[Warning: General spoilers ahead.]
Saturday night on Lifetime, Angie Harmon channels her Big Wick Energy for Buried in Barstow, which she executive produces and stars in as Hazel King, a single mom who’s been living on the right side of the law and the other side of the state line, in the titular Barstow, since leaving her former career as a contract hitter behind following the birth of her daughter, Joy.
Almost two decades later, that life comes calling and Hazel is pulled back to Las Vegas to pay an old debt and settle an old score. It has to wait until after hours, though, because by day she’s running her diner and running interference between Joy (Lauren Richards) and her layabout boyfriend, Travis (13 Reasons Why‘s Tim Granaderos), who takes a swing at Joy and finds out firsthand that mama does not play.
A former teenage runaway who was pulled into the underworld by Vaughn (played by Harmon’s Rizzoli & Isles co-star Bruce McGill in a huge wink-nod) when he presented himself as a safer space than the streets, Hazel has made her diner a port in the storm for a series of regulars whose peculiarities she humors, and the occasional lost soul.
The latest of the latter is Elliot (Hallmark regular Kristoffer Polaha), who has his own skeletons and in whom Hazel takes a personal interest. She gives him the benefit of the doubt and a job and maybe a little too much rope.
It’s fun to watch Harmon swagger through this as a woman who really has no time for your bullsh-t, and she gets her very own Wickian takedown scene. [Note: Some of the gun violence may be difficult to watch given current world events, so YMMV whether you bank this one and watch it later or give it a whirl now and make liberal use of your skip forward button.]
Howard Deutch (who’s got a deep bench back to Pretty in Pink and Some Kind of Wonderful) directs a script by Tom Evans. Additional cast includes George Paez (Curb Your Enthusiasm, Mom), Gabriel Rodriguez (The Suicide Squad, Chicago P.D.), Casey Mills (Catrachos and Kings, Ozark), Ben Cain (Cruel Summer, Panic), Anthony Reynolds (Dopesick, I, Tonya) and Nelson Bonilla (Ozark, The Haunting of Hill House). There’s a second film already in development but not yet filmed, so this is being set up as a potential franchise. I’m in for anything that puts Harmon back in regular rotation.
Buried in Barstow premieres Saturday at 8 pm/7c on Lifetime. Here are a couple of sneak peeks.
Photos and video courtesy of Lifetime Television.
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