Drama
The Madison
‘The Madison’ brings touching moments on marriage and grief. It also brings some problems that its audience will need to consider.
“When you get your heart broken, it feels like someone shot you in the face,” observes Greg Russo.
As a writer of romantically charged action novels, Greg would know.
And Greg’s daughter Katie, who works as a professor at Ludlow College, probably knows exactly what he means. You see, Katie’s husband and fellow professor, Archie, is cheating on her with a graduate student named Sunny—and everyone knows about it.
That’s why Greg has made his way to Ludlow College. He hopes to lift Katie’s spirits, and he hopes to give Archie a piece of his mind, too.
But when Greg reflects on his own failed marriage, which ended after his own wife cheated on him, Greg tells Katie that she should try to make things work with Archie. Although she’s still angry, Katie heeds Greg’s advice and tries talking to her husband.
Archie has bad news, though. He says he still loves Katie, but he discovered something that makes things between them even more complicated:
Sunny is pregnant.
Katie, understandably, freaks out. And Greg wants to be with his daughter during this difficult time. So, Greg begrudgingly accepts a writer-in-residence job that the university president, Walter Mann, had been begging him to take.
Between supporting his daughter, getting to know an English professor named Dylan Shepherd (who’s admitted she’s romantically interested in Greg) and dodging a local police officer (who seems to have it out for him), Greg gets acquainted with campus life at Ludlow College.
Hopefully the faculty members at most colleges aren’t quite as … ah, interesting as the scholars at Ludlow College. If the marital infidelity involving a faculty member and a graduate student wasn’t enough, university president Walter Mann waltzes around campus shirtless, and Dylan Shepherd teaches about the poetry of Bad Bunny and allows Greg to read a raunchy novel to her class. To say the least, students at Ludlow—and viewers of HBO Max’s Rooster—won’t find the greatest role models.
And Rooster has other content concerns, too.
Greg writes beach-read books, which contain crude, sexual and even demeaning depictions of women. Although one student calls Greg out for the problematic content, these depictions are ultimately played for laughs, and characters make similar sexual and crude comments throughout the show.
A few scenes feature people passionately kissing in public, and one of these couples is Archie and the graduate student Sunny. When Sunny and Archie discuss her pregnancy, they briefly talk about whether or not she’ll decide to keep the baby. There’s also a moment when a character tells Greg that she wants to sleep with him.
Characters use profanity, including the f-word, s-word, crude references to male anatomy and misuses of God’s name paired with “d–n.”
There are also multiple scenes in which characters drink alcohol. For instance, Dylan and Greg meet at a bar and get a bit tipsy; Greg shares a bottle of wine with Katie; and an underage college student tricks Greg into buying him a case of beer.
The show has some moments that depict a sweet—albeit complicated—relationship between a father and daughter, and fans of Steve Carell and his quirky sense of humor may find Rooster endearing. But families who prefer to avoid shows with harsh profanity, messy romantic relationships and crass jokes will probably have Rooster expelled from their watch lists—or at least suspended until their kids are much older.
(Editor’s Note: Plugged In is rarely able to watch every episode of a given series for review. As such, there’s always a chance that you might see a problem that we didn’t. If you notice content that you feel should be included in our review, send us an email at letters@pluggedin.com, or contact us via Facebook or Instagram, and be sure to let us know the episode number, title and season so that we can check it out.)
Greg Russo visits Ludlow College to read his latest novel to a class and to support his daughter Katie, whose marriage is in serious trouble.
The episode’s main tension stems from Katie’s troubled marriage. Her husband and fellow professor, Archie, left her to have sex with a graduate student at the college, and Archie hasn’t explained his actions to Katie. Students and faculty know about the scandal, and in one scene, Archie kisses the much younger graduate student in public.
A college student named Ronni asks Greg why he hates women. To support her question, Ronni brings up multiple sections of Greg’s book that include crude sexual references to women’s anatomy. Ronni also brings up the number of times characters have had sex in Greg’s novels, and she briefly mentions the intimate details of one such encounter. Other students recall a portion of the novel in which a woman does a heroic action topless. Based on the students’ observations, it’s clear that the descriptions of women in Greg’s books are demeaning and objectifying. Two male students refer to a woman in Greg’s novel as “hot” and a “smoke show.” Characters make crude sexual references throughout the episode, too.
The university president, Walter Mann, laments that liberal arts colleges no longer allow educators to gush their unfiltered—and even offensive—thoughts. He says, “Nobody makes these kids feel bad anymore.” Later, Walter interrupts his female receptionist, and generally, Walter has a dismissive attitude toward women that is played for laughs.
Two female college students kiss. Walter takes off his shirt and pants in his office, so when Greg enters, Walter is only wearing his boxers. A man walks around in public without a shirt. A man in only a towel and another in only his boxers sit together in a sauna. When Dylan and Greg talk, they both lament their failed love lives and admit to feeling alone. Greg discusses his divorce. Dylan tells Greg that she wants to sleep with him.
Greg says that in his books, “Characters that you like have sex” and “the ones that you don’t get shot in the face.” Greg reads aloud a portion of his novel in which someone shoots another person in the eye. Later, Greg jokingly says someone might shoot a character in the face. Someone casually mentions that the college’s hockey coach killed himself. Someone accidently burns down a house. A man passes out. Katie tells Archie that she’s thought about killing him.
There are 10 uses of the f-word, eight uses of the s-word, two uses of the c-word, one use of “a–” and multiple misuses of God’s and Jesus’ names (including one instance of the former paired with “d–n”). Katie tells Archie to “sit down and shut up.”
A grown man calls a college student a jerk. Dylan supposedly teaches a class about the poetry of Bad Bunny. As a joke, a male college student looks Greg in the eye and says that he loves Greg very much.
Greg gets tricked into buying a case of beer for an underage college student. While Greg sits at a bar, Dylan encourages him to drink something more “self-damaging.” In a brief scene before they discover Sunny is pregnant, Archie and Sunny drink wine together. Greg and Katie share a bottle of wine. Someone makes a joke about cocaine, and there is mention of drug smugglers in Greg’s book. A woman smokes a cigarette.
‘The Madison’ brings touching moments on marriage and grief. It also brings some problems that its audience will need to consider.
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