Main cast: Kirstie Alley (Jane L), Andy Summers (Hodie), Brad Dourif (Billy Baltimore Jr), and Page Fletcher (The Hitchhiker)
Director: Chris Thomson
The Legendary Billy B. is a bizarre episode that much more palatable than it otherwise would have been, thanks to Kirstie Alley. I know, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but she turns her character Jane L into this hilarious body of comedy and elevates the episode into camp rather than cringe.
Jane L is a tabloid reporter that, along with her assistant Hodie (yes, played by the guy from The Police), will go at any length to secure a front page expose. Her latest effort—a movie star caught on camera having with his own sister, of all people—is ruined by the movie star’s wife committing suicide once the news breaks out, by “ruined”, I mean her expose is soon bumped aside by this turn of event. Humph, the wives of movie stars can be so inconsiderate.
Now, she needs a bigger headline to get her mojo back. When she learns that Hodie has a personal pet project—he’s caught the supposedly dead legendary rock star Billy B on his camera, and now he’s working to capture more photos of him—she decides that Billy B will be her next focus. She will find him, interview him, and shock the world by revealing that he’s still alive!
The first two-thirds of this episode is just Kirstie Alley chewing scenery, and by the holy spirit of Divine, she is great. Ms Alley isn’t doing anything that she hasn’t done or will do in the future, but her usual grating, annoying style of acting turns Jane L into a glorious bitch that is wonderful to hate. Hilariously entitled, delusional, narcissistic, and bitchy, Jane L may be a horrid person to be with were she real, but in this show, she is a hoot to watch.
Brad Dourif only shows up late in this episode, so he doesn’t get to do his thing here much. No, this is Ms Alley’s show. Even when things get weird toward the end, right down to a twist that is more of a head-scratching huh than anything else, she still steals every scene she’s in. When she’s about to be given what is undoubtedly a nasty kind of injection, she shrieks that she doesn’t like or do needles, so no, not the needles.
Ms Alley is hilarious, pure cringe and goodness all rolled in one, and now I have this bizarre need to see her and Nicolas Cage headlining a movie together. How about it, people? Can we cram Ms Alley into a sequel of Willy’s Wonderland or something?
