The concept of the new Hulu series Reboot is simple. A successful TGIF-ish sitcom from the early 2000s gets rebooted — by Hulu, no less — in 2022, as indie film screenwriter Hannah Korman (Rebecca Bloom) decides it is the perfect time to bring the family sitcom back to television, but this time with more of an edge. The series' original creator, Gordon Gelman (Paul Reiser) who also happens to be Hannah’s estranged dad, inserts himself and a handful of old-school writers into the project to contrast with Hannah's staff of young Gen Z writers, which makes for some internal conflict but just as many laughs.
The show-within-a-show, titled Step Right Up, follows a mom, Josie, who married Lawrence, and together they are raising Josie’s son Cody from her first marriage to Jake. Hilarity ensues when Jake remains a big part of Cody’s life and Josie and Lawrence are forced to find a way to live with their new modern family. The off-screen dynamics are just as complicated; Jake's actor, Reed Sterling (Keegan-Michael Key), had a past tumultuous relationship with Bree Jensen (Judy Greer) who plays Josie, and the two bring a lot of baggage to the revival as they reunite for the first time in 15 years. Meanwhile, Cody's actor Zack Jackson (Calum Worthy) is now all grown up and has a huge teenage following after he did a bunch of low-budget, but very popular, teen movies after the sitcom ended. Johnny Knoxville rounds out the cast as comedian recovering addict Clay Barber, who portrays Josie's ex-husband Jake on the sitcom.
As one might expect, the whole ensemble is involved in a lot of behind-the-scenes drama on the set of the Step Right Up revival. Reed and Bree have unresolved romantic issues to figure out, Hannah and Gordon are dealing with past familial conflict, and Zack has a lot of growing up to do while secretly dating Elaine (Krista Marie Yu), the Hulu studio executive producing the show. With so much going on, there is an underrated performance happening right in front of our eyes, courtesy of Knoxville himself.
Knoxville's Performance Emphasizes Clay's Journey of Growth
When we're first introduced to Knoxville's character, Clay is going through a lot. His life since the original sitcom wrapped has been riddled with highly publicized arrests and addiction issues. After he arrives on the set of the revival show, he continues his bad habits by immediately getting involved with Zack’s mom, Susan (Kerri Kenney), which accidentally positions him in somewhat of a paternal role where Zack is concerned. As messed up as Clay appears to be, he slowly realizes that he’s the one people are turning to the most. Among this wild bunch, is Clay the sanest one of the entire group?
Clay goes on quite the journey of growth through the first season's eight episodes, and Knoxville takes Clay through extensive layers. He is clearly struggling with addiction — whether it be substances, sex, or possibly an undiagnosed Oedipal complex — and the biggest threat to his existence is figuring out that it is time for him to grow up.
In going through his steps of recovery, Clay has a lot of apologies to make, including to the show’s original director Jerry (Lawrence Pressman) in Episode 6, "Bewitched." It's here that Clay learns his first valuable lesson about making amends. He can’t just walk around saying he's sorry to people. His apologies need to be genuine; otherwise, what is the point? Clay is an actor, and he knows he can spew out the lines and say all the right things, but Jerry, a seasoned veteran director can also tell when someone is phoning it in. Clay has chosen to begin the process of recovering from addiction, but does he understand what it means to actually do the work? In the process of understanding what a real, sincere apology looks like, Clay realizes that his sobriety may be a lot harder than he initially thought, but expressing a first real "I'm sorry" goes a long way. Knoxville registers the perfect range of emotions in Clay's interactions with Jerry — from unmotivated, to obligated, to shock, to sadness, to understanding. Little by little, Clay is starting to get it and Knoxville portrays that brilliantly.
In the next episode, "Baskets," Clay is forced to come to terms with a part of acting that has never been his biggest forte: ADR recordings. An ADR session is when the sound editor needs actors to come in and re-record a line or two because of a sound recording error. Maybe a mic failed, or the audience's laugh obscured a line. In turn, the actor watches the footage and basically lip-syncs along with their own performance to get a more clear sound recording. Clay struggles massively with this process, as he tends to get in his own head and psyche himself out. Knoxville repeatedly does the line takes in a hilarious, yet nauseating manner, his body language seeming to fail a little more with each prompt he gets to begin again. It’s a scene that needs to be cringe-worthy and, boy, does he accomplish it. Only after Gordon reaches out to him with empathy and comforts him does he finally gets the take. It is a turning point for Clay when he realizes he may need to ask for help and support more often — and not only that, when it is offered, he needs to accept it. What starts as a hilarious comedy bit turns into a beautiful scene of accomplishment and acceptance.
As Clay comes to terms with his sobriety, he waffles over whether to buy a house, a symbol that to him once represented selling out and giving up on his youth. When he finally decides to pull the trigger on owning a home in the season finale, he ends up alone in his new empty abode trying to come to terms with what he has just done. Even worse, the Hulu execs have sent him a bottle of booze to celebrate — probably not knowing he is in recovery. Ultimately, Clay sits in his furniture-less house alone, with only a bottle for company, contemplating it all. Since we've been on this entire journey with him over the season, Knoxville makes it easy to see every emotion and thought Clay is having without ever having to say a word. The bottle in the room does all the talking.
It is impressive in such a stellar cast for Knoxville’s performance to be this noteworthy, but maybe it’s time we stop being surprised by his acting skills. He’s proved over and over again that he is up to the task — here’s hoping we get another season of Reboot, so we can continue watching his dynamic performance.
The first season of Reboot is now available to stream on Hulu.