Rake

OMG and fuck a duck, it has been 3 days, well, 2 and a half because it’s morning now, since I’ve written my last blog. I knew I’d missed a day, but had no idea that this particular combination of Covid protocols, retirement, summer, and my own preferred source of entertainment and mental stimulation, which is to smoke pot until I can’t move, had led to such a malaise. So, it’s time for a gratuitous Netflix review, which has zero bearing on the world situation or the improvement of human civilization, and a weak promise, to myself more than my readers, all half a dozen or so of them, that I’ll crank out a couple of blogs a day for the next couple of days to restore the balance.
Yesterday I finished watching ‘Rake’, 5 seasons in less than two weeks. I find it hard to believe that in the olden days we’d watch shows one episode at a time, an entire bloody week apart.
It’s an Australian (which I like) lawyer show, comedy/drama, bordering on the absurd at times but generally believable. I’ve been trying to convince my wife to watch it (which would mean I’d have to watch it again, but that would be O.K.), and she’s almost there, as it does not contain any of the elements that I love but she hates…robots, time travel, aliens, stuff like that…but she keeps asking, what does ‘Rake’ mean?
Well, that’s pretty much the essence of the show, the definition of the main character. A cad, a bounder, a rogue, a jack the lad, definitely a ladies’ man, (the show is a cornucopia of hot women and strange sexual relationships), a drinker, a user of drugs, a glib talker whose version of the truth is rather fluid to say the least, a gambler but not a very successful one, and a lawyer very much in the pattern of Jimmy McGill from Better Call Saul. It’s sort of a cross between ‘Better Call Saul’ and ‘Monk’, but set in Australia.

In summary, I totally recommend it. 5 stars. It’s got intrigue, it’s got sex, it’s got some big belly laughs, it’s got a large cast of people who are fascinating in their own right, and just enough social commentary (lawyers and, even more so, politicians, are all irredeemably corrupt) to be relevant without being obnoxious.
I highly recommend it.