The Franchise finally shows some genuine human emotion

It’s Day 92 of 117 for the production of Tecto: Eye Of The Storm, and the end is nigh. As The Franchise, Jon Brown’s occasionally diverting and honestly kind of depressing superhero-movie piss-take nears its first (and possibly only) season finale, let’s pause to reflect on its checklist of big-budget production woes. 

Intracompany disharmony? Check: Marvel-coded Maximum Studios robbed its fledgling tentpole of its continuity, its prized McGuffin, and its craft-services swordfish to favor its bigger film, Centurios 2. Studio notes concerning the franchise’s fickle fandom? That’s how the Lilac Ghost scored her comics-inaccurate weapon, the Stick Of Maximum Potency. And it showed those online choads that Maximum supports—nay, uplifts!—the ladies. The obligatory guest cameo? Yep, Nick Kroll popped in to play The Gargler. Let’s see, what else? Don’t forget about product placement and playing nice-nice with the monolithic Chinese market, which explains why Tecto’s dramatic death scene contained not one but two sturdy and dependable tractors courtesy of the People’s Republic. And, last week, The Franchise blundered into the dangers of night shoots, which paradoxically gave the Tecto crew a rare and much-needed win.

The Franchise‘s staccato rhythm of industry gripes isn’t completely responsible for my lack of enthusiasm watching this ensemble of hapless idiots make a movie they hate for an audience they despise, but it sure hasn’t helped, either. I’m not thrilled by the prospects of future episodes, should they come. Rather, I dread the anticipation of seeing how Brown’s sub-Veep cinematic sausage factory might stumble to make its next beef. As expressed in my premiere recap, superhero movies have dominated the culture for so long that any perspective the show’s very English sense of humor brings to the discussion already feels ten years stale.

This week, The Franchise turns to location shoots, which has brought the Tecto crew to Oshakan, Armenia, home of ornery goats, a local government amenable to Eric’s (Daniel Brühl) tenuous yen for practical demolition, and that delicious bowl of Armenian tax credits, as Bryson (Isaac Powell ), our now patch-less and spiritually recharged production assistant, reminds no one in particular. “Yum!” he chirps. That Bryson, so helpful.  

Location shoots are a chance for superhero productions to show verisimilitude, but for Tecto, it’s another chance to languish in failure, misery, and, in the case of a certain species of flying mammal, death. Look at Eric this week: Despite a nice flight to Oshakan, where his troubled production might enjoy some real daylight, his stress hiccups have returned, he’s arguing with goats, and he’s worn that ridiculous floppy hat for three consecutive days. (Is it stuck on there? The jury’s still out.) Even though last week’s episode of The Franchise ended optimistically, there was no reason to believe those stabilizing vibes would remain. In fact, since we’re being encouraged to consider troubled location shoots in the real world, it’s more fun if we compare Eric Bouchard’s disastrous visit to Armenia to the time Werner Herzog went to Peru. “Location brain” is real, and, as Maximum Studios is soon to find out, it’s also quite expensive.

So why are we in scenic Armenia? The Tetco crew obligingly prattles off the stakes to each other, almost as though they’ve become aware of the fourth wall membrane that separates us from them and are simply going through the motions for our benefit: Eric wants a practical explosion for his film, and his production team has scouted an old bridge to blow up. Pat (Darren Goldstein), Maximum’s lumbering mood hoover, observes of the structure: “It survived many centuries, but it shall not survive our franchise.” The sentiment rings true, only for a different, more historically significant bridge. 

Another prognostication from Pat this week: Martin Scorsese has been kvetching to the press that movies are dying again, a talking point Maximum would typically dismiss were it not for the numbers they’ve run that suggest that the cinematic titan is correct. “Tracking’s in the toilet; more multiplex closures incoming,” he informs Anita (Aya Cash). “I had Shane on the phone, freaking out, asking me if he had ‘killed cinema’!” Yes, Rome is getting toastier, and action must be taken. So far, this heat has put Pat in a cheery, discernibly nihilistic mood. He’s even suggesting Daniel may be Maximum’s new go-to guy for mercenary cape work in the future, one that Anita seems to find very appealing. Too appealing, apparently. It’s not every day that a sultry come-on results in a rabies shot. 

