It’s billed as the greatest love story ever sold, but anyone who has heard the names Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee, knows about ‘the tape’. In the new limited series from Hulu, Pam & Tommy takes viewers behind the scenes and explores the fallout from the leaked sex tape and how it impacted the stars lives forever.
Episode 1: Drilling and Pounding
It’s 1995, and construction is in full swing at Tommy Lee’s (Sebastian Stan) mansion. Amongst the crew of construction workers, one tradesman, Rand Gauthier (Seth Rogen) is looking a little worried. Tommy Lee is a little erratic changing his mind on the scope of the renovations frequently. To make matters worse for Rand, Tommy hasn’t paid anyone, and the carpenter has acquired massive debt from the job.
At home, Rand Gauthier is a pathetic mess. The cable is cut off, his bills are overdue, and the difference of spending the day in luxury to the dirty hovel that he lives out of is apparent to poor Rand. Returning to work the next day, Tommy again changes his plans and now wants a waterbed. The cost for this new project is astronomical, and none of the other tradespeople want to discuss the cost with Tommy. Rand is chosen to be their spokesperson.
While the conversation with Tommy seems to go well, Tommy is holding a machine gun on Rand, there is hope for payment. When the waterbed arrives, Rand refuses to open the box until he gets paid. Looking for Tommy in the mansion, Rand runs into Pam (Lily James) which leads to a misunderstanding with Tommy, and ultimately Rand is fired.
Returning to the mansion the next day to retrieve his toolbox, Rand is accosted by Tommy, who is holding a shotgun. Telling him to leave the tools and to never return, Rand escapes to his van seething in anger. Being threatened at gunpoint, Rand peed his pants, and this moment triggers a memory from his childhood that is best left in the past.
Angry, Rand wants revenge. To him, karma is on his side, and after spending weeks stalking the famous couple, the aggrieved carpenter has a plan. Rand is going to break into the mansion and steal the safe in the garage as compensation for his lost income, and the terrible treatment by Tommy.
Miraculously, Rand is successful in his nighttime burglary. Cutting open the safe, he discovers jewelry, cash, guns, and a tape. Visits to pawn shops bring extra cash from the pilfered items, and a visit to his friend Uncle Miltie (Nick Offerman) reveals the contents of the tape, and the possibility of more money to come.
Episode 2: I Love You, Tommy
Rand and Miltie start the episode watching the tape of Pam and Tommy, but the second episode brings viewers back in time to show how Pam and Tommy meet.
Out with her friends at a club, Pam is swearing off all bad boy boyfriends and promising her friends that from now on she is only going to date nice guys. Tommy Lee is also in this club, and notices Pam from across the room. He must meet her and walks across the club and sits down at her booth. Though her friends are warning her to steer clear of him, Pam can’t help herself and she and Tommy hit it off that night.
Pam tells Tommy that she is leaving the next morning for a Baywatch promotional trip to Cancun. Tommy insists that he is going to meet her there, which Pam begs him not to do. In Cancun, Pam is lauded by the affiliates who carry the show.
Despite her saying no, Tommy shows up in Cancun, and Pam and her friends go clubbing that night with the bad boy rocker. With some narcotics, the two have an amazing night. The next morning, Tommy feels like Pam is the one for him. After spending some time in the bathroom talking to a certain part of his body, he is more convinced than ever that Pam is the girl for him.
A spur of the moment proposal from Tommy leads Pam to saying yes, and during a sunset wedding on the beach, the Motley Crue drummer and Baywatch babe are married. After a whirlwind courtship of five days, they fly home. The flight feels more like a second date, where the two discuss favorite movies and food. Pam is a fan of romantic comedies, while Tommy is all about the horror genre.
Arriving at the airport, Tommy is shocked by the paparazzi's attention. Scrambling through the crowd of photographers, the newlyweds wonder where they should live. Tommy talks about how he is going to renovate his mansion into a sanctuary and Pam agrees to live there.
A construction crew is hired to turn his bachelor pad mansion into the sanctuary of their dreams. Tommy and Pam meet the contractors and amongst this group is Rand Gauthier, who is starstruck. That night, Pam and Tommy are watching television when Baywatch comes on. Insisting that she doesn’t want to watch the show, Pam changes the channel and finds The King and I. Knowing the movie by heart, Pam wows her husband by reciting the lines and dancing like the lead characters in the film.
