Review: Filthy Rich

Fox's 'Filthy Rich'
Fox's 'Filthy Rich' (Image credit: Alan Markfield/Fox)

Filthy Rich focuses on the Monreaux family, an outrageously wealthy clan that runs a wildly successful Christian television network out of New Orleans. Gerald McRaney plays father Eugene and Kim Cattrall plays mother Margaret. 

Eugene has to split from a family event for a work trip, and the viewer learns about his character when his private plane is shown to be full of sexy women for hire. After the plane crashes, the family learns that Eugene has three grown children with other women, in addition to his two with Margaret. One runs a pornographic website called Sin Wagon, one is a mixed martial arts combatant with a young son and one is a pot-growing drifter.

Fox's 'Filthy Rich'

(Image credit: Alan Markfield/Fox)

The three offspring are invited to New Orleans to meet the Monreaux family and battle with Margaret about how large a financial settlement it will take to send them on their way. 

Cattrall, also a producer, is very much the star of this series, and she throws herself into an over-the-top role with relish. It can be hard to see Cattrall as a devout Christian mother, and not as Samantha from Sex and the City. But Margaret has more in common with Samantha than is initially apparent. 

Filthy Rich offers a fun premise that the show executes in fits and starts. There are modest laughs to be had, but the characters outside of Margaret don’t inspire much emotional investment from viewers. Still, it’s a bit of escapist fun in a world that can use some.

Michael Malone

Michael Malone, senior content producer at B+C/Multichannel News, covers network programming, including entertainment, news and sports on broadcast, cable and streaming; and local broadcast television. He hosts the podcasts Busted Pilot, about what’s new in television, and Series Business, a chat with the creator of a new program, and writes the column “The Watchman.” He joined B+C in 2005. His journalism has also appeared in The New York Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Playboy and New York magazine.