Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed Review

I really wanted to like Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed, the new dramedy from AppleTV+. After all, it stars two of my favorite television actors – Emmy winners Tatiana Maslany (Orphan Black and She-Hulk) and Murray Bartlett (White Lotus and The Last of Us). And the premise is at least a bit interesting: A woman in the midst of a contentious custody fight turns to a camboy for a little personal release (and someone to chat with) only to get embroiled into a murder investigation where she’s the prime suspect. But despite a strong performance from Maslany, the story drags with too many characters and too little forward narrative motion, making what could be a fun, frothy series into a slog.

The central issue with the series is that it wants to be too many things. It’s a domestic drama – Maslany’s Paula has a truly odious ex-husband played by Jake Johnson who swings back and forth between conciliatory (he and his new wife want to move from NYC to Boise for the wife’s new job, taking Paula’s daughter with them and they want Paula to come with to make the move possible) to downright abusive (he uses their daughter as a means to punish Paula for the smallest slight, revoking her right to see her at will). It’s a work comedy – Paula works with two Gen Z coworkers who (for reasons I cannot figure out) get involved in helping Paula deal with the mystery of her camboy’s identity and fate (this is easily the worst part of the series, especially when the show spins the pair off into their own scenes as we really don’t care about them at all). And it’s a murder mystery, with a death early in the series and a cold-blooded killer roaming the streets looking to tie off any and all loose ends – and that includes Paula.

So, a lot is happening in any given episode. There are a lot of moving parts. And somehow, everyone is pretty bad at achieving their goals, which means the action just keeps going on even after someone – anyone – should have either solved the case, found a key clue, or made a major decision. Characters change their minds pretty frequently, throwing things into chaos. We learn information out of order – there’s a flashback mid-season that seems to be an attempt to make us question Paula’s trustworthiness as our central POV character, but all it does is muddy the waters a bit.

Much of the show rests on Maslany’s shoulders, and she’s clearly capable of carrying the heavy load. We understand that Paula’s a bit of a mess – she should have been fired from her fact-checking job pretty early in the season considering how little she seems to care about work and how often she just doesn’t arrive or leaves early – but we also get that she’s someone who truly loves her daughter and wants the best for her. Compared to her jerk of an ex-husband, well, we root for her to succeed in her legal quagmire. And we know she isn’t the murderer the police are looking for, so we’re also rooting for her there. That knowledge means we trust her amateur investigation into the death, even if she seems to be better at figuring out just what is happening than the actual detectives assigned to the case (although the evidence they are turning up does make Paula look pretty suspicious).

But I just wish the writing was stronger, allowing Maslany to really shine. Jumping between all the different narrative arcs in the series is exhausting. Do we really need to be reminded each episode how hot and cold Paula’s ex can be? No, but when you have someone like Johnson on the payroll, I understand the urge to make sure he has something to do each episode (even if some of it is a bit too wacky for the type of character the show wants him to be). Do I care at all about Paula’s co-workers? Nope. And aside from giving Paula people to bounce her ideas off of, they’re rather useless and suck the air out of the show whenever they appear. And when they show up without Paula? Even more worthless. As for the cat and mouse game with the assassin trying to take out Paula, well, that works a bit better. The dark comedy inherent in his inability to catch someone who should be simple to find and dispose of is one of the better parts of the show. But a series that focuses on that piece of the story along with the police investigation would be a tighter, smarter, and better series than the one we get.

There’s a good show lurking within Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed. Unfortunately, the show we get isn’t it. Maslany and Bartlett are great in their roles, I just wish the writing was strong enough to help support the strong performances.

Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed premieres on May 20 on AppleTV+. All ten episodes were provided for review.