The first season of Dirt is a jumble of drugs, betrayal, sex, and a lot of weird schizophrenic moments. Lucy eats, breathes, and lives for her job as the editor of both Drrt and Now magazines. She would most likely sleep it too, if she was capable of sleeping. Drrt is basically a tabloid, and Now was a very respectable magazine forty years ago, but has been slightly boring people for the last few years. Lucy has a reputation for walking, crawling, and stomping over everyone (in high heels) to get what she wants when she wants it. The reputation is deserved, but she is damn good at her job. She wouldn't be anywhere if it weren't for Don and his amazing pictures, however.
During the first few episodes, Lucy's boss tells her that she is going to have to cut costs for Drrt and Now or face being replaced. Seeing as how Lucy would rather throw herself off a building than lose her job, she decides the best move would be to combine Drrt and Now into one magazine called Drrt Now. She justifies the combination by telling her boss that Drrt will gain a respectable lilt when combined with Now. Drrt Now becomes a wildly successful magazine, but tears apart the lives of everyone involved.
The first victims of the magazine are Holt McLaren, Willa McPherson, and their friend Kira Klay. Willa McPherson is America's sweetheart, and a famous actress. Her boyfriend, Holt McLaren, is obviously jealous of Willa's stardom, and makes a deal with Lucy in order to propel himself into the limelight. His deal lands Kira in a morgue, and he and Willa in a high speed accident. Willa is injured and becomes addicted to pain medication, while Holt begins slowly replacing her in the public eye. The more fame Holt garners, the more Willa fades into drugs, sex, and depression. Lucy keeps using Holt as a snitch for good information in exchange for good coverage of his career, and pulls him deeper down into her world.
The dead Kira ends up as Don's pregnant girlfriend. Yes, you read that correctly. Sometimes Don doesn't take his medication and he has issues with reality. Some of these encounters with dead people, words that become inch worms, and talking cats are the best parts in the series. Seriously, if nothing else in this series hangs with you, Don's dead, pregnant girlfriend giving birth to a litter of kittens will definitely stick out in your mind.
Short of Don, Lucy's brother, Leo, is the only person that she cares a thing for. Lucy's brother comes to her at one point and claims he has a new boyfriend, and he is in love. Leo's lover just happens to be a famous action star and family man. But when Mr. Action screws Lucy's brother over, Leo wants revenge and goes to his Lucy to get it. Lucy covers the story, and lands her brother in an emotional storm that momentarily takes Leo out of Lucy's life.
Willa is forcibly checked into a rehabilitation clinic, and slowly starts to get better while Holt's career booms. It seems like Holt stays with Willa at this point out of a sense of guilt, and not for the woman he once cared about. Lucy gets a stalker around this point, and the magazine is held up for two and a half days by a crazed, has-been child actor. The man actually kills one of the characters off during this episode, and my mouth hit the floor. The series leads you to believe that Lucy's stalker was the crazed child actor, but more pictures of her in her underwear show up in later episodes. At one point, I even thought Don had lost his mind (well, placed it further away than it normally is), and was stalking Lucy.
Leo later returns to Lucy with his girlfriend in tow. The girlfriend has undertaken a vow of silence, and is missing an appendage I thought Leo found attractive in a partner. About the time Leo returns, Don goes off his medication again and starts going off the deep end after one of his underlings is violently beaten and landed in the hospital. Lucy keeps playing the devil and destroying souls when she screws over Willa in the same manner she bought off Holt.
Dirt is an insane look into the celebrity world, and I am not entirely sure I want to go there again. Once you start watching, you cannot look away, but maybe it is better not to look in the first place. The series tries hard to get the grit and baseness of Nip/Tuck, and would have succeeded with better actors. If Courtney Cox was not carrying this show, I doubt it would have gotten very far. Personally, I am in love with Ian Hart's character, and I wouldn't have watched the show without him in it.
Dirt is definitely not suitable for kids, but adults looking for a soft core porn fix will get a kick out of the show. So go forth, ye minions, and sink yourself into Lucy Spiller's world.
