Although Nick's wife, Lisa (Zoe McLellan) and daughter Kiki (Elle Fanning in the pilot and Chloe Moretz thereafter) are long-suffering and tolerant of his ridiculous work hours and the crazy expectations of the Darling family, his new job takes a toll on both relationships throughout the season. This is especially evident in Nick's relationship with the eldest Darling daughter, Karen (Natalie Zea), four-time divorcee' who has been in love with Nick all of her life. She spends a lot of time inserting herself into Nick's life and trying to woo him from Lisa, sometimes even with the help of her prim socialite mother, Letitia "Tish" Darling (Jill Clayburgh). Brian Darling (Glenn Fitzgerald) is an Episcopalian priest with very strange methods. He is my favorite character because he is so brutally human, especially for a priest. He is rude, mean and quite conniving, all things shocking to see in a man of the cloth. Throughout the season, we'll learn that he has an illegitimate son and when the child is dumped on his front porch, he forces the boy to go by "Gustav" and to pretend he is an orphan from Sweden. Needless to say, his ruse gets revealed. The Bible does say, "There is nothing hidden that will not be revealed," but Brian seems to have missed that scripture.
Eldest son Patrick (William Baldwin, and boy does he look like the rest of the Baldwins) is clearly his father's favorite son. Currently the Attorney General of New York, he has political aspirations of being a Senator - or should I say, his father has aspirations for him. But Paddy is a highly conflicted man. Sure, he loves his wife Ellen (Bellamy Young), but he also loves his mistress/manstress, Carmelita (Candis Cayne), a very lovely transsexual with a deep voice. Carmelita doesn't exactly fit into the political plan, however, and Paddy fights hard to keep his life on an even keel. Eventually, his tough wife Ellen works out a plan where everyone can be semi-happy. Too weird!
Finally, there are the twins, Jeremy (Seth Gabel) and Juliet (Samaire Armstrong), 25-year-old spoiled brats about to inherit a 25 million dollar trust fund. Each. These two get into all sorts of trouble, but in spite of their wealth and selfishness, they are really fun characters, especially Jeremy. Whether it's planning their million dollar birthday parties or watching Jeremy woo a girl who doesn't know who he is, so he pretends to be poor, you know its always going to be interesting when the twins are on-screen.
As Nick deals with silly issues that the family comes up with, he is also trying to find out what really happened to his father, since he suspects foul play in the plane crash. He comes to find out that his father had a long-time affair with Tish Darling and also, one of the Darling children was actually fathered by his dad, so he has a new-found sib. This also casts an unhealthy light on Tripp and the other Darlings, who have new motive to have killed his father. Once he recovers his dad's briefcase from the plane and finds further evidence that another billionaire, Simon Elder (Blair Underwood), is not all he appears to be, there is yet another suspect added to the list. Nick spends as much time as possible trying to solve his dad's murder, all the while finding himself being drawn deeper into the snare of money and lies being spun by the Darlings and Simon.
Dirty Sexy Money is a really good drama with hefty helpings of comedy and romance. The plotlines are really well-done and the cast is excellent. I first thought that the Darlings were going to be the family you love to hate. But I ended up simply loving them. Included on the DVD are a handful of deleted/extended scenes, plus some featurettes on the clothes that the Darlings wear and the set design, both of which were really interesting. There's also one on the making-of, which was good but not as intriguing as the others. It's hard to compare this series to another show, for reference, but if you like witty dialogue and clever plotlines, plus really good acting, you should check out Dirty Sexy Money.
