The Mick and the art of the unlik­able female character

In movies and TV series, women who are por­trayed as being ​‘one of the guys’ usu­al­ly fit into either of two cat­e­gories: pret­ty, tomboy­ish and goofy but still tak­ing on the role of the only respon­si­ble, sen­si­tive mem­ber of the group; or down­right unhy­gien­ic, with greasy hair and skin, and man­ner­isms so crass they are entire­ly off-putting (think Melis­sa McCarthy in The Heat). In an indus­try that sex­u­alis­es and objec­ti­fies its sub­jects, the riski­est move is to present a female char­ac­ter in an unat­trac­tive, unlik­able light.

These days, female actors rarely get the chance to explore gen­uine­ly dar­ing, uncon­ven­tion­al char­ac­ters, espe­cial­ly if said char­ac­ter has lit­tle or noth­ing of sex­u­al val­ue to offer. While TV shows like Broad City are steadi­ly mov­ing towards embrac­ing the unin­hib­it­ed expres­sions of crude, dis­as­trous female char­ac­ters, none have quite man­aged to reach the same lev­els of unap­peal­ing intrigue as Dee Reynolds (Kaitlin Olson) on It’s Always Sun­ny in Philadel­phia.

When Olson was ini­tial­ly invit­ed to join The Gang on It’s Always Sun­ny in Philadel­phia, she was far from impressed by the role Rob McEl­hen­ney and Glenn How­er­ton had orig­i­nal­ly writ­ten for her. As per usu­al, the idea was to intro­duce a female lead to counter the absurd, dis­gust­ing behav­iours of her male peers by act­ing as ​“the voice of rea­son”. Know­ing she could offer much more than the stereo­typ­i­cal role of a woman try­ing to tame her moral­ly cor­rupt and chaot­ic male friends, she insist­ed on form­ing a part of their twist­ed sense of humour, rather than fight­ing against it.

She’s the crazy par­ty-girl who can hold her liqueur and a purse as she trudges through the after­maths of anoth­er crack adven­ture gone wrong at Paddy’s Bar. She’s pret­ty and clean, but in a dry-heav­ing, junkie-bride kind of way – and, cru­cial­ly, she’s just as vile, self-cen­tred, manip­u­la­tive and unworld­ly as the rest of The Gang. You may not even think it human­ly pos­si­ble, but at times she’s even more repul­sive than Dan­ny DeVito’s Frank Reynolds.

It was her role as Dee that pre­pared Olson for her new FX show, The Mick, in which she stars as Macken­zie ​“Mick­ey” Mur­phy, a dis­rep­utable slack­er who goes through life intox­i­cat­ing­ly wing­ing it. When she vis­its her sis­ter Poo­dle (Tri­cia O’Kelley), a tro­phy wife who mar­ried into a lux­u­ri­ous lifestyle, things don’t turn out as expect­ed. Mickey’s plan was to hit her up for mon­ey – a two minute affair of judge­ment fol­lowed by the sweet relief of feel­ing a wad of cash in her palm – but instead she finds her hands full in an unex­pect­ed new fam­i­ly situation.

As much as her sis­ter gets off on turn­ing her nose up at Mick­ey, the truth is her own fam­i­ly isn’t quite as prop­er as she makes them out to be: half-way through her vis­it, Poo­dle and her hus­band are hand­cuffed and thrown into the back of police cars for fraud and tax eva­sion, leav­ing Mick­ey behind with their kids Sab­ri­na (Sofia Black‑D’Elia), Chip (Thomas Bar­bus­ca) and Ben (Jack Stan­ton). And while Mick­ey may be a stum­bling cat­a­stro­phe, these spoiled brats aren’t a pic­nic either.

The premise of The Mick isn’t exact­ly new; there have been plen­ty of TV shows focus­ing on an unruly, estranged fam­i­ly mem­ber step­ping in to take over child care and domes­tic respon­si­bil­i­ties and, in doing so, adapt­ing to upper-class stan­dards they have pre­vi­ous­ly only ever observed as low-class out­siders. But Olson brings a Dee-esque edge to the series that makes it stand out from oth­er shows run­ning in a sim­i­lar vein. With her knack for phys­i­cal com­e­dy, wild-eyed facial expres­sions and shrill screech­es grow­ing in pitch, Olson is capa­ble of rein­vent­ing this par­tic­u­lar sit­com for­mu­la to remain in the realms of com­plete and utter sex, drugs and rock ​’n’ roll chaos amid a whole­some fam­i­ly setting.

The series thus far does not imply that what­ev­er bond Mick­ey and the kids have estab­lished is deep­er than it appears. Most shows (and movies) of this nature are adamant to end on lessons from the heart, but although Mick­ey will cer­tain­ly be pushed to change her ques­tion­able morals towards life and child-rear­ing for the bet­ter, The Mick may very well be a show that will con­tin­ue to cel­e­brate its unlik­able char­ac­ters. And let’s face it – there are a lot of them, two out of three kids included.