The Casino: Ep. 1 Recap
Rat Pack Wannabes & Frat Pack Virgins
By Professor Dan
June 15, 2004
Well, I've watched the first episode of "The Casino". While it's not exactly a train wreck, it's not what I expected, either. Part of that is reportedly due to Fox suddenly developing some "broadcast standards", limiting what Mark Burnett can show (despite a couple of "parental advisory" notices).
Anyway, here we go: Tim Poster, a short, wiseguy-talking native of Vegas, and his partner Tom Breitling, a tall handsome guy, are going into their licensing meeting with the Nevada Gaming Commission. We are told that Tim and Tom started Travelscape.com, and sold it to Expedia for $105 million. Rather than just sit back, they put $50 mil into buying the downtown Golden Nugget. Besides their $50 mil, they got "Wall Street" to invest $175 mil. This is their dream: to run a classy Downtown casino, "old-school Vegas at its finest", as Tim puts it.
We are shown the grueling meeting with the Commission, where Tim does all the talking, especially about his uncle, who had been denied a gaming license because he was involved with "East Coast gamblers". Come on, geez, call The Mob "The Mob", okay?
The Commission also isn't wild about the fact that Tom, Tim, and the other three Directors of their group have no gaming experience. But they approve their license anyway, although Tim says that they are "on probation". (Hopefully not "Double-Secret Probation"… okay, if you never saw "Animal House", that went right over your head.)
Cut to almost midnight: Tim and Tom are about to officially become owners. The first thing they do is tour the Counting Room, where we are treated to the sight of people, uh, counting money. Well, actually high-speed machines do that. But golly, there's $1.1 million in cash sitting there! Impressive, huh? Tim worries: "We finally got the keys to the kingdom, but now if anything goes wrong it's our ass." (Well actually, if anything goes wrong you lose your license, have to sell, and you still have at least $55 million. So what "ass" are we talking about here?)
Next day, Tom and Tim (hereafter referred to as "T & T") oversee the arrival of some vintage Cadillacs they're going to use as VIP vehicles. (Yawn.) A limo pulls up, and we meet "The Frat Pack"-some cheerfully obnoxious youths who want to see their buddy Rob, a bearded nerd identified as "The Virgin", get, well, de-virginized. And if you can't lose your virginity in Vegas, where CAN you lose it? The Frat Pack has a plan: throw a party, get lots of babes there, and Rob just might score! (Okay, Reality-Check time here: isn't prostitution legal in Nevada? If Rob wants to get de-virginized, he can do it a WHOLE lot cheaper than this little escapade is gonna cost… oh wait a minute, Burnett's paying, I'll bet! Never mind…)
Back to T & T. Tennis big shot Andre Agassi shows up with some schlub. It seems that Tim and Andre go way back. Now T and T want Andre to invest in their casino. He agrees. The whole thing is BORING, BORING, BORING…
Cut to the Frat Pack accosting random babes, trying to get them to agree to come to their party. Brain-numbingly BORING…
T & T are off to hear a lounge singer, Matt Dusk (as opposed to Internet journalist Matt Drudge-do NOT get them confused!) Matt is an earnest-looking young guy with a good voice, who likes the "standards"-think Sinatra or Bennett, you've got the picture. They want Matt for the Golden Nugget, where he'll headline in "Zak's Lounge" and help give them the "Classic Vegas Vibe" they want.
Now we're in for a treat-we're introduced to "Big Chuck" Gorson, professional gambler and total, complete, unadulterated jerk. He's 6 foot, 8 inches and 250 pounds of obnoxious, conceited crap. And he's heading for the Nugget, hopefully to cash in on the inexperienced new management. Oh, but first he stops at the Mandalay Bay, where he gets $75 grand to add to the $5 thousand he already had on him…
Okay, we now get the first real conflict in this show: Matt Dusk and his manager meet with T & T and their Director of Entertainment, Joe, who comes across as a total prick. "Joe is regimented", Matt comments to us privately. And Joe isn't really on board with what T & T wants, Matt thinks-- Joe wants "adult contemporary" music, like (gasp) Billy Joel. Matt says he doesn't do "covers" except for the standards-no Billy Joel for him (I like this Matt already!)
Back to Big Chuck: he checks in (as a VIP, naturally), and is immediately flagged as a professional gambler. Maurice, director of operations, calls Surveillance, and goes to find T & T. Meanwhile, Chuck is playing some craps… "just a little bit, hehehe" (Chuck is one of those guys who just carelessly dumps a few thousand in $100 bills on the table to get chips, enjoying the looks he gets as a "high roller". He also has a really obnoxious little laugh…)
T & T go up to Surveillance. Chuck has "landed" on a Blackjack table. He's known to them as a card counter (and thus, a threat, at least as far as Tim is concerned. His statement that card counting allows gamblers to "consistently make money" from the casino would, I think, be a real shock to the card counters out there!) Sure enough, though, Burnett's editing shows Chuck getting 21 after 21, braying obnoxiously about how easy it all is… Do T & T have Chuck escorted out? Nope. So what's the point of all this, exactly?
