I save Melissa McCarthy for really bad times. When I need to be broken out of a deep funk, she is my non-pharmaceutical mood-elevator of choice. Funny to her marrow, however variable the material may be (Bridesmaids is terrible and this is a hill I intend to die on) she can be relied on to deliver the serotonin. Identity Thief, Tammy, Spy, The Boss, Paul Feig’s Ghostbusters (why wasn’t she a Ghostbuster? Why wasn’t she all four? My second hill) have been on regular rotation since 2016. If things are really, really bad I unleash the double dose of The Heat, co-starring Sandra Bullock. I am currently watching The Heat about 72 times a week. I would swap it for Thunder Force with Octavia Spencer, but need to hold something back in case Boris gets re-elected in 2024.
Now she is back on the small screen (after last year’s dramatic role in Nine Perfect Strangers, where she was again one of the main reasons for watching) with God’s Favorite Idiot (Netflix), written by her husband and frequent collaborator Ben Falcone. He plays Clark, a mid-level tech worker, a sweet, slightly hapless, perfectly average man – until he is struck by lightning from what turns out to be a divine cloud and starts to gain powers and, intermittently, glow. Satan is running amok in heaven and God has chosen Clark as her messenger on Earth, spreading the Word and strengthening her hand against the diabolic forces gathering against her and us.
