By: Brandon Wolfe
The launch season of ‘Tyrant’ has not amounted to great television. The story of a Middle Eastern nation in the throes of social upheaval and the balance of power among the family that rules over it is one that could have easily made for a compelling series, but has instead resulted in a leaden, deeply uninteresting soap opera. The series has bungled matters every step of the way. Its story arc shambles along lifelessly. Its characters are one-note ciphers. Its cast is largely bland and underqualified. Its dialogue is torturously overwritten, horribly flat and unnatural. It has a premise that affords it the opportunity to say something substantial about real-world issues, yet it squanders that potential at every turn. By any reasonable metric, ‘Tyrant’ is a failure. Yet in “Gone Fishing,” the season finale, ‘Tyrant’ stuns us by doing a few things right on its way out the door. It’s not only the best episode of the series by a country mile, but there are portions of it that legitimately work as gripping, even surprising television. This is the minute where the broken clock finally gets it right.
Bassam’s coup hits a snag when the American powers-that-be who tacitly approved the action suddenly begin having second thoughts. They are no longer confident that Bassam can win the upcoming election, but are certain that Jamal would rig the game to stay in the big chair. Moreover, because Jamal himself removed Tariq and his military forces from the equation – something the Americans had hoped the coup would accomplish – they no longer see the coup as necessary for their own purposes. Bassam is furious and insists that he will proceed as planned even without the support of the United States, not taking into account how crucial his American allies will be to his plans, particularly with regard to protecting his family from reprisal. Rather than accept defeat, however, Bassam resorts to blackmail, forcing Tucker and Lea Exley to get Uncle Sam back onboard Team Barry.
With all systems a go once again, Bassam heads out on a fishing trip with Jamal. For a series that has made no secret of the debt it owes to ‘The Godfather’, this seems ominous, yet the trip consists entirely of brotherly bonding between the two, with reminisces, beer and heartfelt exchanges all around. When it becomes clear that there will be no Fredo escapades on the trip, the point of the sequence then seems to be to provide yet more opportunities for an unsuspecting Jamal to tell his brother how much he loves and trusts him, all the better to ironically underscore Bassam’s betrayal. This is a move that ‘Tyrant’ has played constantly and with the heaviest of hands since this coup business first began. But when the brothers return ashore and a swarm of troops make a beeline toward them, Bassam finally reveals his true plans to Jamal, with the expectation that his brother is about to be taken into custody. But Bassam soon realizes that a now-free Tariq is leading the charge and that Bassam himself is the squadron’s target. It seems that Jamal was able to get Hakim, his son’s fearful father-in-law, talking over drinks and he confessed everything he knew about the coup. The fishing trip was Jamal’s bid to give Bassam one last opportunity to come clean about his intentions, playing up the ‘loving brother’ angle to hopefully appeal to his brother’s emotions.
This turnaround might be the first thing ‘Tyrant’ has unequivocally done right. From the start, the culmination of this story had always seemed to be Bassam’s unlikely rise to power (the ‘Godfather’ thing again). Bassam’s ascension to the throne and subsequent descent into power-mad corruption by season’s end seemed a foregone conclusion. Watching Jamal turn the tables, effectively recasting the purposes of that tedious boat sequence in the process, comes as an actual surprise and finally gives the series a dramatic situation that is successfully juicy. What helps it even further is that it’s actually satisfying. Despite his many odious qualities, Jamal is the most likable person on the show simply by virtue of the fact that he’s the only nuanced, well-realized character around. Bassam, on the other hand, is still hampered by being played by a dead fish of an actor who can’t summon the ability to make his character embody anything other than morose idealism. It’s hard to like (or hate) Bassam because there isn’t anything to him. He’s like a placeholder for a lead character that never showed up. Him receiving his comeuppance is enjoyable to witness because rooting for this complete zero is simply not possible.
The drama concerning Molly and the kids is less successful. Molly’s ne’er-do-well sister Jenna, dropped into the mix a couple weeks back for the very obvious purpose of causing some plot-related problem down the road, finally fulfills her narrative duty as she takes Emma on a last-minute shopping spree and causes the American Al-Fayeeds to miss their plane home when the two are detained by police after pickpocketers leave them with no money to pay for lunch (I’m always surprised by how members of this family routinely go around without any security escorts considering how many times we’ve been told how much the populace hates the Al-Fayeeds). Now that Bassam’s plans are out in the open, his family has no other choice but to seek refuge within the American embassy, the only place in Abuddin where they can be kept safe and their de facto home for the foreseeable future.
That’s still a better home than Bassam now has, occupying the same dungeon-cell that Tariq recently vacated. After several of Bassam’s co-conspirators are executed by firing squad, his mother goes to Jamal to plead with her son to spare her other son’s life. However, Jamal is more receptive to the council of Leila and Tariq, both of whom firmly advocate for Bassam’s death, which Jamal grievously chooses to order. And that is the note that ‘Tyrant’ leaves us hanging on, possibly forever depending on its as-yet-uncertain fate. I had no intention of returning to the series after the conclusion of this season, but I will admit to a certain amount of curiosity about how this thread will be resolved. I can’t imagine Bassam would actually be executed, but going forward, what role could he possibly play on the series in light of these events? Many shows have backed their way out of tougher corners than this, but it takes a deft hand, which ‘Tyrant’ certainly does not have. But in spite of my curiosity, I think Bassam would agree more than anyone that returning to Abuddin is almost certainly not a good idea.
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