A handsome con man works big scores with his family in “The Company You Keep.” After selling some property they don’t even own, they think they’ve hit the jackpot — $10 million free and clear. Turns out, they just got scammed themselves by someone else, who takes the money and runs. Now they’re back at square one.
Actually, it’s worse than that: They got made and now they’re on the hook to return all that money, bit by bit, to the Irish criminal syndicate they targeted with this phony deal — otherwise it’s lights out. A decent enough heist-of-the-week premise, if only the ABC drama were going for that.
Starring Milo Ventimiglia in his follow-up to “This Is Us,” the show is a series of winking capers. But also family drama (involving multiple families). And also a nighttime soap juiced with romantic intrigue. It’s based on a Korean show called “My Fellow Citizens!” which I have not seen; Wikipedia describes the premise thusly: “A con man, who gets involved with unexpected incidents, marries a police officer and somehow ends up running to become a member of the National Assembly.”
“The Company You Keep” has made some key changes. The police detective love interest is now an agent working for an unnamed shadowy government agency, played by Catherine Haena Kim. Another tweak: It’s her brother who’s running for office, and as storylines go, this is underwhelming. Nor does it actually develop her character further. Who is she, beyond these things that are happening around her?
More pressingly, the show can’t seem to land on an overall tone or sensibility.
Ventimiglia is likable, that’s not the issue. But as written, the character is too bland and underdeveloped to really carry a show. Same goes for his romantic counterpart in Kim, who is stuck with dialogue that has her saying things like “our friends at the FBI.” It’s unclear what she does exactly but it’s very important and she’s very good at ... whatever her job is.
The show is the latest addition to a roster of fine-but-forgettable shows to premiere on ABC this season, along with the Gina Rodriguez comedy “Not Dead Yet” and the Hilary Swank newspaper drama “Alaska Daily” (which last aired in November; the final four episodes are slated to run next month if you haven’t forgotten about it already). These shows might be decidedly mid, but I do appreciate that the network isn’t just ordering up an endless array of cop dramas to fill its schedule (“Will Trent” is an exception; had to fit in some copaganda somewhere). I respect that ABC is actually trying to find success with the kind of shows that were once TV staples. I think there’s an audience for it.
In some ways, “The Company You Keep” seems to be going after the same viewers who were drawn to “Stumptown” in 2019; ABC renewed the Cobie Smulders and Jake Johnson drama after its first season, only to reverse that decision. (Welcome to the uncertainty of modern television, where good news can quickly turn bad.) “Stumptown” had a few things going for it that are missing here: A defined sense of itself and the sexual tension threaded through it, along with a clearer idea of what each episode was aiming to accomplish.
It’s not that a show can’t do multiple things at once. But with “The Company You Keep,” the ratios are off. ABC sent out just two screeners, which isn’t much to go by. The pilot gets bogged down establishing the world of the series and probably isn’t a good example of things to come. Episode 2 opens with a musical choice — “Money (That’s What I Want)” — that is extremely on-the-nose, but it’s a kicky number that suggests: Oh, the show is this.
A diamond necklace is being auctioned off and the crew is there to — wait, the episode starts mid-heist, skipping all the planning and problem-solving to go straight to the main event. Too bad the scheme is confused and disjointed and broken up by other storylines.
But hey, Ventimiglia looks good in a suit. “Get to stealing,” he’s instructed by the threatening femme fatale who is now his nemesis. There’s a zippiness to that line that’s undercut every time the show changes gears to become a relationship drama complicated by demanding families. William Fichtner and Polly Draper play Ventimiglia’s blue-collar parents who own a bar in Baltimore, and we’re meant to believe they can bluff through a con with the best of them. They’re pretty good! But so far, at least, the episodes feel so scattered that anyone’s flair for chicanery is almost an afterthought when it should be one of the show’s big selling points.
A quick note: Dashing, high-octane liars are the character du jour, apparently; a couple of weeks from now “True Lies,” the TV adaptation of the 1994 James Cameron movie, premieres on CBS, about a woman who discovers her husband is a spy and gets sucked into his web of secret agenting. It, too, features a similar combination of clandestine schemery, opportunities to show off a well-cut suit and intense, possibly life-or-death scenarios.
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'THE COMPANY YOU KEEP'
2 stars (out of 4)
How to watch: 10 p.m. ET Sundays on ABC (and streaming on Hulu)
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