Pun Salad

Co-written and directed by Ethan Coen, half of the genius behind The Big Lebowski, Fargo, Blood Simple, etc.! What could go wrong? Especially since it's free-to-me on Peacock?

Well, I liked it OK, but only because I've inured myself to tolerate all the stuff you can read about in the IMDB "Parent's Guide". (Not everyone has the same attitude, the critics at Rotten Tomatoes are pretty brutal.)

Honey O'Donahue (Margaret Qualley) is a private eye out in Bakersfield. Things kick off when a prospective client, Mia Novotny, is found dead from an apparent auto accident, her car busting through the guardrails on a lonely desert road. But Honey had promised to help Mia, so she feels duty calls on her to do at least a perfunctory investigation.

Which opens a can of worms. For example, Honey's led to the "Four-Way Church", run by a charismatic priest (Chris Evans), who's quickly revealed to be sleazy in multiple ways. (A total inversion of Captain America.) She makes the acquaintance of MG Falcone (Aubrey Plaza), a cop who manages the evidence room, and… that relationship develops pretty quickly.

Honey utters some very good lines that made me smile, straight out of the hard-boiled shamus handbook. The plot is twisty. (I had a lot of "I didn't see that coming" moments.) Things get personal when (near the end) Honey's niece goes missing. Given all the other bodies that have piled up at that point (this YouTuber counts eight in all) , Honey's more than slightly concerned.

Now, of course, I have that old Carl Perkins song stuck in my head.