TV is the New Reading

Second season of

‘Dirt’ off to a great start

“DrrtNow” is the perfect synthesis of “People” magazine’s fluffy puff celebration of celebrity and the “The Star’s” cruel exploitation of celebrity breakups, gossip and glamorexia.

And its hard-as-nails editor, Lucy Spiller, played by Courtney Cox, creates the exact balance you’d want in someone heading such a publication – solicitous to a fault when lining up her slam pieces, but imperious in demanding her pound of flesh when the celebrities are the ones seeking her out.

The second season of “Dirt” premieres Sunday at 9 p.m. on FX and while I’ve been missing it ever since the first season finale, I’d forgotten some of the elements that made its freshman season so astonishing.

For one thing, Lucy had her own stalker, a photographer who managed to elude her most motivated security and investigations, including photos taken of her in her own home and her own bedroom.

The most obvious suspect, Don, is easily the most talented paparazzo ever imagined. He’s a close associate and longtime friend of Lucy’s but he suffers from profound schizophrenia. His hallucinations had even started demanding that he murder Lucy. Fortunately, he’s not generally so easily taken in by these disturbing visions, but by the end of the season finale he was way off his meds.

So the final image of her stabbed and bleeding in front of her home was all the creepier – not least of which because she insisted Don call 9-1-1 after he get the best photos of her gruesome scene.

Season No. 2

The second season picks up from Lucy’s attack, which is excellent, because if she survives it will be terribly exciting to see how she plays the attack in the pages of her own magazine. She wasn’t ordering the photos for her keepsake box, after all.

And given what she knows about her attack and her attacker – and her stalker as well – who knows how she’ll spin it. She never settles for an amazing story if she can run an outrageous one.

More to the point, the fact that she insists on complete accuracy in these outrageous pieces, even when the standard for public comment is so much lower for celebrities, helps increase the sympathetic nature of her character and the things she does. Which isn’t easy, given the “gotcha” pieces she’s choreographed for closet-case, drug-addict celebrities and psycho thugs who keep their victims’ disembodied heads in big huge jars.

How could Don possibly get the photos to sell these stories? Well, given the fact that he once cut off his own thumb to get admitted to a hospital to take pictures of a celebrity inside, the dedication and commitment he and Lucy share goes way beyond tabloid editor and paparazzo.

And the retaliatory tactics her subjects employ are cringe-worthy to say the least, but even with mutilation and hostage situations and statutory rape, drug abuse, stalking and stabbing, Season Two will likely be all the more outrageous.

You can, of course, check it out for yourself. The second season premiere of “Dirt” airs at 9 p.m. Sunday on FX.

Features Editor Terry J. Aman compiles the Best Bets for The Minot Daily News.

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