Sex&Drugs&Rock&Roll. Sounds like a racy B movie , right?
Wrong.
Sex&Drugs&Rock&Roll is a new TV show written and produced by Denis Leary ( who also plays one of the main characters in the show , Johnny Rock.) It's about a fictional band called the Heathens - a talented group of musicians who should have had the fame and fortune but didn't. Why didn't they get said fame and fortune , you ask?
Well , dear friends , let's step backstage and explore the band that is , as Elizabeth Gillies' character Gigi put it , "So dysfunctional it makes Metallica look like the Jonas Brothers."
Johnny Rock , to put it frankly , was a man whore and an extreme drug abuser. He drank and did drugs constantly ; he apparently slept with all the bands backup singers; and , to top it all off , he slept with Rehab's (the base player) fiance Simone and Flash's (the guitarist) wife.
Not really the ideal way for a band to go before they release their first album. So , on the very same day the album was released , the band split for 25 years.
Johnny , at this point , is broke and out of options for stardom - and lo and behold , when he's at a club one night , the attractive girl he was trying to slip the tongue to happens to be a daughter he never knew existed. (This is why condoms were invented , Johnny.)
Gigi's mom did not tell Johnny she was going to have a baby, She took off to Ohio and hoped her daughter would not choose Johnny's life style , which we know happened because if it didn't , we would have no show.
Anyway , Gigi shows up with a lot of money to bribe her dad into helping her get famous - because although Gigi can sing fantastically , she cannot write songs. And she also comes with a determination to make this relationship with her father work.
The band get's back together to see if Gigi really can sing , and it her entrance was shown in a 'Special Look' video , which had a very amusing (at least to me,) clip of her breezing into the studio and saying "Knowing myself as well as I do , I'm probably going to sleep with Flash , because he's not bald. And he's not the base player. Plus , he has this whole...." yeah , I can't remember the whole quote , but afterwards , Gigi sings a very excellent cover of 'Animal'.
The band gets renamed The Assassins. (Which I think is cooler , but that may be my Darker Than Black addiction talking.)
Oh , and because the dysfunction for this band is very extreme - it appears from these clips that Gigi and Flash are in a relationship. (part of me wonders if this is just a fraud on Flash's part to get back at Johnny for sleeping with his wife , but I will reserve judgment until I watch how he acts with Gigi in multiple situations.)
This show , according to Denis Leary , is meant to make us laugh and cry. There are deep moments and there are moments where it's pure hilarity.
Which leaves to the main question.......
Why should you care?
I will admit , my original reason for watching this show was just Elizabeth Gillies ; she is one of my all time favorite actresses and singers. I loved how she portrayed Jade West on Victorious and Lucy in 13.(Which , by the way , is an excellent Broadway musical you should check out.) After Victorious ended , I kept seeing Ariana Grande and Victoria Justice in a lot of places , but no Elizabeth Gillies. I found out that she'd been in two dramas , Killing Daddy and Animal. But I am too much of a chicken shit to watch horror movies. So , a couple of months ago I do a search on Elizabeth Gillies , and find out she's going to be on a new TV show , Sex&Drugs&Rock&Roll. I decided to watch it because of Elizabeth Gillies , and then , in June , I researched the actual show itself ... and was blown away.
Johnny Rock was a very , very screwed up character. Why did he do the drugs? Sleep with his friend's wife? Sleep with a bunch of other women? Was it because of being an overconfident douche , or something deeper? Probably a healthy mix of both.
And the character of Gigi appealed to me too - and not just because of Elizabeth Gillies. I love badass female characters ; it's why I loved Jade , Veronica Mars , and Annabeth Chase so much. And most of all , I love badass female characters who can sing.
Bam Bam , the drummer , is the sort - of peace keeper in the group , Rehab is even more fucked up than Johnny when it comes to drugs , and Flash...... is pissed at Johnny. And attracted to Gigi. And I do not have a more definitive character type for him yet. Ava is Johnny's long time live in girlfriend (who apparently doesn't mind or at leasts tolerates his tendency to go after other women,) who keeps Johnny from doing something dumb enough to get him killed.
From what I've seen in the clips , this show is funny , has lots of musical talent , it's deep , and it's not stupid. You need to watch it. You need to watch it , and the Fanfiction authors in general need to watch it and see if Flash needs to be sentenced to a horrible fate or not via fan made stories.
Now , I will do an actual review when it comes out on Thursday. For those of you who want to tune in , it is THIS Thursday , July Sixteenth 2015. Get your snacks ready.
Sage.
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