TV Review – Rain Dogs

Rain Dogs (BBC/HBO)
Written by Cash Carraway
Directed by Richard Laxton & Jennifer Perrott

While searching for a television series to watch recently, I looked at Metacritic’s best new shows on their 2023 list and noticed Rain Dogs at the top. It stars Daisy May Cooper, who I’ve enjoyed on Avenue 5 and Taskmaster, so I decided to try it. Sadly, I ended up not really enjoying the series. It was confusing because so many of the elements on paper are things I like, but when it all came together, it felt underwhelming. My biggest stumbling block is how life in poverty should be portrayed in the media and how it often gets portrayed in contemporary shows and television.

Costello (Cooper) is a single mom living in London with her pre-teen daughter, Iris (Fleur Tashjian). As the show opens, the pair are being evicted from their flat and struggling to find a place to live. At the same time, Costello’s longtime friend Selby (Jack Farthing) is released from prison after a brutally violent assault he committed. We slowly learn that the two ended things on bad terms, but he loves Iris a lot. He and Costello are clearly soulmates of a kind, while he is the only father Iris has ever known. Throughout the series, the friends pull and push apart like magnets.

We need to see more working class and working poor characters in the media as most of what comes across our screens depicts a life as alien as little green men on Mars. However, I did not find Rain Dogs’ depiction of this life consistently good. Things come together in moments over the eight episodes, and the story finds its rhythm. Then suddenly, the carpet would be pulled out, and we were on to the next episode. 

Rain Dogs is a contemporary picaresque, a storytelling format where the protagonist is someone we might not usually trust but who is ultimately appealing. In this structure, you follow them through a series of adventures as they make their way in life. Fielding’s Tom Jones is one of the most well-known English language novels to present its story this way. The picaresque is an excellent choice for telling a story about someone like Costello; however, with episodes running just under 30 minutes, it never feels like there is much room to breathe. 

In episode one, we are introduced to Costello & Iris while Selby’s story plays out on the side. Then, in episode two, I felt sidelined by a big piece of information I don’t remember being brought up in the first episode. Costello is apparently a really great writer, which she publishes on a blog(?). Like so many shows & movies, we are told the character is a good writer rather than have their body of work presented in any form on the screen. Costello could provide more voiceover as her reading her work to support that point in the show. 

Most of the series comprises Costello wandering from place to place with Iris, unable to find work or, when she does, unable to keep it. She, Selby, and Iris live together briefly, but that ends in a fight, and Costello finds the only refuge available is a women’s shelter. I quite liked that part of the show. I enjoyed that my expectations from watching other shows were subverted when she found a good friend in that place. So often, we see shelters portrayed as a form of prison, where some women are intimidated by others. I don’t doubt that happens, but I question whether that’s the “norm.”

Where the show truly lost me was in how profoundly unlikeable every single character was. I don’t shy away from stories with characters who challenge the audience; I prefer them. We’re told so much about what a great writer Costello is and how much she loves her daughter, yet I never saw that on screen. She certainly worries about Iris but holds these standards about the kind of place she should live and the kind of work she should do that constantly knocks her on her ass. I am not saying she doesn’t deserve those things; if I had a child, though, I would make compromises to provide for them. You should not teach your child they have to give up on their dreams if you find ways to keep a roof over their head and food on the table.

The show is correct that this is not entirely Costello’s fault. A brief visit to her childhood home after an absence of fifteen years shows us why she had to run from these people. The U.K. government is also not doing working people a single favor at the moment, which is reflected in the squalor presented in the show. But this is where I felt the series divorced itself from the working-class depiction I hoped for. Costello’s refusal to take what she can for now and the exaggerated nature of so many of the supporting cast completely took me out of the show. So many shows about working people struggling, like Maid or Shameless (especially the U.S. version), leave me unmoved because they want to weave quirky humor in. I don’t think life should be presented as hopeless; I just wish we got to see it play out more realistically. You can do that and still infuse the work with poetry & beauty.

The lives of Costello & Selby never felt authentic to me. They didn’t make choices that reflected the reality of people living in these situations. They are very self-destructive people, which you find in the real world, but the show never really has them face consequences for that. Episodes shrug it off for the most part, and we’re on to the next locale. Selby commits a pretty rough assault when he gets placed in a mental health facility, and it doesn’t seem like there was any response to that. He destroys something precious to Costello, and she forgives him a second later. Never again is this brought up or shown to be a wedge between them. 

Rain Dogs is a visually beautiful show. The cinematography and lighting are exceptional. I just wish the story had matched those technical aspects. I am not surprised this resonates with people; it wasn’t something I could emotionally connect with. I hope to see Cooper in more things, and she did a great job with a more dramatic role than anything I’ve seen her in up to this point. The series creator/writer Cash Carraway is someone I don’t think I’ll actively seek out. She’s a good writer, but the tone and direction of her work aren’t for me.