Hopefully by now you know I’m always late to the party. If something was popular 8 years ago, I watch the final season (I see you Game of Thrones). If someone loved it last summer, I’ll be into it next Fall.
And so that’s why I recently discovered Crashing on HBO (thanks to my friends Beth and Kevin and a late night SDCC conversation!)
Crashing on HBO
Crashing is the semi-autobiographical story of comedian Pete Holmes. In the first episode (this is not a spoiler- it’s advertised this way), Pete’s marriage falls apart, and as a result, so does his life. He loses his home, his income (which was his wife’s income) and ends up bouncing around in New York City sleeping on different comedian’s couches (like Artie Lange and T. J. Miller, and Sarah Silverman!)
Pete is awkward, terrible at comedy most of the time, completely socially aloof, and dealing with the ending of his marriage and life as he knows it very much alone and scared in a big city. It’s a train wreck filled with lots of moments of laughter. (He’s a comedian, after all!)
The Evangelical Subtext
I recently heard about comedian Pete Holmes because a friend recommended a podcast episode of his where he interviewed Nadia Bolz-Weber about her book Shameless: A Sexual Reformation! Both Pete and Nadia have an evangelical Christian background and the conversation centered around the dangerous purity culture ‘values’ they were brought up to believe.
Pete, in real life, went to Gordon college. Gorgon is an evangelical Christian school outside of Boston (fun fact: my Uncle works there), and I know it like I went there. I didn’t, but I may as well have. I started my college career at the Indiana version of Gordon (Taylor University) and so I know Pete. No, I don’t know Pete Holmes. But I know the guy he’s portraying.
Pete, the character, is an innocent, virgin-until-he-married-his-wife, Church-going, rarely swearing, wide-eyed-guy who uses phrases only church-goers can translate like “lift you up in prayer” while talking about “his walk” (it’s not a phsycial activity). Pete is every guy I know who still connects with Church. It’s comforting to watch because it’s so familiar, yet awkward as hell because I’m so outside of that community anymore that it’s shocking to see a grown man acting so very EVANGELICAL in “The World.”
I’m only finished Season I, but you can already see Pete wrestling with the confines of the world he was brought up to believe. I can assume because I know that Pete, the real-life comedian, no longer connects with his Christian faith, that that’s where the character Pete is headed throughout the series, and as someone who has walked that “walk”* myself, it’s fascinating to watch.
*oh man, I’m having fun. I miss Church puns
There are 3 Seasons
Of course I told you I found this show late in the game. Crashing on HBO actually got cancelled this year by HBO and Season 3 was the last. I just finished Season 1 and it ended with a bang with an episode called “The Baptism” where everything that could possible go wrong at a Baptism goes wrong. It was hysterical!
If you like poking fun at your Evangelical Christian past and “that guy with the guitar” from your Evangelical Christian College, or if you just like Comedy, watch Crashing on HBO immediately!
