‘Margo’s Got Money Troubles’ Premiere Recap – Sneakily Brilliant, Already

It takes all of Margo’s Got Money Troubles’ three-part premiere to get to the premise, which revolves around a struggling single mother starting an OnlyFans page to make ends meet. But it takes roughly ten minutes to reveal itself as a quietly brilliant show, another razor-tipped arrow in Apple TV+’s ever-expanding quiver. Combining the half-hour dramedy format – think Shrinking, also on Apple TV+, and HBO’s Rooster – with a bit of A24 prestige, Elle Fanning anchors a story that feels contemporary in its details but classic and universal in its themes.

It’s going to be good, this. Sometimes you can just tell. Episode 1, “The Hungry Ghost”, speeds through the establishing context. The titular Margo is sleeping with her married Fullerton Lit professor, Mark, against the advice of her long-distance best friend, Becca. Promptly, she becomes pregnant with a child he instinctively pressures her to abort, and then decides to keep the kid regardless of her financial strife, shared apartment, and absent career prospects, greatly upsetting her mother, Shayanne, who raised Margo as a single mother herself and knows exactly how demanding the process can be.

Margo’s entire fast-forwarded pregnancy is contained in “The Hungry Ghost”, depicted in montage form as Margo’s half-hearted support begins to creak at the joints. Two of her roommates – even the feminist, ironically – can’t tolerate the sleepless nights and move out, leaving Margo with the wrestling-loving Susie and a significantly higher rent bill than before. This problem is compounded by being fired from her job because Shayanne’s first go at babysitting turns out disastrously, and without money for childcare, and thus childcare to be able to work, Margo is kind of stuck.

As we progress into Episode 2, “Homecoming”, Margo is still trying to juggle her new responsibilities. Complications keep arising, though. Shayanne, who is now shacked up with a decent-seeming preacher named Kenny who wants to marry her, doesn’t want him to know that her granddaughter was born out of wedlock (or at all). Virtually all of Shayanne’s life is posturing, in one form or another. She’s very beautiful, but that’s the only asset she seems to be interested in bargaining with, and the teetotal version of herself she’s presenting to her pious husband-to-be is deeply inauthentic. Kenny’s a nice guy, but it seems obvious that Shayanne is papering over the cracks left by the departure of Margo’s biological father, Jinx; cracks that are reopened when Jinx, fresh out of rehab, turns up at Margo’s apartment looking for a place to stay and a chance to make up for lost time.

Jinx, so-called because he’s a professional wrestler, is played with unsurprising depth and tenderness by Nick Offerman, and dominates most of Margo’s Got Money Troubles Episode 3, which is titled “Jinxed”, somewhat fittingly. The show is smart with the handling of this dynamic. Margo isn’t blind to her father’s foibles – his long periods of absence and history of addiction and instability, most specifically – but she’s also visibly adoring of him, especially when he starts cleaning the bathroom with a toothbrush, being great with Bodhi, and generally trying to make amends.

I am deeply worried about Jinx’s inevitable relapse, but there’s little sign of it in the premiere, despite Shayanne’s most determined efforts to eviscerate him verbally once she learns he’s now living with Margo. But her position is understandable, which is a point. Nobody in this show feels simplistic in their thinking or behaviour; the character dynamics are immediately nuanced and complex, with the classic archetypes – the bombshell ageing out of her prime; the macho man with substance abuse issues – revealing surprising contours at every turn.

It’s also Jinx who inadvertently gives Margo a money-making idea when he’s talking about an old colleague after she was released by WWE after setting up an OnlyFans page. There’s real money to be made on the platform, a position supported by Susie, who’s into cosplaying and insists it’s a great place for that. Margo isn’t interested in cosplaying, though. What she primarily has to offer is breast milk in abundance, and an aptitude for creative writing that, after some market research, she decides to sell for $20 tips to people interested in which Pokémon their penis most resembles. It’s a relatively innocuous proposition, but one that could spiral out of control pretty quickly. Based on Margo’s life thus far, that’s almost guaranteed to happen. But I’ll definitely still be here when it does.