Running Point (2025 – )
Created by Ike Barinholtz, Mindy Kaling, and Elaine Ko, the hilarious Netflix comedy Running Point is back, but unfortunately, Isla Gordon (Kate Hudson) hasn’t learned much from last season. Catapulted into the top seat of her family’s LA-based professional basketball franchise after the death of her father, she’s had to fend off the backbiting, obnoxious, downright immoral tactics of her brothers, Ness (Scott MacArthur) and Sandy (Drew Tarver). All this started, if you will recall, when eldest brother and drug addict Cam Gordon (Justin Theroux) was dragged off to rehab after he had a not so little incident that involved illicit drug taking while driving.
It was also in season one that the four white Gordon siblings discovered that they had a half-brother, a wiry and goofy Latino named Jackie Moreno (Fabrizio Guido), who now works as Isla’s assistant (but only after the depraved brothers tried to buy him off to get rid of him). Not exactly a warm welcome to the family!
But after a successful, although not championship season with Isla at the helm, Ness, Sandy, and a newly sprung Cam are teaming up to undermine her in fresh (and often diabolical ways) as Cam guns for her job while pretending to be okay with his demotion. So, Isla’s got to watch her back at work, where a cut-throat agent is angling to up the salary of the walk-on-turned-star player, Dyson Gibbs (Uche Agada), pretending to shop him to the championship Toronto Trappers. When the siblings brainstorm about how the Trappers might steal Gibbs away, they ruminate on how the Trappers typically get Tim Horton’s to name donuts after their star players. When a Trapper team executive visits LA and pegs Jackie’s not so subtle surveillance, he warns him about the two things that Canadians hate: being spied on and rollerblade hockey.
But team Trapper is not after Gibbs after all, they are after Isla’s bestie and valued LA Waves employee Ali Lee (Brenda Song) who has a sound basis to beef with Isla and her bros since she has been booted from her office (due to Cam’s return), has not seen a raise in ages, and is being guilted by Isla into taking on responsibilities (like wooing annoying sponsors who sell waste management equipment, yes toilets!), without any proper jump in recognition or compensation. But Asian-American Ali is aware of all the ways that spoiled little rich white girl Isla is taking advantage, so when it becomes clear that the Toronto Trappers are in town to woo her and not Gibbs, she takes their offer and heads to The 6 (that’s Toronto, okay?), leaving Isla feeling betrayed at the loss of her bestie, employee, and maid of honour.
But is the wedding to stable, good guy fiancé Lev Levenson (Max Greenfield) actually going to happen? Well…maybe? It’s hard to tell since Isla keeps having sexual fantasies about the former Waves head coach, African American Jay Brown (Jay Ellis) who has moved on to coach a team in Boston. Exactly what will happen when he comes to LA for a road trip?
Not immune to the Gordons bad behaviour either, Isla’s parting words to Ali aren’t kind. As Ali confirms her decision to move on from the Waves, instead of taking responsibility for the ways that she has made Ali feel neglected and abused, Isla hurls insults at her stating that she is heading to “the most boring place on earth” where she is sure to “freeze to death.” For her part, once Ali arrives in Toronto on a miserable, overcast winter day, she is offered hot cocoa instead of coffee and shown to her new gloomy office where she is informed of a perk, she can see suburban Buffalo (NY) on a clear day!
As if all of this wasn’t enough, Isla must contend with hiring a new head coach, Norm Stinson (Ray Romano), who all three of her brothers oppose and trying to heal a rift in the team that erupts when Gibbs does not heed veteran player Marcus Winfield’s (Toby Sandeman) sage advice to stay away from player Travis Bugg’s (Chet Hanks) girlfriend. Messy!
Running Point is not just clever, it’s a laugh-out-loud, intelligent, sports comedy-drama with plots that wind through the chaotic Gordon family, their teetering team, their often ego-driven players, and their failing finances. On that last front, did we mention that Cam is still taking drugs (with his sponsor) and has embezzled two million dollars from the Waves? Ooopsy!