Just so that we know “Lindsay” (Sundays at 9:00 p.m. on OWN) is not a trashy reality show, somber black-and-white text greets us to set the stage. On July 30, 2013, Lindsay Lohan ended her 90-day stint in rehab. Four days later, she began filming this show. About two minutes after that, she started a deeply sublimated quest to make her handlers, sycophants and slave labor intensely crazy by stirring up drama in the most mundane tasks you can imagine. I half expected to see Lindsay arguing with the coin slots at the laundromat, but we can all assume Linsday does not do her own laundry.
At first, though, it's the calm before the storm. Lindsay is looking for an apartment in New York City, so she drives from one location to another while her minions remind her what she's doing and where she is and one suck-up pal tries to assure her that “The Canyons” is really, really good. “It's different!” she says, smiling desperately. Lindsay is thrilled, as if this means something.
There is a great deal of Lindsay opening boxes and moving boxes and, later, her assistant moving boxes and opening boxes, and if your first thought upon seeing her hotel room is, “Hey, I saw that on 'Hoarders: Buried Alive'!” you wouldn't be far off. While Lindsay assures the camera she's feeling focused and determined to live a life of “integrity” (ironically, she says this so many times it really does suggest a drinking game), she certainly seems to be dedicating more concentrated thought to which orange dress she's going to wear than big life decisions.
While she has been invited to attend the Venice Film Festival to promote “The Canyons,” she determines such a trek would be too dangerous to her sobriety. So what does she do instead? Yoga classes? Meditation? Electroshock? No, she decides to film a short film promoting a line of lingerie instead as a favor to a friend. She just loves being in front of a camera, yo!
It's no big surprise when this simple endeavor ends in tears. When the script is changed, apparently to accommodate her schedule, she feels she's been “lied to,” which to her is a crime that should be punishable by death. You'd think she might have already beaten the hell out of her friend who said she loved “The Canyons,” but apparently the lie has to be one she doesn't like.
In case it isn't abundantly clear that Lindsay decided to sleep through some of her rehab counseling, she makes a point of complaining about how the judge was totally super mean to her when she forced her to go to jail and rehab and all that stuff. It could be argued that the judge was trying to get her to take responsibility for her actions and get clean. What a bitch!
Though Linsday mostly puts on a happy face for the cameras (I love my mom! Look!), we can't ignore that she may be off booze but she hasn't done the hard work of taking responsibility for her actions and learning how to sidestep drama (not screaming at her realtor or signing up for short promotional films might be a good place to start).
Next week it seems Lindsay is going to pick a fight with her assistant, who can apparently put up with crazy (he used to work for Steven Tyler) and starts the “I don't want to film today” rigamarole that causes Oprah to call her on her bullshit at some point. As her assistant points out, this could be the most important job of Lindsay's career. He's sure she won't screw it up. I wouldn't take that bet.
What did you think of “Lindsay”? Do you think she'll stay sober? Do you think it was a bad idea to do this show so soon after rehab?