be called the antagonist. Sure, he slapped a kid, but that kid was having a temper tantrum, swinging a wooden bat at a group of kids. Quinto’s performance is suitably intense, and he’s rockin the shit out of that beard, which is always a plus.
It could be argued that “Hector” paints characters like Harry and Gary with broader strokes because their names aren’t the title of the episode. That’s another reason I’m excited for The Slap, to see every character get their time in the spotlight, and see how this affects everyone. “Hector” wasn’t perfect, but I’ll definitely be coming back next week for “Anouk.”
A Few Thoughts
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Hector and Connie are not subtle
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IMDb only has Victor Garber listed as the narrator for one episode. If that’s the case, it is a weird choice
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