The best thing on this week's Riches?

Dahlia singing.

I have at least remembered to change my tag to a current fondly-remembered line. But I can't even remember whether it was from Monday's episode or something earlier.

Seriously. I could hibernate for a week and it wouldn't help.

I think that was this week.. . perhaps what happened at the beginning was that the rest of the family got Eddie Izzard to take the dopey fiance to work (you know because traditionally the fiance apprentices with his future father-in-law) and Dahlia got the job as Mitchell Hutzberger's assistant.

Dahlia singing.

yes. that had me in tears.

I haven't seen it yet--no good ahem is out yet--but I am itching to watch. I am so into this show! I was really wary when I heard Eddie was doing american drama, but I was so impressed right off the bat--his charisma and charm makes it through without all the wackiness of his stage performances. And this is such a great role for MD, whose roles the last five years or so have been largely underwhelming. I'm also really impressed at how they coax such remarkable performances from the actors playing the kids. They're showing top-shelf acting, which is impressive from child actors on a general television drama, but perhaps it's due to FX's production, and the combined heavyweights of EI and MD.

I think you'd need serious chops to keep up with EI and MD.

So far I'm utterly loving it.

I was so impressed right off the bat--his charisma and charm makes it through without all the wackiness of his stage performances.

Yes. So very much so. This role seems to serve all of his best qualities so very well; you can see the wheels in his brain turning and all the little cogs clicking into place when he's working a con -- the cautious improvisation at the beginning, when he's just feeling out and guessing where he needs to take it, the moment when it clicks, everything after when he's found his footing and he's just running with it with absolute authority. And, oh, God, he and Gregg Henry work together so beautifully.

Part of me feels like all the scenes where he's running a con or selling a lie (or the one desperate bail-out narcolepsy scene) are tidy little Lovable Con Artist set pieces and it's cheap of me to be so smitten, but they're so well written and so brilliantly played.

And this is such a great role for MD, whose roles the last five years or so have been largely underwhelming.

She's utterly amazing: sexy and rageful and floundering and fiercely protective of her family, all simultaneously hard and snarling and graceful and capable of being deeply moved. I love the dynamic between Dahlia and Wayne, the layers of resentment and mistrust and passion and loyalty, how she's more deeply rooted in Traveler culture and more reluctant to leave it than he is, yet oddly less gifted at the solo con (that scene where the welcome wagon from the local temple dropped in while she was curled up beery and Valium'd and miserable on the dead woman's couch, I literally had to watch from the hall) -- but when she's with him, they work so beautifully, so seamlessly as a team.

And I'm wrecked for her every time she stumbles on some secret pain in the apparently bland, shiny lives of the buffers: her dentist boss, lost in a haze of grief; the real Doug Rich's ex-wife.

Bah. Gotta get back to work. Just, oh how good they both are, how good everyone is, how many layers of pain and funny and HSQ they've laid the groundwork for but haven't even mined yet. I'm all glowy and intoxicated with the crush I've got on this show.

I thought it was Dahlia, not Delilah?

From what I understand of the context, Wayne came into it later in life, not from family like Dahlia did.

I love how Dahlia feels everything, and is capable of expressing those feelings so well. Its a quality you don't see often in television characters--the ability to tell the straight truth because it's needed, even when (and perhaps especially when) it hurts.

You're totally right. My brain got crossed 'cause of the daughter nicknamed DiDi, plus the sleep dep. Going back to correct it now.

I missed the first episode (eventually they'll reshow it when I can remember to catch it!) so I'm still missing a bunch of background -- I thought Wayne was also Traveller-by-birth. I'm not even sure you can marry into Travellers or Rom in general.