But I’m jumping ahead. While the crew is debriefed on the local flora and fauna—the endangered species in their midst is the whiskered bat—Steph (Jessica Hynes) and Dag (Lolly Adefope) dish about the latest on-set “locationship”: Steph banged Rufus (Justin Edwards), that eager-beaver extra who has since evolved from skittish Fish Man to a full-on stallion of versatility. What if Steph’s pregnant? (“I don’t know why I’m laughing! This could destroy lives,” she says.) Yes, that could be a source of trouble (Rufus and Steph are married, after all, and not to each other), but what about the whiskered bat? The way Steph and Dag carry on and how their 1st AD Daniel (Hamish Patel) obnoxiously scrolls his phone and nods during the debriefing all but declares that Tecto’s location shoot may soon have trouble with more than one fuzzy friend. At least the goats are plentiful.  

This telescopic foreshadowing will have to keep for now. Shock of shocks, Scorsese’s words have deeply affected Eric, and our director wishes to make his most catastrophic mid-production change yet: a new subversive ending. As his latest pre-vizzed sequence shows us (courtesy of exhausted/possibly suicidal VFX wizard Dave), the climactic battle between Tecto (played by Billy Magnussen’s Adam) and The Eye (Peter, played by Richard E. Grant) turns into a nice conversation between the two characters. “They are taking off their superhero suits and talking in their shirts—like men!” Eric declares. 

Eric’s subversion of superhero moviedom, he informs Daniel, will supersede Maximum’s prerogative to explode the bridge, a practical effect for which they flew 300 crew members to Armenia. Thus, we enter Operation: Truman Show, where a looped feed of the set is fed into Eric’s trailer as Daniel takes the directorial reins from his superior and attempts to knock out another boffo sequence. (For a character so visibly weary of cape fodder, he’s got quite the knack for directing one.) Meanwhile, Daniel’s ascension in the production line, in essence, gives Dag a promotion, too, which she cavalierly suggests to Dan and Anita. “Evil! Nice,” Anita comments. Naturally, Dag uses her newfound power to abuse the lighting crew, whom she calls a rude name.

“The Bridge” is, at least visually, a nice change of pace for The Franchise, though its ensemble is just as awful and unlikable as ever. If nothing else, I did enjoy Steph and Rufus’ post-coitus dilemma scene—I watched it through the slits of my fingers, as a matter of fact. Finally, the show has a scene with genuine human emotion—and such alarming ones, too! Steph’s unreciprocated feelings for Rufus offer an emotional knottiness that The Franchise has evaded for nearly this entire season. There’s charm, distance, disappointment, anger, and ultimately menace, all within one tightly blocked scene. Hynes and Edwards nail it. When Steph finally left Rufus alone, I felt his sigh through the screen because I was out of breath, too. “Bloody hell,” he says, standing in his mollusk mo-cap suit, a strange, lonely figure amid the buffoonery that is Tecto. It might be my favorite moment in the show yet.

That goodwill doesn’t last. How could it? These aren’t characters so much as lampoons of characters, and soon Steph is haranguing Rufus on-set, calling him “barnacle-dick” and the like. For an episode that progresses its few romantic plot beats, it sure feels like we’re back to square one by the end of it: Maximum has blown the wrong bridge and fucked off back to England, its finale is still screwed, Anita and Daniel continue their stay in sexual purgatory, Dag’s still awful, and Adam and Peter remain so far in the periphery that you have to wonder why no one’s thrown them a wrap party yet. There’s still one episode left of The Franchise, and the only plot beat worth exploring, as far as I’m concerned, is its biggest one: whether or not Tecto makes it to its premiere.

If it does, you can count on at least two no-shows: that sickly Armenian Make-A-Wish man-child and his indifferent mother, who got their Tecto behind-the-scenes tour despite showing zero interest Tecto, movies, or anything resembling fun, really. (Did they con Make-A-Wish? If so, why?) As it happens, these strange visitors did catch footage of Maximum’s bridge snafu, and Bryson, ever so helpful, hammers home that their silence is appreciated and obligatory. Their translator: “The idiot is saying ‘new phone and two tickets to the premiere.'” Mom, delivering the best kiss-off in The Franchise yet: “The phone will be enough.”

Stray observations

• • “We’re in the bone zone, yo!” Did Pat just make a Delocated reference? 
• • “He has long COVID.” “He has long everything!”
• • Adam’s dad is leaving crappy reviews of his movies on Letterboxd, which makes me wonder if someone could add Tecto: Eye Of The Storm to the site so that I can review-bomb it once this season is over. 
• • R.I.P. Flightmode. Now make god rock! 
• • Now Dag’s throwing rocks at drowning bats. At least she wept for the bridge! 
• • With The Franchise on its way out, who is your Tecto MVP? Right now, I’m leaning towards Rufus, though there’s still an argument for Eric taking the top prize. Would you, like me, watch a Peter-focused spin-off? Are you all-in on season two of The Franchise (should it arrive), and if so, do you want more Tecto or a new production and a new crew?