‘The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins’ Episode 2 Recap – Are You Not Entertained?

I mentioned this briefly when I wrote about the premiere, but any issues of premise, character development, or originality aside, The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins has an absurd density of jokes. As of Episode 2, “Nittany Means Big”, it’s worth mentioning again, since now that the broad outline of what’s going on has calcified into a frame that’ll support the remaining episodes and whatever absurdist asides crop up as a result, the jokes are coming at an impressively consistent clip.

You’ll recall – or perhaps not; it did air a month in advance – that the premiere left the core cast in agreement about what to do, but not necessarily on how best to do it. And that’s where the conflict in “Nittany Means Big” lives. For the time being, Reggie is willing to allow Arthur’s film to not be a puff piece, but he still hasn’t adapted to the idea of it being a true warts-and-all examination of his gambling scandal and subsequent downfall. Arthur is willing to make that film, but on his own terms, and with a mind to reviving his own career first and foremost. And Monica knows the whole thing could be a big shot in the arm for her floundering sports-management business, but she’s also wary that Reggie, whom she still harbours a ton of genuine affection for, could end up being humiliated if it all goes wrong.

This tentativeness underpins the entire episode. And it works because it slightly evolves the dynamics from the premiere. Reggie is having to pretend that he’s behaving totally naturally around the cameras, even though he’s making breakfast in a tuxedo. And Arthur is trying to be casually part of the gang without betraying his auteur filmmaking drives, which plays really well with the uptight creative mould that Radcliffe is bringing to this role.

But it’s Monica who drives the plot here, since her own function in the three-way dynamic is primarily business-oriented but tinged by the long-time personal familiarity she has with Reggie. So there’s an interesting note in the background of a lot of her involvement where her best-interests decision-making sometimes gives way to a cattier ex-wife vibe, such as when she makes exaggerated air quotes that tip off Arthur about Reggie’s equivalent of Michael Jordan’s famous “Flu Game” not being as heroic as he has allowed people to believe.

The “Flu Game” – actually caused by food poisoning, not the flu – saw Jordan score 38 points in 44 minutes despite barely being able to stand; Reggie has co-opted the legend, pinning much of his former reputation on a game where he ran 229 yards and scored three touchdowns while intermittently vomiting into his helmet. But it becomes clear throughout The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins Episode 2 that, as real as the performance and the illness were, they were caused by Reggie swallowing a few lungfuls of filthy Pennsylvania river water after trying to steal Penn State’s Nittany Lion mascot.

This is all funny, but it also gets to the heart of what filming this documentary is going to mean for Reggie. He seems to have always relied on being beloved to paper over his mistakes (in the premiere, he justified his gambling by saying he only ever bet on himself to win, which made him play better; it’s a one-liner, but also highlights the distinction that Reggie is drawing between bad outright match-fixing and a “good” kind of sports betting.) Reggie is so adamant that there’s a Hall of Fame jersey coming his way because he has convinced himself that he was basically a good guy who ended up being unfairly pilloried for a well-meaning error. But the more we learn about him – and the more he’s forced to examine himself – the more it seems like his public persona was much more of a fiction than he realised, or at least than he ever cared to admit.

This manifests in small, personal ways too, like Reggie’s complete inability to deduce why Brina is freezing him out, or apologise to her in anything even resembling a meaningful way. There’s an enormous gap between how Reggie perceives himself and how the rest of the world sees him, and it’s this gap that Arthur is trying to wriggle into to make the documentary more successful. But the more interrogative and honest the documentary becomes, the more holes are inevitably going to be poked in the Reggie Dinkins legend, and the more he’s going to have to reckon with how just as easily as the general public and professional sports apparatus made him, they’ll equally easily delight in tearing down their own creation if it means not having to acknowledge all of their inherent contradictions.

Welcome to celebrity sports culture. Enjoy your stay.