Vinyl: “Yesterday Once More” Review

Colony collapse.

While sober/family man Richie Finestra may have been all about selling his company and retiring in mass wealth, off-the-wagon disaster survivor Richie was all about breaking contracts, breaking noses, and trying to rebuild his label with a desperate search for a new hot act. Because coked-to-the-gills Richie is all about screaming and stubbornness and “the music.” Maaaaaan.

So now comes the point where we, as viewers, need to decide whether or not Richie’s desire to re-amass his fortune, and integrity, is worth the ride. Vinyl’s got style to spare, and strong performances to anchor it, but will it ever get us to care about music as much as it does? Or in Richie’s success? Which usually, as established in the premiere, comes at a high cost to those around him? It’s hard to say. Bad decisions are the bread and butter of good TV, though sometimes too many can sink a sub. I find myself split here. Because I’m not “rock n’ roll at all cost.”

Though, to be fair, the show does spend a lot of time focusing on those who drown in Richie’s wake. This week it was all about Devon and Zak. Devon, who’s become so disillusioned with her suburban stagnancy that she actually left her kids at a restaurant during a bitter daydream due to Richie’s relapse. Flashbacks (featuring both Lou Reed and Andy Warhol) detailed the way she and Richie met, courted, and – eventually – settled down outside of the city. And she so desperately wants to feel sexually viable again. a feeling she equates to her past as part of Warhol’s Factory scene.

Even last week, during Richie’s birthday, she felt compelled to blow up his Woodstock lie in order to tell everyone that they stayed in bed all that weekend. And here, by the end, she tried to get Richie into bed as if it were her only coping mechanism for all the emotional chaos he caused her during the previous 24 hours.

Zak, on the other hand, wound up briefly contemplating suicide. So far his character’s mostly been used for dark comic relief. Even him getting Enter the Dragon’d in the face this week, and then having to lie to his wife and daughter about their finances, was played for slight smiles. But then he sat in his car and thought about ending it all. A heavy moment that came with the implication that this latest move by Richie – which was totally upending the buyout deal – was a severe straw on top of a crippled camel’s back.

So I’m glad that the series is taking the time to show all the ripples. Because Richie was a damn calamity for the first half of this episode. He rolled into his office all bloody and dusty and broke a binding verbal contract because he was high and managed to survive a pretty kickass rock show (literally). He was shouting and lashing out and throwing things. He was basically the epitome of what a lot of us hate about rock star narcissism. The tortured genius. A theme that’s actually you to be strongly tested with The Nasty Bits – who may get a decent tryout for a signing if they clean up their sound and play a Kinks song.

This second episode, named after a Carpenters song, actually kicked off a new little stylistic gimmick in which we would see actors playing famous singers while a particular song was playing during a scene. You know, just intercut with the actual scene itself. It was a little jarring at first when all of a sudden Jerry Lee Lewis was playing piano, but then once Karen Carpenter came in (for Devon’s drive), I realized what was going on. Bobbie Band would appear later in the episode.