Pam & Tommy looks at how the Pamela Anderson-Tommy Lee sex tape was shared with the world, and the effect that had on the couple, and on society. Lily James plays Anderson and Sebastian Stan portrays Lee, and Seth Rogen plays a carpenter, working on the couple’s Malibu mansion, who stumbles upon the tape.
It is 1995, and Rogen, in a mullet and jorts, is frustrated by Lee’s frequent changes to the design plans for the master bedroom, and his rock star attitude in general.
And Tommy owes him a pile of money.
The pilot is titled “Drilling and Pounding”, and Rogen’s Rand character hears the famous couple in the bedroom next door, time and again, as he works.
Rand knows an awful lot about various religions, both ancient and modern-day, around the world, adding a bit of complexity to his otherwise goofy character. “I’m a bit of an amateur theologian,” he says.
Amid a temper tantrum, Lee, who wears only a thong for much of the pilot, unfairly fires Rand, and owes him a substantial sum of money -- a king’s ransom, to Rand, and pocket change to the Mötley Crüe drummer. So Rand plots “Operation Karma,” a break-in of the Lee compound that results in him getting his hands on their safe. He breaks the safe open, and finds cash, guns, Pam’s bra and, yes, the sex tape.
The Pamela Anderson character barely appears in the pilot, and Rand is barely in the second episode. Called “I Love You, Tommy,” the second one flashed back to Anderson and Lee meeting in a club. In their first act of intimacy, he licks her face like it’s an ice cream cone. Anderson is off to Cancun in the morning, where she hangs out with the nerdy station chiefs who have signed on to air Baywatch.
“Ever been to Grand Rapids?” one asks. “You are massive there.”
Lee turns up in Cancún to surprise her. Wild partying ensues, and the couple is married a few days later.
In an awkward limo ride home from LAX, they get to know each other.
The episodes are better when Rand is in them. Pam and Tommy, attractive as they may be, can be hard to watch when they share the screen. Tommy offers an onslaught of single-entendre quips, and has a lengthy conversation with his penis–about sex, naturally. Pam doesn’t stray much, at least in the first two episodes, from the flakey blonde script.
But Rand gives the series some real plot, and a quirky character to boot.
Pam & Tommy offers a fun peek at mid-’90s America: its music, the lifestyles of the era’s rich and famous, and a time when sex tapes were actual VHS cassettes you could hold in your hand -- and sell to an ambitious pornographer, should the opportunity present itself. ■
