The show had an interesting premise, so much so that, even given my 4/10 rating, I had to watch it to the bitter end. Unfortunately, the show didn't live up to its potential.
The acting on the show was fairly good, but there were too many character developments and plot points that didn't seem to make good sense, or at least weren't developed thoroughly enough to make sense. Here are a few:
1) Sammy's gender battle. The youngest child, a boy named Sammy, kept wanting to be a girl and would oftentimes dress up as a girl despite the fact that it very well could have compromised their operation. This was kind of interesting at the outset, but they never went anywhere with it. The character himself never really went anywhere. He was just the quiet "other kid" who would occasionally dress like a girl at inopportune times. What was the point? Who knows. Also, what about the murals he kept drawing? Pointless.
2) Dahlia's dentistry gig. As part of Dahlia's effort to take over the life of Mrs. Rich, she had to attend a job interview at a dentist office. Somehow, she got the job and managed to work at the office for a few days despite her obvious lack of qualifications. This was way too far fetched. I guess the writers understood this, because, with very little set up or mentioning of it afterwards, the Dentist that she was working for committed suicide when he couldn't handle the grief of having recently lost his wife. The office then closed down and she didn't have to work there anymore. How convenient! How random and pointless...seriously, why did they even have her work there in the first place? It added absolutely nothing to the plot or to her development.
3) The family's "conscience" and their criticisms of the "buffer lifestyle". They are a family of travelers. They roam around the countryside in their RV scamming, pickpocketing, and otherwise conning their way through life at the expense of everyone they come across. They have no problem with this. For some reason, though, when they take over the lives of the Riches, their moral compass comes from nowhere and creates arbitrary drama. Whenever they cross into the slightest grey of moral areas, they freak out because they're supposedly these moral and righteous people who have the right to look down their noses at "buffers". Hello! At the start of the season, these people went into a High School reunion and pick pocketed EVERYONE there! And now they're freaking out about winning a court case against a lesbian couple, temporarily covering up someone's accidental murder (which they had ALREADY DONE when they took over the Riches' lives), or cutting Wayne's boss (a corrupt asshole) out of a multimillion dollar real estate deal? And yet, they had no problem scamming an ex-athlete who was in dire financial straits out of half a million dollars, or ripping off a woman who was suing because her arm was eaten by alligators, or selling a breeding Alpaca for $100,000 even though it was infertile, or any number of their other scams. Their selective morality just made no sense and got old very fast, especially when their son, Cael (the most ruthless and morally ambiguous traveler of all of them) ran away from home because of who they had "become". Come on...
4) Dahlia's parole fiasco. Everything is going right for them. They're on track to get $13 million and retire for life. All they have to do is carry on like normal for just a few months. Then, out of nowhere, Dahlia gets some crazy idea after sitting in on an AA meeting to confess to the police that she is a parole violator (something that could get her thrown in prison and/or blow her family's whole operation). What in the world?! This made absolutely zero sense.
I think the writers had just run out of good ideas and were trying to throw whatever mayhem they could think of into the mix. It just wasn't sustainable and it didn't work out.
The acting on the show was fairly good, but there were too many character developments and plot points that didn't seem to make good sense, or at least weren't developed thoroughly enough to make sense. Here are a few:
1) Sammy's gender battle. The youngest child, a boy named Sammy, kept wanting to be a girl and would oftentimes dress up as a girl despite the fact that it very well could have compromised their operation. This was kind of interesting at the outset, but they never went anywhere with it. The character himself never really went anywhere. He was just the quiet "other kid" who would occasionally dress like a girl at inopportune times. What was the point? Who knows. Also, what about the murals he kept drawing? Pointless.
2) Dahlia's dentistry gig. As part of Dahlia's effort to take over the life of Mrs. Rich, she had to attend a job interview at a dentist office. Somehow, she got the job and managed to work at the office for a few days despite her obvious lack of qualifications. This was way too far fetched. I guess the writers understood this, because, with very little set up or mentioning of it afterwards, the Dentist that she was working for committed suicide when he couldn't handle the grief of having recently lost his wife. The office then closed down and she didn't have to work there anymore. How convenient! How random and pointless...seriously, why did they even have her work there in the first place? It added absolutely nothing to the plot or to her development.
3) The family's "conscience" and their criticisms of the "buffer lifestyle". They are a family of travelers. They roam around the countryside in their RV scamming, pickpocketing, and otherwise conning their way through life at the expense of everyone they come across. They have no problem with this. For some reason, though, when they take over the lives of the Riches, their moral compass comes from nowhere and creates arbitrary drama. Whenever they cross into the slightest grey of moral areas, they freak out because they're supposedly these moral and righteous people who have the right to look down their noses at "buffers". Hello! At the start of the season, these people went into a High School reunion and pick pocketed EVERYONE there! And now they're freaking out about winning a court case against a lesbian couple, temporarily covering up someone's accidental murder (which they had ALREADY DONE when they took over the Riches' lives), or cutting Wayne's boss (a corrupt asshole) out of a multimillion dollar real estate deal? And yet, they had no problem scamming an ex-athlete who was in dire financial straits out of half a million dollars, or ripping off a woman who was suing because her arm was eaten by alligators, or selling a breeding Alpaca for $100,000 even though it was infertile, or any number of their other scams. Their selective morality just made no sense and got old very fast, especially when their son, Cael (the most ruthless and morally ambiguous traveler of all of them) ran away from home because of who they had "become". Come on...
4) Dahlia's parole fiasco. Everything is going right for them. They're on track to get $13 million and retire for life. All they have to do is carry on like normal for just a few months. Then, out of nowhere, Dahlia gets some crazy idea after sitting in on an AA meeting to confess to the police that she is a parole violator (something that could get her thrown in prison and/or blow her family's whole operation). What in the world?! This made absolutely zero sense.
I think the writers had just run out of good ideas and were trying to throw whatever mayhem they could think of into the mix. It just wasn't sustainable and it didn't work out.