Directed by Gwyneth Horder-Payton
Written by Robert Siegel
Starring Lily James, Sebastian Stan, Seth Rogen
All episodes now on Hulu

by Kristian Cortez, Staff Writer

With episode eight of Hulu’s limited series Pam & Tommy we have reached the end of this exploration into one of the biggest scandals of the 1990s and the event that changed it all, concerning celebrities and their private lives. As such, one would expect the finale to end on a strong note, but it lacks a certain grandness that one comes to expect from a final episode.

At the start, we jump time by several months and meet the lovers as Tommy’s band Motley Crüe is finally releasing their new album, and as Pam is further along in her pregnancy. We discover that Pam has left Baywatch and is still trying to pursue a career in the movies, but has been unsuccessful, losing a leading role she really wanted in L.A. Confidential to Kim Basinger. At one point, Tommy discovers from his bandmate that their sex tape is now available to watch for free online. Instantly, the audience has grown from hundreds of thousands of people watching, to millions at the click of a button.

The couple sues Internet Entertainment Group only to be visited by its founder Seth Warshavsky and offered a deal: sell the rights of the tape to him and then he can control the exposure, since it will be illegal for any other website or company to have it. Tommy is adamant about not signing anything but Pam is quick to say yes, wanting nothing more than for all of this to be over and go away. 

As all of this plays out we also get updates on what Gauthier is up to. Which, once again, is the weak point of the show. For some reason the writers were so intent on making this guy a main character that they didn’t stop to realize how unnecessary his viewpoint is to the storytelling. What exactly is it offering us? In episode eight we learn that Gauthier has been working for the mob to pay off his debt and that to be even and get out he’ll need to pay ten thousand dollars. He visits a psychic woman where he discovers that all the bad karma that has come into his life is because he hurt someone (Pam), and that to fix it all he needs to apologize. Gauthier tries to do so but is unsuccessful, so instead he apologizes to his ex-wife in a strange scene where he also notes how he feels bad about what he’s done to Pam and that men are terrible. 

My thought while watching this scene was: why is this show trying to absolve Gauthier so badly? We needed Gauthier’s side of the story to a certain extent—following how the tape got stolen and its trajectory into the public eye—but we did not need to humanize him and provide deeper insights into his motivations. Again, I reiterate here, for the last time, as I have in every review where Gauthier’s character is present on the show: we are tuning in for Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee, not Rand Gauthier. But still, the show gives us his happy ending. He is able to apologize to a Baywatch-Pam look-alike on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and he sells the original copy of the tape to Warshavsky for ten thousand dollars, which he then gives to his ex-wife to pay for raked up phone calls he made and finalizing their divorce. I am adamant that this show did not need so much Gauthier and actually suffers from having made the decision to include him so fully.

In the final scenes between Pam and Tommy we witness the strain this tape has had on their relationship. The friction hints at what we already know which is how in just a few short years their marriage will end in divorce. Tommy finally signs over the rights to the tape, Pam gives birth to their son, and once again we jump time by a few months to discover their separation. Tommy gets dressed in their closet that looks noticeably empty and Pam is altering the “Tommy” tattoo on her ring finger to say “Mommy” instead. The final image is of Pam sighing longingly at a photo of Tommy in the tattoo parlor. In one of the notes at the end, we are told that Pam and Tommy have both said that they were the loves of each other’s lives.

Overall, not a completely terrible finale, but it comes across as if much was left unsaid between our two main characters. Moments of stress and anger come across brilliantly by the two leading actors Lily James and Sebastian Stan, but most of the time I found myself in the same boat as Tommy when he yells at Pam to say something—anything. In all of their scenes I wanted more of a discussion, more words being thrown back and forth. We can gather a lot from silence, yes, but many times throughout the series I found myself wanting to hear the characters speak and decipher what was going through their mind out loud. I can impose what I think they are thinking, but nothing beats having a character spell it out for you. 

As a whole, Pam & Tommy is a good limited series because of the terrific performances from its two leading actors (and is worth watching just for that), but in every other department it struggled a bit. The storytelling was at times scattered and choppy; confused into giving Gauthier’s character copious amounts of screen time to listen and understand him. Much of the writing teetered on the verge of something profound but never dared to go deeper, leaving the chance of fully connecting with these characters emotionally at zero. Could it have been fixed if the show had been created and written by a woman? I think so. Could the show have benefitted from having Pamela Anderson on board for consultation? Definitely. The show’s intention was to do right by Anderson, but that’s impossible to do successfully when she herself is not involved in development whatsoever. All we’re left with is someone else’s idea of what happened.

The show will be remembered for its performances, for its attempts at deeper insight into one of the 1990s biggest scandals, but not so much.