Sport, like business, comes with opponents to be crushed. But Sheila Rubin just isn’t “crushing it”.
Unroll those leg warmers and squeeze back into your spandex – we’re in 1980s San Diego again for the third and final season of Physical (continuing on Apple TV+) – the mordant cross between drama and comedy that strips off a new layer of pretence with every instalment.
Sheila (Rose Byrne) is in the booming sports-offshoot leisure and fitness game, but only by default. Bored and dissatisfied with life, she reinvented herself as an aerobics instructor, and with fitness clubs having gone beyond the initial “craze” stage, she now finds herself on the verge of becoming a national brand.
She is already a television personality and has begun marketing a range of goods she doesn’t believe in. Such deceit feeds the fundamental self-loathing she has felt, through no fault of her own, since her teenage years, which now manifests itself in hallucinations of her more successful rival, as well as embarrassing acts of self-destruction.
The vicious interior monologue to which Byrne gives voice while propelling the bulimic Sheila to the edge of a nervous breakdown is enough in itself for Byrne to have her name above the titles.
Paul Sparks returns as mall owner and property developer John Breem, a study in robotic self-control even in the throes of his affair with Sheila. John is also a prominent church-goer, which for Sparks is a gift: it’s difficult to imagine anyone besting his interpretations of the prim sanctimoniousness and hypocritical piety that can infect the overly religious.
A nun exercises God-given right to snoop in BBC’s Sister Boniface Mysteries
A nun exercises God-given right to snoop in BBC’s Sister Boniface Mysteries
Danny (Rory Scovel) is still hanging around as the ambitious Sheila’s estranged, loser husband, earning our sympathy by trying and failing to raise Californians’ eco-consciousness (if partly for self-promotional reasons).
He’s not all bad, she’s not all good, which keeps the viewer flip-flopping about which side to cheer for.
The answer could instead be Sheila’s indefatigable sidekick and business partner Greta (Dierdre Friel), a dependable rock in a town full of flakes. An athlete she isn’t – but with the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games looming, she might just win the gold medal for busting Sheila’s b***s.
Moving moments
One Korean high-schooler not complaining about an inordinately heavy backpack is Kim Bong-seok in Moving (Disney+).
Packing gym weights, and overfed to pudgy proportions by a concerned mother trying not to display any family wealth, Bong-seok (Lee Jung-ha) must learn to keep his feet on the ground – quite literally.
An otherwise carefree teenager, he has a superpower: he can fly. Unfortunately, this is a talent he can’t control and ultimately one that may cost him.
All this makes for an unusual superhero drama-thriller, one in which the heroes try to avoid using their powers at all costs – not least Bong-seok, whose abilities prove a hindrance to his mutual crush on Hui-soo.
Their charming, innocent entanglement clashes absorbingly with the series’ parallel narrative, which pits fake delivery man and implacable assassin Frank (Ryoo Seung-bum) against those closest to the gifted trio.
What emerges is a sinister tale of espionage between political friends and potential enemies, with, at its heart, a covert programme that raises the spectre of Brave New World, or worse.
But before any full horrors emerge, we can share Bong-seok’s delight in the fact that love really can sweep you off your feet and make you float on air. It’s all rather, well, moving.