Vinyl: “Whispered Secrets” Review

Go ask Alice.

Richie Finestra’s manic coke-fueled hustle continued this week in “Whispered Secrets,” as the floundering exec made cuts to his label’s catalogue, fretted and sweated over his participation in the murder of Frank “Buck” Rogers (whose body was discovered by the end), and agued with Devon about his decision to reject the buyout offer.

The show has very clearly set up The Nasty Bits as the “fresh” act that Richie will think can save his company, so a lot of these first three episodes have been a bit of a waiting game. For Richie to finally hear them play their actual sound and realize that it could be a punk goldmine. Of course, also set up is the heroin addition of James Jagger’s frontman Kip. So any success on this front will mostly likely be short-lived. It’s all a time bomb, basically. And a loud, raucous attempt at plate-spinning. Which can be exhausting.

The best parts of this week’s chapter involved Clark’s attempt to sign Alice Cooper. We’re already well-aware that this show will often portray real rock stars of the era and not perpetually keep them offscreen. We’ve met Robert Plant. We’re going to meet Bowie. This isn’t an alternate timeline take on rock music. But we did spend A LOT of time Dustin Ingram’s Alice. And it was really cool. Ultimately, his interest in becoming a solo act was all a long elaborate prank – part of overdue payback against Richie for not attending a meeting that Alice and his band scraped and crawled to get to years earlier.

And even though Richie wasn’t involved at all in this side story, the end of it revealed just the type of label owner he’d become. The type who was so aloof and discourteous that he actually missed out on a big, unique act. The sort of act that he’s now desperately trying to discover and use as a life jacket.

Devon may have come off a bit unsympathetic last week, what with her almost abandoning her children at a restaurant because of her restlessness. But this week worked to illuminate her situation even more. Showing us how she was encouraged to seek out art projects and interests in Connecticut and is now finding those efforts dismissed in the wake of Richie’s decision to back out of the deal that would have made them both rich. She’s got her eyes on sponsoring a dance company. Building up her own scene in Greenwich. And now it’s a struggle. One that’s not being supported in the least by Richie.

And – man – her scene to with Andy Warhol, where she went back with the portrait he drew of her so that he could sign it and she could sell it, was very powerful. Even more so considering that she broke down while he was filming her. Olivia Wilde was great in that scene, as was John Cameron Mitchell’ Warhol – who was unexpectedly moved by her plight. His aloofness cracking a bit.

Also interesting was Lester’s story, and his moment of harsh-throated singing that transformed into the dream (complete with his old pristine voice) of the life the he never got to experience. He’s both on the cusp of rediscovering his old recordings AND the possible discovery of early hip-hop “turntablism.”