[Spoilers] The Laughable Ending of Netflix's 'A Man In Full' Is Beyond Parody

By Dustin Rowles | TV | May 7, 2024 |

By Dustin Rowles | TV | May 7, 2024 |

Netflix’s A Man in Full is the kind of show that an algorithm might put together specifically for me: It comes from David E. Kelley, the prolific showrunner whose drama series The Practice inspired me to go to law school (at his alma mater); it’s based on a novel I’ve read by Tom Wolfe, whose New Journalism I studied extensively as an undergrad; and its two directors are Thomas Schlamme — beloved director/producer of two of my favorite shows, The West Wing and Sports Night — and Regina King, my all-time favorite actress.
How could it possibly go wrong?

Basically, in every conceivable way, starting with, quite frankly, weak source material — A Man in Full is not Wolfe’s best work. David E. Kelley also botched the adaptation — he removed the satire, as well as the crime in the novel that motivated the book’s themes (the alleged rape of a young white heiress by a superstar Black athlete). While there is no satire in the writing of A Man in Full, both Schlamme and King nevertheless put the series through the satire filter, which means there’s a lot of inexplicable overacting.

But most of all, A Man in Full suffers from the woefully miscast Jeff Daniels. I like Daniels. Daniels can play the aggrieved everyman (American Rust); he can play the smug liberal (The Newsroom); he can do likable mentor (Speed); warm and loving father (Because of Winn-Dixie); or complete and total idiot (Dumb and Dumber).

What Jeff Daniels cannot do is play a Kevin Spacey character, which is not necessarily a bad thing … unless you’re cast as a Kevin Spacey character. His Charlie Croker — a genteel but sleazy real-estate tycoon with a thick Southern accent — is the kind of repugnant character who still operates as a dimly likable protagonist. He’s awful, but we’re supposed to root for his redemption. Unfortunately, there’s not a moment that goes by in A Man in Full where it doesn’t feel like Daniels is playing a character, and all I could think most of the time was, “Stop doing that thing with your mouth, Jeff!”

Putting the miscasting aside, even the story is underwhelming. It feels like we’re dropped into the middle of the story and asked to care about characters with whom we have no history or context. Within the first ten minutes, we’re essentially thrown into a boardroom where two bankers — Raymond Peepgrass (Tom Pelphrey) and Harry Zale (Bill Camp) are calling in an $800 million loan that Croker has been remiss in paying. Peepgrass and Zale are very adamant about screwing over Croker, and Croker seems equally adamant about screwing them over. But we don’t know why, and the series never provides us with any history. We don’t know anything about Croker’s business except that he owns some buildings and owes a lot of money.

The whole thing feels like they cut out the first two episodes and just started the series at episode three.
But while Croker is trying to save his real-estate empire, his receptionist’s husband, Conrad (Jon Michael Hill) has been thrown in jail for assaulting a police officer after the officer got rough with him over a parking violation. A minor parking infraction essentially escalates into a potentially long prison sentence and a life-threatening situation for Conrad inside of the jail.

Conrad is defended in court by Croker’s attorney, Roger White (Aml Ameen), an aspiring do-gooder who inexplicably found himself employed as Croker’s fixer. White is also being asked by his law school friend turned mayor, Wes Jordan (William Jackson Harper), to use Croker to get some dirt on his political opponent involving a decades-old sexual assault of a college student (played in the present by Lucy Liu). Meanwhile, Diane Lane plays Croker’s ex-wife, and she’s just trying to maintain her status — she has a stake in her ex-husband’s company, so the bank calling in the loans would be bad for her, too.

It’s a relatively short six-episode series, but it feels like a slog. Worse still, there’s no payoff for sitting through it. The ending is the sort of thing that might work in a more fantastical novel, but it’s beyond absurd here.

SPOILERS

The mayor, Wes Jordan (what are you even doing in this, William Jackson Harper?), puts political pressure on the bank to give Croker more time to pay back the loans in exchange for Croker agreeing to publicly out Jordan’s political opponent as a rapist. After a crisis of conscience, Croker can’t go through with it because it would mean outing the sexual assault of a woman who doesn’t want it outed. Croker, however, does speak so highly of Jordan that he humanizes the mayor, leading to a boost in the polls.

In maybe the only interesting subplot, the attorney Roger White does convince a racist judge to release Conrad, successfully arguing that Conrad fought off the cop in self-defense because he had a reasonable belief his life was in danger (because cops, especially in Georgia, do not have a great history with Black men).

Meanwhile, after one of the banker guys, Peepgrass, is prevented from calling in Croker’s loan, he figures out how to put the interest of Croker’s ex-wife and son in Croker’s prized asset in his LLC, giving Peepgrass a controlling stake. He celebrates this by taking two erectile dysfunction pills and having sex with Croker’s ex-wife. Croker is so angry about it that he drives over to his ex-wife’s house, barges in on Peepgrass fucking his ex-wife, and confronts him.

Peepgrass is (comically?) fully erect during the entire confrontation, and Croker puts his hand around his neck, meaning only to scare him. However, Croker has a heart attack, his hand seizes around Peepgrass’s neck, strangling him to death while Croker falls over and dies of a heart attack. The end. So dumb.