One Mississippi

In my younger days, when things like a Thanksgiving morning touch football game became an obligatory neighborhood event, the terms One Mississippi, Two Mississippi were words that actually may have been spoken by me or my teammates. In this particular version of backyard football, the team defending had to give the quarterback five seconds to figure out what to do before we could come streaming across the line of scrimmage to achieve either a sack via a two-hand touch, or hurry the QB into throwing an errant pass. Hence, the stating of one Mississippi was the equivalent of one second passing, and we had to voice the count out loud.

That was then.

Today, meaning this month, Amazon rolled out a new series on September 9th called One Mississippi. Lest you get the wrong idea, this brand new mini-series (only six episodes of a half hour each), has nothing whatsoever to do with football.

The series stars Tig Notaro who is nothing  if not multi-talented. She’s managed bands, booked bands, played music and talked as a radio DJ. She’s also done notable work as a stand-up comic. She is penning a memoir for a Harper Collins imprint. She been a subject of a documentary called Tig which screened at Sundance. And she’s come to the attention of Louis CK who is an Executive Producer for this TV series.

Those are items which re usually found on a resumé.

What you normally don’t see on a resumé is the fact that Tig had breast cancer resulting in a double mastectomy with no follow-up reconstructive surgery. She’s also had a serious intestinal disorder which might have killed her.

As the series begins, Tig has flown in from L.A. The family was gathering because Tig and her brother, plus their step-father, have agreed and decided to pull the plug on her mother who is hooked-up to life-support mechanisms. She had sustained a severe head-injury in a fall and was now in a full vegetative state.

So Tig has flown into New Orleans and was in a car driving to her home town. She’s actually from Pass Christian, Mississippi, but in the show, the setting is the fictional Bay Saint Lucille. Either way, they are  about 70 miles east of New Orleans and are considered small Gulf towns on the Mississippi coast.

Now Amazon has described One Mississippi as a dark comedy. Here is the blurb for Episode One (the pilot):

Tig Notaro, an LA-based radio host, returns to her hometown of Bay St. Lucille, Mississippi, to be at the bedside of her ailing mother, Caroline. Suffering from her own recent health problems, Tig attempts to reconnect with her brother, Remy, and stepfather, Bill, both of whom lack the emotional tools to deal with family trauma.

And the blurb from the 2nd Episode called Effects:

Struggling to accept her mother’s death, Tig can’t let go of Caroline’s possessions.  Unable to leave home, Tig tries to maintain control of her radio show from Mississippi. Seeing that Tig is unable to accept the fragility of life, most pressingly her own, Bill pushes Tig to investigate a disturbing, yet oddly hilarious medical procedure.

A flashback to when the Mom was at Tig’s bedside prior to her mastectomy.

Notice that the series is called a dark comedy and oddly hilarious. Here’s my take – I’d call the series a drama with often unexpected diverting comedy scenes, but there’s not nearly enough of these to merit calling the series a comedy, dark or otherwise. Second, I didn’t find the show even remotely hilarious.