Ain’t got no alibi.
By Matt Fowler
Warning: Full spoilers for the episode below.
A frantic episode of Vinyl saw an unhinged Richie scramble to offer his old girlfriend/secretary (POI’s Annie Parisse as “Andy”) a high-stakes visionary role in his company while Kip got talked into letting his low-energy, minimally-talented lead guitar player go in order to tighten The Nasty Bits into a quartet.
At this point, each viewer is going to have their own favorites. Their own levels of investment. Right now, I struggle to care about Richie’s personal chaos – with Devon and the “accidental” murder – but I do want to see if he’s able to rise up out of the ashes with his new sub-label. Appropriately, now, named Alibi. Because I am interested in seeing how Lester both grooms and protects The Nasty Bits. And whether or not their sound is what saves the sinking ship.
And that question helped turn the office meeting between Kip and Richie into a fun little moment. “I’m Kip Stevens. F*** your mum. There’s your bio,” the cocky frontman effortlessly threw out there. Not caring about being rude to his boss. So going from that type of flippancy to the man he became toward the end of the episode, when he didn’t even have the guts to face his best friend and tell him he was out of the band, was a nice little downward journey. Lester had to do the deed. Lester, who’s not above taking good advice even if it comes from Richie. The allure of opening for the New York Dolls was just too much for everyone involved.
Meanwhile, Clark cried his way into a demotion (instead of a straight termination), Richie’s father wore a wire while meeting with his son at the office (didn’t quite get Richie to confess though), Jamie had lunch with her disapproving German mother (and lied about getting a promotion), and certain details were revealed to us about Richie’s past with Andy. With him confessing to her at the end of the episode that he chose Devon, over her, ultimately because Devon was prettier.
Speaking of Richie and Devon, their double date with Hannibal and Cece (Powers’ Susan Hayward) went fine until Hannibal started grinding on Devon after dinner. An act that got Richie all twisted up in both a husband way and a racist way. At first he tried to go tit-for-tat, grabbing Cece and rubbing on her, making her uncomfortable. Then he just snapped and lied about having to leave. All of it causing Hannibal to sign with Ken Marino’s Jackie Gervais.
So Richie literally tried to use Devon’s beauty – the reason he chose her over Andy – to win over Hannibal. And then balked in a way that made both Devon and Hannibal feel insulted. Essentially, making The Nasty Bits even more important to the story. Which his good, because it’s the storyline I’m most attached to.
“He in Racist Fire” worked to splinter Richie and Devon even more while also costing the label one of its biggest artists. All while The Nasty Bits’ frontman made some hard “sellout” style choices about reconfiguring the band. The acting’s always great and there’re always a handful of great scenes on Vinyl, but a lot of it still relies on shock and bluster. To a numbing degree.
