[[link removed]]

PORTSIDE CULTURE

MAXIMUM PLEASURE GUARANTEED: TATIANA MASLANY AND MURRAY BARTLETT MAKE
THIS PLEASURABLE TV INDEED  
[[link removed]]


 

Rhik Samadder
May 16, 2026
The Guardian
[[link removed]]


*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

_ Apple’s superbly twisty thriller about a beautiful camboy
blackmailing a divorced mum is like the new No Country for Old Men –
with added Nick from New Girl _

Stick with it … Tatiana Maslany stars in Maximum Pleasure
Guaranteed. , Photograph: Zach Dilgard/Apple

 

I was drawn to this week’s show for the worst reason. That name is
pure critic bait, and I like my fruit low-hanging. Other famously
pre-roasted works include the films The Happening and Fantastic Four,
and the Oasis album Be Here Now. (No, thanks.) In my
schadenfreude-soaked soul, I wondered if Apple’s show might join
them. Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed (Apple TV, from Wed)? Do I need the
warranty?

It stars Tatiana Maslany, who also led the brilliantly titled, if
widely slated, show She Hulk: Attorney at Law. No one doubts
Maslany’s chops. She won an Emmy playing 17 distinct clones in the
sci-fi series Orphan Black. Here she plays Paula, a divorced mother
going through a custody battle. Paula’s only access to intimacy is
with a young online sex worker named Trevor. Despite his name, Trevor
is beautiful, like Jeff Buckley. I suppose Jeff isn’t the most
exotic name either.

 

 
Anyway, Paula pays Trevor to act as her virtual therapist, and also
remove his clothes to help get her off, if there’s time left in the
hour. You could say their relationship is entirely digital, in several
senses. On one of their calls, Trevor answers a knock at the door, and
is savagely beaten by a masked intruder – a crime to which Paula is
the only witness. Have the Chatroulette years of the internet taught
us nothing?

The police dismiss it as a scam; sure enough, blackmailing calls
arrive. But Paula is convinced there’s more going on and, armed with
her daughter’s hockey stick, starts her own investigation. She
interviews various pornified cam-boys and attracts the attention of a
crime boss, as she’s drawn into a twisted web. While there is no
such thing as a perfect victim, Paula herself is far from either.

Scammers are familiar to us all, yet shadowy. They arouse our sense of
vengeance: why are you doing this? How dare you prey on vulnerable
people? We might have another curiosity, even sympathy: why are you
doing this? Are you in a bad situation? Films such as Punch-Drunk Love
and The Beekeeper exploit the first instinct. This is a show more
interested in the second.

Not that there isn’t plenty of lizard-brain retribution and
imaginative violence in Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed. Killings
involving nail-guns, expanding foam guns and just straight-up guns,
equal anything in The Wire or The Equaliser. Funnily enough, the
weapon that had me wincing was the lid of a can of tuna, which is
embedded in someone’s arm after a fall into a dumpster. I approach
my recycling with trepidation now.

[Nola Wallace and Tatiana Maslany in Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed.]View
image in fullscreen
[[link removed]]
Keeping mum … Nola Wallace and Tatiana Maslany in Maximum Pleasure
Guaranteed. Photograph: Zach Dilgard/Apple

It’s a stressful show, but what really spiked my cortisol was the
repeated use of a trope we should probably retire. It’s the quick
cut montage in which someone’s phone repeatedly dings loudly,
meaning messages are piling up, to an EDM soundtrack. Who under the
age of 60 has audible message notifications on? Why wouldn’t you
silence them? Think of the people around you! You work in an office!

As for that office – Paula works as a fact-checker for a newspaper.
This paper, in fact, employs three fact-checkers, which reassures me
that print media is in rosy health. She simply walks out of her job
quite often, to meet a sex worker in an abandoned house or what not.
Forget the police, where are HR? Arguably Paula’s most thrilling
transgression is swiping a box of doughnuts marked with a “reserved
for web dev mtg!!” sticky note. Now that’s relatable.

[Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed.]View image in fullscreen
[[link removed]]
Hurrah! … Murray Bartlett in Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed.
Photograph: Apple

It’s implausible yet enjoyably twisty, with Maslany superbly
watchable – as are her antagonists. The White Lotus’s Murray
Bartlett returns – hurrah! – taking us squarely into No Country
for Old Men territory. Jake Johnson – or Nick from New Girl as I
will always see him – is Paula’s ex-husband. Filipina actor Dolly
de Leon plays a diminutive detective with a dry wit and unexpected
vices, who brilliantly skews the archetype of the misanthropic cop.
“Marriage is a marathon. Sometimes you puke,” is one of
her gnomic pearls.

“A good amount of pleasure if you like this sort of thing” would
be more accurate, but a weaker title. Anyway, I didn’t get my
schadenfreude hit. I’m going to hang out next to a traffic camera in
Chelsea and watch Teslas get tickets instead. OK, maybe after one more
episode.

* Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed
[[link removed]]
* Apple TV
[[link removed]]
* tatiana maslany
[[link removed]]
* Murray Bartlett
[[link removed]]
* online commerce
[[link removed]]
* virtual communication
[[link removed]]

*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

 

 

 

INTERPRET THE WORLD AND CHANGE IT

 

 

Submit via web
[[link removed]]

Submit via email
Frequently asked questions
[[link removed]]
Manage subscription
[[link removed]]
Visit portside.org
[[link removed]]

Bluesky [[link removed]]

Facebook [[link removed]]

 



########################################################################

[link removed]

To unsubscribe from the xxxxxx list, click the following link:
[link removed]