Giorgio blows it big time on The Big Door Prize [Apple TV+ recap]

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Josh Segarra in ★★★★☆
Blowhard restaurateur Giorgio (played by Josh Segarra) can't get his mind off Cass.
Photo: Apple TV+

TV+ Review The Big Door Prize throws a gala this week in an emotional installment of the Apple TV+ show about a town upended by an apparently psychic machine.

Cass gives herself a huge project, and only Giorgio seems to be on her wavelength about its relative importance. Meanwhile, Dusty gets high, Father Reuben gets jealous, and Izzy goes on the warpath in a very successful episode, entitled “Giorgio.”

The Big Door Prize recap: ‘Giorgio’

Season 1, episode 7: This week’s episode opens with a little flashback to the night of Principal Pat’s (played by Cocoa Brown) wedding. It turns out depressed that local bartender Hana (Ally Maki) has been dropping by Giorgio’s (Josh Segarra) place to sleep with him whenever she feels bad about herself and wants a release.

She’d rather connect with Father Rueben (Damon Gupton), Deerfield’s troubled (and formerly drinking) priest, but they’re both a little nervous about that: him for God reasons, her for not wanting to ruin the guy’s life. Hana doesn’t feel like she can hurt Giorgio, so she doesn’t mind using him for sex.

Giorgio — despite talking a big game, wearing his self-regard as prominently as his wig, and looking almost as handsome as someone who could fully get away with his toxic alpha male schtick — has issues. He’s covering up for massive insecurities, not the least of which is that he can’t stand that Dusty Hubbard (Chris O’Dowd) married his high school sweetheart Cass (Gabrielle Dennis). How did such a misshapen sad sack get the girl?

Cass gets the royal treatment

Gabrielle Dennis in "The Big Door Prize," now streaming on Apple TV+.
Cass (played by Gabrielle Dennis) throws a fundraiser, but it flops.
Photo: Apple TV+

Well, Giorgio hasn’t let go of that dream. And lately, it seems like he’s closer than ever to breaking through to Cass. Dusty’s kind of taken his eye off the prize lately, thanks in no small part to the existential dilemma posed by Morpho, the mysterious machine in the general store that tells you your future for a few quarters. Morpho gave Dusty a “Teacher/Whistler” card, and now he’s in a full-on flap about what it means and who he is.

Cass got “Royalty.” And the more she acts like it, the further she and Dusty seem to drift. In keeping with her newfound yen for the spotlight, she’s throwing a fundraiser at Giorgio’s restaurant. She’s raising money for the Potential Fund, something she just invented, which will help people in financial need reach the potentials that the Morpho machine issued them.

Dusty doesn’t really want to go. He doesn’t get the machine and, having been cheated by it, in his eyes, he doesn’t want to see other people blindly following Morpho’s instructions. Cass is already bent out of shape because she found out her mother, Mayor Izzy (Crystal Fox), lied to her about her ex-girlfriend, Martha (Susan Savoie). Izzy blamed Martha for the relationship ending when Cass asked, then blamed Cass for the relationship ending when Martha asked. So Cass took on new projects to focus on something besides her mom, and the gala has now blown up to epic proportions. She really doesn’t want Dusty to ruin it for her.

Giorgio seizes an opportunity

Giorgio knows he’s got a rare window of opportunity here, so he went all out to decorate his Italian restaurant for Cass’ gala. Giorgio sends Dusty off to get ice. And of course, when they get to the store, Jacob (Sammy Fourlas), Cass’ ex-secret-boyfriend who’s working the counter, tells them Giorgio already bought all the ice. Dusty realizes he’s being schemed. And when Jacob sees him panicking, he suggests they get high. Doing so helps Dusty realize how much he’s been psyching himself up lately — and how it’s been hindering his ability to reach Cass.

Naturally, it doesn’t take Giorgio long to embarrass himself and Cass. He creates a video that’s meant to be about the Potential Fund, but as with everything Giorgio does, it’s a self-aggrandizing testament to his own ego. He tries to salvage things with a live auction, but then he blows it again by getting Cass alone and confessing his feelings in non-innuendo. He tries to kiss her, but Cass’ daughter Trina (Djouliet Amara) interrupts them.

Cass calls Giorgio later and tells him not to bother her anymore. The fundraiser’s failure wouldn’t bother her half as much as it does, though, if her mom wasn’t gloating about its failure off to the side. In response, Cass tells her mom what she really thinks of her (it’s vicious) and leaves. Izzy decides to get even by grabbing a baseball bat and going downtown to smash the Morpho machine. Only a last-minute intervention by Jacob stops her, in a very arresting few seconds.

You’ve really been listening to me

Ally Maki and Damon Gupton in "The Big Door Prize," now streaming on Apple TV+.
Hana (played by Ally Maki, left) and Father Reuben (Damon Gupton) face some uncomfortable truths this week on The Big Door Prize.
Photo: Apple TV+

The Father Reuben/Hana dynamic on The Big Door Prize is truly great stuff. Ally Maki and Damon Gupton are the best of the cast at underselling their emotions, and they make great sparring partners. Gupton quietly, but not so quietly that she doesn’t notice, reacts to the news that Hana slept with Giorgio, which happened right after Hana and Reuben had their moment together following Pat’s wedding. They confessed horrible things about themselves and slow danced, and then she went and slept with someone else.

Hana, surprisingly, cops to having done so because she can’t sleep with a priest, which maybe throws him even more. People tend to talk around their problems on this show, so when something like that happens, so truncated and immediate it’s almost shorthand, it really breaks through the amiable comic vibe.

Knowing everyone better now allows the show to pick up a kind of second-hand Raymond Carver vibe (or maybe something like a B-story in the second season of Twin Peaks). We get new tests and trials for these characters, but none of them feels like the end of the world. It’s becoming much more fun to hang in Deerfield, which spells good things for the future of The Big Door Prize.

★★★★☆

Watch The Big Door Prize on Apple TV+

New episodes of The Big Door Prize arrive every Wednesday on Apple TV+.

Rated: TV-MA

Watch on: Apple TV+

Scout Tafoya is a film and TV critic, director and creator of the long-running video essay series The Unloved for RogerEbert.com. He has written for The Village Voice, Film Comment, The Los Angeles Review of Books and Nylon Magazine. He is the author of Cinemaphagy: On the Psychedelic Classical Form of Tobe Hooper and But God Made Him A Poet: Watching John Ford in the 21st Century, the director of 30 feature films, and the director and editor of more than 300 video essays, which can be found at Patreon.com/honorszombie.

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