Some slutty-looking girls show up for the Frat party. Rob The Virgin does a lame (fully-clothed) lap dance on one of them. Oh, brother…
Chuck, meanwhile, is hitting on a waitress. And any other woman in sight. See, besides being God's Gift to Gambling, Chuck is also God's Gift to Women…. "Women are my addiction", he says. They show him playing craps again-and hey, the three girls with him are THREE OF THE GIRLS FROM THE FRAT PARTY. This whole thing just SO reeks of being staged by Burnett… Anyway, Chuck informs us that it's a "numbers game": he hits on 30-40 women a day, and "scores" with 1-3 a day. See, he's tall, he has money, and he has "charisma" (hey, he SAID he did!) They show him aimlessly hitting on random women… words cannot BEGIN to fully capture how big a jerk Chuck is...
Matt Dusk's opening night is going well, until Joe steps up and informs him that the female Lieutenant Governor of Nevada and some schlub want to come up onstage and sing, so make with some Gershwin, Matt. Matt protests that it's not a "Karaoke Bar", but Joe tells him imperiously, "Make it happen". Which he does, but Matt ain't a happy camper, as Gershwin proceeds to roll over in his grave…
Chuck has "landed" at another Blackjack table. He came in with a blonde, but is immediately attracted to a Lady in Red, Tina, who is being instructed in the game by Gabriel, a former dealer. Chuck introduces himself, and asks Tina "could you be any sexier?" He sits next to her, and he's all over Tina like a cheap suit, all the while insulting her companion, Gabriel. Chuck's best line to Tina: "You know where I want to see all that red? On the floor of the bedroom." A class act… He baldly proposes to Tina that she come up to his "big-ass" suite, and she agrees. Privately, Chuck is thrilled with how fast he's landed her, 5-10 minutes: "I know I'm good, but this is ridiculous!" After they leave the table, the dealer points out to Gabriel that "he just left with your girlfriend." Gabriel assures him that not only is Tina not his girlfriend, but Tina… is a MAN! (Wasn't that in an old Tone Loc song?)
A "sexual content" warning is shown when we come back from commercial. Why, I don't know. Chuck is showing Tina his suite, and they start making out in the bathroom. This consists of… ready? Chuck is squeezing Tina's butt, and them kissing… somebody call the FCC and file a complaint! (Oh, and before one of the commercials, we were promised "the most shocking scene ever seen on Reality TV"…)
Remember the frat party? There's a contest, Rob the nerd wins, and he gets to lick a whipped-cream bikini off some blonde bimbo. They show NOTHING… no blurred stuff, NOTHING. We don't know if it was just the top half, or the bottom half… While all this is going on, lots of whooping and hollering, Tom and Tim walk by in the hall outside (do they just patrol the halls?) Now, before the commercial, we were shown clips of the party, and we were told that when the sex stuff gets out of hand, T & T would have to step in. Oh boy… so DO they step in? Do they put a stop to this nonsense? Do they tell the Frat Pack to keep it down; decent people are trying to sleep? No, they look at each other and laugh and say "I don't wanta know…" and WALK AWAY! Huh? Boy, this makes ME wanta book a room at the Golden Nugget-- nothing I like better than a room near a wild drunken frat party, and the OWNERS OF THE PLACE go right by and do nothing!
Back to Rob: he confesses to a blonde who actually kind of looks interested that he's a virgin. She doesn't want to corrupt him... sadly, Rob will NOT get de-virginized this night. (What a LOSER…)
Matt and his manager talk with Joe about the Karaoke thing, and Joe is a total control-freak prick, telling Matt, "You don't tell ME what to do…", saying that HE was the one in charge, and reminding Matt that he hired him (I thought it was T & T.) It was pretty harsh. Matt doesn't know if he can work this way, but he wisely shuts up for now...
Back to Chuck. Thanks to the choppy editing, we really have NO IDEA what went on between Tina and him-they show him talking off a balcony to her (saying goodbye? We don't know.) He returns to the Blackjack table, where Gabriel and the others break it to him- he was making out with a guy. Now, depending on just how far they got, wouldn't Chuck have realized this at some point? But the sordid details will forever remain a mystery… anyway, Chucks yuks it up, taking it pretty well… and that's the END.
I certainly hope we get to see more of the Matt/Joe conflict in future shows, as this was the only part that actually seemed REAL to me. If I never see Big Chuck again I'll be happy (although I see guys LIKE him a LOT in casinos! Chuck was just the supreme example of the Obnoxious High Roller.) I DO hope the editing gets more coherent, too… but we'll see.
Dan is a college professor who somehow got hooked on Reality TV, especially ones with lots of strategy and twists. You can contact him at Daniel1953@hotmail.com
