She will be accepted, whatever it takes.
Palm Royale follows Maxine Dellacorte-Simmons (Kristen Wiig, Barb & Star), a woman who moves to Palm Beach, Florida and strides to be accepted into the local Country Club whatever the cost. Despite her ‘outsider’ status Maxine hopes to impress the society women with her perceived sense of fashion and style, hoping to gain a nomination in order to pass the club’s first hurdle. Setting out to achieve her goals Maxine engineers a road accident with fellow member Dinah (Leslie Bibb), learning of her marital affair in the process and then using this information to blackmail her. From here Maxine then sets out to throw the annual Beach Ball, a tradition usually maintained by her Aunt-in-Law Norma (Carol Burnett) who currently lies in a coma (something Maxine massively uses to her advantage).
Palm Royale made for an absolutely hilarious watch and the sheer over the top nature of everything made for such an entertaining experience. Maxine’s scheming completely controlled the narrative here and I just loved the absolute disaster of it all, these were some seriously messy characters. The 60/70s vibes were also immaculate and everything from the costumes to the set design was perfectly done. This was a show about the ridiculously rich and their costuming was absolutely spot on, everybody looked an absolute wonder.
Maxine was an absolutely incredible character and I cannot applaud Wiig enough in her manic portrayal of her. This was a woman who knew what she wanted and was not above some serious blackmail to get it in the process, leading to some brilliant shenanigans throughout. The entire character was almost like a SNL skit and the constant over-acting and over the top personality was perfectly done, Maxine was an absolute riot. So much of the comedy here came from Wiig and her bouncing off of the other (much saner) characters and as the story went on and things got more and more crazy Maxine only matched in tone and went even more and more bizarre.
One thing I didn’t expect from this show was the slightly darker elements paired with the constant comedy. This wasn’t a crime/drama show by any means but we still got storylines of blackmail, crime cover ups, mistaken identities and even attempted murder. Palm Beach was swimming in the rich and wealthy where the big personas would constantly try and outdo each other, resulting in some seriously shady business. Maxine herself wasn’t even immune to some slight criminal acts and as the show went on it became clear that nobody here was innocent of everything…
Overall I absolutely loved watching Palm Royale, the comedy was top notch and the performances all around were brilliant. Maxine’s climbing to the top of the social scene made for a hilarious disaster from start to finish and the more enemies she made along the way the more wacky her scheming got. The
Ramblings of a Supposed Writer 