Episode 3: Jane Fonda
Rand and Miltie know the tape they have of Pam and Tommy Lee could be worth millions. The explicit nature of the film suggests to the two that they should go big in distributing the video. A plan is hatched to seek out distributors in the porn industry. At home, Rand is content. Feeling vindicated over his defeat of Tommy Lee, Rand partakes in a cleansing ceremony at his apartment. (This is where all my sympathy for Rand evaporated. A cleansing ceremony? Come on!)
A distributor is necessary so Rand and Miltie visit every pornography studio they can and are turned down flat. At Vivid Studios, the executive wants to know how they obtained the tape. Does Rand have a release signed by Pam and Tommy Lee? Of course not, and the two are told to leave.
Rand is in a crisis moment. He has a money maker on his hands, but no way to distribute the tape. When his ex-wife Erica (Taylor Schilling) calls him to fix her broken toilet, Rand reflects on the first time he met her. Everything seemed to be going right for him, now, five years later, they are divorced, and he is desperate to stay apart of her life. Promising to locate the obscure part for her toilet, Rand is on a fool’s quest that every local hardware store says is impossible to complete. That is until Rand searches the Internet, finds the part, and an idea is born.
Meanwhile, Pam and Tommy are hoping for a baby, and are disappointed by the negative result of a home pregnancy test. The two discuss Pam’s upcoming monologue on Baywatch, with Tommy looking on impressed by her dedication to the part. The next day at work, Pam’s lines are cut by the producers. They tell her that her the dialogue isn’t necessary
Back at the mansion, Tommy Lee is grasping for relevance. Drumming in his garage brings no relief, and when a VH1 special comes on reflecting on the career of Motley Crue, Tommy knows his best days are behind him. (Sebastian Stan is incredible in this scene.)
For funding, Miltie brings Rand to meet a gangster named Butchie (Andrew Dice Clay). After a quick discussion about the Internet and how they could hide their involvement, he agrees to invest and Miltie and Rand now have cashflow to start production.
Flush with cash, Rand tries to rekindle his relationship with Erica. They go to a fancy dinner, and Rand is desperate to tell his ex-wife that he has a million-dollar idea. Dropping multiple hints, Rand holds back, and Erica is left wondering what her ex-husband is up to.
Pam Anderson doesn’t need to worry about the producers cutting her lines. She is about to start promotional work for her film Barb Wire. If the film is successful, she will have the chance to leave television behind for the movies. Talking about who inspires her, Pam mentions that she loves Jane Fonda because she is confident and strong and didn’t care what people thought about her.
The episode ends with Pam excitedly telling her husband that she’s pregnant, and Rand drooling over the massive recording system built to manufacture the tapes.
Bill’s Take:
Episode one is a lot to take. By the end of the episode, I couldn’t stand any of the characters. Audiences won’t really meet Pam, but for sure, I hated Tommy Lee and Rand. They were both pathetic jerks.
Then I watched episode two and I realized that Pam & Tommy is a brilliant show. We get the backstory, how Pam and Tommy fall in love, and the viewers are caught up in the whirlwind of their romance, which was a lot of fun. I liked Tommy Lee because of this episode and seeing Lily James own the screen as Pam was incredible.
In episode three we see the petty vindictiveness of Rand which will convince the audience to hate him, and rightly so. In his confusion to gain vengeance over Tommy, what he is about to do will have a fallout for everyone, especially Pam Anderson, who did nothing to him. Rand is an obsessive self-centered jerk, that Seth Rogen brings to life with a skill that we haven’t seen from the actor. Rogen loses himself in the part, and it’s hard to believe that this is the same Seth Rogen of This Is The End and Superbad. Rogen is perfection as the lowlife Gauthier.
Pam & Tommy humanizes the stars and shows audiences that they are people. I could feel empathy for Tommy, and compassion for Pam. Seeing Sebastian Stan bring to life the tabloid pariah is so convincing that it will be hard to accept that it’s Sebastian Stan on screen and not actually Tommy Lee. Stan shows audiences everywhere that he is an incredible talent of superstar proportions that can fly high without the Marvel logo attached to the production.
Pam & Tommy is an incredible performance piece and a story that will suck audiences in.