As winter drear approaches, let the summertime possibilities of Amazon’s Red Oaks enchant you with the promise of a warmer and more adventurous time. Produced by Stephen Soderbergh and David Gordon Green, the show follows David (Craig Roberts, likely best known for Richard Ayoade’s Submarine), an NYU student teaching tennis lessons at the local country club in his New Jersey hometown while on summer break in 1985. David’s world is shifting. His parents (none other than Richard Kind and Jennifer Grey) are on the verge of divorce, his high school sweetheart is both distracted and looking for a bigger commitment from him, and his job involves rubbing elbows with the local elite, which gets him into more than one situation where he doesn’t understand the social terrain. Admittedly, I’ve grown weary of so many bildungsromans that focus on sensitive boys like David, and the show definitely has a few problems, but I still found myself charmed by Red Oaks’ summer hopefulness. Season two was released on Amazon today, and if you haven’t watched the first season yet, here are a few reasons why the show is worth giving a chance.
1. 1980s teen movie coming-of-age glory
Over the course of season 1, David slowly blooms into the film-appreciation intellectual art student he’s meant to be as he steadily sheds the skin of the nebbishy, nervous future accountant that his father wants him to be. In the first episode, David’s summer quest and search for purpose and identity are summed up by one of the older patrons at Red Oaks Country Club, Herb (Freddie Roman). When David asks Herb what his father wanted him to be and what he became, Herb responds to both questions with: “Proctologist,” then adds, “I hated every day of it. I longed for the day when I could stop staring up assholes.” And thus, David’s central question for the series is set: will he continue on a traditional path and settle down as an accountant following the American dream, or will he strike out with something riskier that he really loves?
2. Wheeler
In the actual ‘80s, David’s friend Wheeler (Oliver Cooper) might have been played broadly as the goofy stoner kid obsessed with chicks. And while there’s a lot of that with Wheeler in Red Oaks, Cooper doesn’t play him as a broad character joke but someone with heart. Even as he becomes the Party King and tries to get with Misty (Alexandra Turshen), Jersey’s hottest blonde lifeguard dating a stereotypical ‘80s douchebag, he has a sweet vulnerability that makes you want to see him win.
