Amy Sherman Palladino's Étoile Isn't For You

It's for her and a life spent loving the arts.

As the self appointed head and only member of the Amy Sherman-Palladino fan club, I just have to say—of course Étoile is a lot. Of course it’s absurd and of course she’s spending her Fuck You money (courtesy of the Emmy’s she finally got for Mrs. Maisel) on Ballet, her first love. You didn’t know that? Of course you didn’t. But with a Ballerina mother and a Comedian father (who, yes, performed in the Borsch Belt) what else was she to write, especially when Bunheads was tragically cancelled after one season (I blame the low viewership on that awful name to be entirely honest because that cast WAS STACKED)?

Amy was a dancer. And not like how you danced at that one weird dance studio in your home town. She was classically trained from the age of 4 and turned down a callback audition for Cats (I mean, who could blame her) to write for Roseanne. It was her first artistic love and though she had many, she was always, always, going to end up here.

I think you either love her or you hate her. And if you hate her I probably think you are stupid, but that’s on me. How could you not love characters who TALK THAT FAST? How can you not respect that, even though it devastated you, she played us SO WELL when she destroyed Rory Gilmore’s life? And forget Midge, BUT SUZIE? Alex Borstein finally getting the respect she deserves. I have not one, but two pink plungers.

And when you put it together—a classically trained ballerina raised in LA by a professional dancer from Gulfport MS and a Comedian from the Bronx, who honed her comedic writing chops on ROSEANNE, of course, of course, this is what we get. A probably mean woman in a top hat who is absolutely smarter than you and doubly so if your response to her shows is that the people talk too fast.

And of course, Étoile, is classic Sherman-Palladino. It’s a show about ballet that opens with a Blondie song. It stars Luke Kirby, of Maisel fame, whose character I can only hope has a happier ending than Lenny Bruce. We don’t get the millions of Gilmore Girls cameos that happened in Bunheads or even Maisel, but we do get Yanic Truesdale (who played Michelle on Gilmore Girls). We can only hope that at some point we get a cameo by Kelly Bishop. I mean, she’s Kelly Bishop. (side note, where can I watch the complete season of The Thorns? The Internet Archives only has the Pilot).

So, the characters will talk fast. The actors will be actors you’ve seen in other Amy productions, because she collects them. If it’s too quirky or too exaggerated or too “something",” perhaps you should go watch something boring, something easier to understand. Yes, there will be annoying fat jokes, but at least it will be situationally accurate (Ballet is not exactly body positive, did you know? Have you seen Black Swan?) And if you, like many critics and internet commentators alike, are whining because Amy doesn’t understand Ballet and the actors don’t do France right, the problem is you. Because the actors who plays the lead, Cheyenne, is french, so French that she had to learn English (and Ballet and Amy’s English) for the role. And because Amy knows ballet, like she knows comedy, and has waited her entire career to have the money and trust to do it justice, to bring ballet onto the littlest of screens.

/end rant