The Riches: This Is Your Brain On Drugs

I may have a Heroes post later, although it would sound an awful lot like my Heroes post from last week.

One of the things I love about The Riches is that it refuses to have a formula. Sometimes it follows a purely dramatic line, sometimes it's almost a tragic comedy, other times it's like a heist film. This week was parable week as "Doug" snorted a handful of meth and proceeded to go mildly insane in the membrane.

The meat of the episode was obvious and heavy-handed - but also brilliantly acted. Doug, going the the twenty four hour throws of full on drug addiction, reflects on his new life of being filthy rich and wonders if either will make him happy, empty or just outright kill him. Get it? Materialism is like a drug addiction. The more have, the more you want, the more you want, the more you work to get, so the more you have and ... well, so on.

It is one of those analogies that's just right there in front of you - but Izzard (and Driver) does such a grand job of selling it that it's still somewhat mesmerizing. Plus it adds to the heap of potential trouble the family continues to level on itself, as he confides (fully) in a priest and bails his (non) mother-in-law out of jail.

As first seasons go, The Riches has definately hit the ground running.