‘A Man On The Inside’ remains a warmly humanist series

The new season dropped last week, and I must confess to feeling immediately underwhelmed. Without the anchor of the old-age home, our pocketsquare-wearing protagonist felt a bit unmoored and the case this season — of a blackmailer trying to sabotage a donation at a college — felt uninteresting. Through the first two episodes, I felt that weariness I feel when watching the once clever Only Murders In The Building (JioHotstar), a series about old sleuths that is less about sleuthing which each season, and feels far too old. Also, at a time when so many shows start out with an attention-grabbing hook, A Man On The Inside initially felt, to me, too gentle to demand my enthusiasm.

Yet, like the grumpy folks on the show who eventually give in to Danson’s impeccably dressed Charles Neuwendyk, A Man On The Inside won me over.

The mistake I made was to assume this show is a whodunnit. There is a case, sure, and clues and plot-twists and a climactic reveal, but that isn’t at all the point of Schur’s warmly humanist series. A Man On The Inside is actually about companionship of all shapes and ages, about beautiful flighty women who are underestimated by those with an eye on the clock, about deadbeat journalism teachers who idealistically quote George Orwell, about literature professors who celebrate James Joyce by drinking and praising their peers, and, fundamentally, about the fact that all these people — with a bit of trying — can get along. There is a militant uncynicism running through this show which recommends only that you reach out and make contact with someone. With as many someones as you can, really.

The show opens with Charles really coming into his own “as a photographer of gross dudes," largely doing the sort of grunt-work private detectives are most commonly hired for: catching cheating spouses in the act. This has made the lanky leading man lackadaisical, and he longs for a “juicy" case — which really means, in his case, an excuse to go undercover. Charles is obsessed with the theatrics of detective work, and at one point assigns a makeshift ‘crew’ with a barrage of code-names even while being warned that they will only cause chaos. They do, but Charles is undeterred. He wants to have fun.

The second season doesn’t have a real-life story to serve as inspiration, and by setting these continuing adventures inside a place of higher learning — mostly populated by tweedy faculty who sometimes wear two blazers and are as much a part of the campus as the libraries — the dynamic remains the same, even when the actual plot is never as compelling. Educators are frequently lifers, working in schools and universities for decades on end, pledging their allegiances early and caring about their students all their life. Charles is continually glitter-bombed because of a nutty Wheeler College tradition, but nobody gives him an out: college, much like a case, is all about finding the answers yourself.

College is also, oftentimes, about finding a crush. Charles falls immediately head over heels about music professor Mona Morgadoff — played by Danson’s own bewitching wife of many years, Mary Steenburgen. Mona, a onetime rockstar who “opened for Fleetwood Mac at the Royal Albert Hall," is the nude model for the art class, takes decisions on the dime, and is described by Charles as “a sexy cuckoo-clock that got stuck in a blender." It’s undeniably charming to watch this real-life couple act giddily infatuated around each other on screen, and also a fine corrective to Curb Your Enthusiasm (JioHotstar), where Danson and Steenburgen, playing versions of themselves, get divorced midway through the series. Here, Mona is so carried away by their first kiss that she has to go write a song about it. Charles is immediately, and understandably, overcome with glee.

The fabulous David Strathairn stars as a crotchety professor of literature, unwilling to open himself up to new experiences and new friends who talk too much. “What I do," he says, explaining his job beautifully, “is I read books I love and teach others how to love them too." It’s wonderful to watch Danson riffing off Strathairn, or, indeed, last season’s favourite character Calbert, played by Stephen McKinley Henderson. That is the point, really. The connections on this show last — and believably so.

A Man On The Inside is overstuffed with suspects because that just means more people for Charles, the once lonely man who shunned new people, to make friends with. Don’t let first impressions fool you, either about new people or about new shows claiming to be whodunnits. A mystery is just a mystery. The real case is the friends we made along the way.

Streaming tip of the week:

Luca Guadagnino’s After The Hunt is now on Amazon Prime Video. It’s a campus film, set in Yale University, a far colder picture of academia. Julia Roberts is exceptional in the lead role, and the film brings up prickly and provocative questions — about cancel-culture and performative outrage — worth arguing about.

Raja Sen is a screenwriter and critic. He has co-written Chup, a film about killing critics, and is now creating an absurd comedy series. He posts @rajasen.