FIGURING that “Cash mere Mafia” was going to be an old-fashioned female-basher like “Desperate Housewives” and as much of a rip-off of “Sex and the City” as possible on network TV, I reluctantly sat down for a watch.
Never let it be said that I can’t admit it when I’m wrong. Once.
And man was I wrong about these women! The characters here are all highly successful, not-lonely or desperate-for-love ladies who haven’t been punished (well not too much) for being successful. In other words, they have relationships, and haven’t had to trade career for love like some 1940s Joan Crawford movie – a stereotype that has persisted on TV to this day.
The women are Mia (Lucy Liu), a honcho at Barnstead Media Group, Zoe (Frances O’Connor), an investment banker, Juliet (Miranda Otto), COO of a hotel chain and Caitlin (Bonnie Somerville), a marketing exec for a cosmetics company. And they are as fully-fleshed/gimmick-free female characters as I’ve seen on TV in recent years.
They don’t have all the answers, they aren’t bitches on heels and they aren’t drunks. Well, not so far, anyway.
As the story unfolds, we learn in a natural way – not through bad expository dialogue – that two of the women (Zoe and Juliet) are married with kids, while Mia is engaged to a guy with the same job as she has at the same publishing house. Caitlin, happy in her work, has never, however, been able to get her relationship mojo up in working order. Zoe is married to work-at-home architect Eric (Julian Ovenden), and although their lives are a hectic mess of career and kids, it works. Zoe’s problems center on trying to find a nanny who isn’t insane or entitled, keeping the stay-at-home moms at bay, and working to be a good, guilt-free mom.
Juliet has a sulking teen daughter and a striking hedge fund husband named Davis (Peter Hermann), who may not be all that he seems. And Juliet might not be as upfront with her girlfriends about him as they thought.
They all met at an Ivy League grad school and have been tight ever since. They get together for drinks, coffee, dinner or whenever there’s a personal SOS.
They dress like a million bucks, but not in out-there costumes like “Sex and the City.” For viewers who aren’t women in NYC who’ve struggled with all of the above, the show might seem fake, but for those of us who have, it strikes a realistic chord. And yes, there are a huge number of women who make enough money now in this city to carry $10,000 bags and wear suits worth more than most people make in a month. And yes, somehow they do go out to fancy lunches all the time. I know women just like this.
One reason it all works is the quality behind the concept. The show’s exec producers are Darren Star (“Sex and see above!”), Kevin Wade (“Boston Legal“), who also created it, and Michael Pressman (“Boston Legal,” “Picket Fences“), who also directs, and Gail Katz, (“The Agency.”). Not a clunker or a loser in the pack -and neither are the mobbed-up females who make up the Cashmere Mafia.
Oh – and for the record, this mafia doesn’t carry guns. They carry Gucci. If there’s any killing to be done it’s of the making-a-killing kind. Can’t wait for more.
“Cashmere Mafia”
Sunday night at 10 on ABC