Although there’s an element of camp to the outsize (and totally true) outlines of Tammy Wynette’s suffering, up to this point, George & Tammy has kept the knowing irony relegated to its costumes and sets. That’s a departure from Jessica Chastain’s last foray into a biographical drama about a famous southern woman named Tammy who was dragged into disgrace by the men in her life: I speak, of course, about The Eyes Of Tammy Faye, a film that is more affected than George & Tammy on every front, from Chastain’s chirpy performance to the comedic flourishes brought by director Michael Showalter.
We see a glimpse of that winking VHS-era kitsch in the cold open to this week’s George & Tammy. A faux TV documentary segment opens with Tammy jumping barefoot on a trampoline and ends with a little musical flourish under what I can only describe as a megachurch font reading “First Lady.†That’s the name of the stylish mid-century home Tammy bought in preparation for her divorce from George Jones in last week’s episode. It’s also a sobriquet for Tammy herself, who retains the title despite no longer having a president of country music by her side.
Bobbie Gentry’s original “Fancy†(’90s country kids will be more familiar with Reba McEntire’s cover) plays over the action at various points during “Two Story House.†As usual, the lyrics provide some not-so-subtle clues to the characters’ mental state. “Fancy†is about a small-town girl growing up in extreme poverty who makes it out with the help of her mother, who puts “every last penny we had†into preparing her daughter for sex work. Tammy’s path out of obscurity was singing, but men similarly shaped the outlines of her life. At this point, Tammy’s in her swinging single years, and the timing of certain key phrases — “It was red,†“self-righteous hypocrites who call me bad†— telegraph the idea that this good girl has finally broken bad.
Or has she? She’s still a devoted mom and musical workhorse out there living her life, a life that includes casual romances with various men — including her ex-husband, George, whom she just can’t seem to stay away from no matter how hard she tries. He’s trying, too, convinced Tammy is the one person who can save him from himself. After hallucinating that another blonde woman in a gold lamé dress was his ex-wife, Tammy herself shows up in the flesh at George’s bar, Possum Holler, where the Possum is currently taking up residence in the back, and their paths overlap once again after several years of estrangement.
The cocaine use I teased last week is now a major factor in George’s life, and things are getting weird. He’s mumbling like Ozzy Osbourne, communicating mostly through grunts and duck sounds and jumping out of a coffin onstage like a madman. Still, he and Tammy have a bond, held together by music and what Wynette called “good lovin’†in her song of the same name. The chemistry between the leads continues to be one of the more compelling parts of its series, epitomized this week by their flirtatious postcoital patter when George and Tammy carnally reunite midway through the episode.
This episode is weird, too, taking on a more soapy tone in its first half before shifting into disturbing territory in its second. “Two Story House†doesn’t quite stick the landing when it comes to the shifting tones of the episode; some of the gossipy fun of the first half bleeds over into the very serious material of the second, which is upsetting in a different way than director John Hillcoat presumably intended. As I discussed last week, George Richey (played here by Steve Zahn) does arguably deserve the villain edit he gets in George & Tammy: His relationship with the real Wynette was abusive from the start, and the way he insinuates himself into her life through emotional manipulation in this episode is downright sinister.
Tammy’s motivations for marrying Richey don’t make sense unless viewed through the lens of an addict. Yes, their partnership is musical, like her bond with George. But she isn’t attracted to him sexually and doesn’t seem to like it when he pathetically begs for her affections. He’s just like her second husband but worse: controlling, needy, jealous, and resentful. But, by this point, she’s made the leap to needle drugs, and Richey knows how to cook up her nightly shot of oblivion. “If I wasn’t sad, there’d be nothing to sing about,†she says later in the episode — just as George used to say. And George, who’s no stranger to addiction, knows something is up. At this point, though, there’s little he can do but watch from the sidelines.
By the midpoint of “Two Story House,†we’ve got multiple overlapping love triangles that are somehow all one-sided. Richey coldly discards Sheila (poor Sheila) the minute he has a chance with Tammy. George, who still loves Tammy, is framed here as flawed but well meaning: The devil takes him sometimes, but it’s all he knows, and he’s trying, with his born-again pal Peanutt (Walton Goggins) doing his best to steer him toward the light. For George, the reward for all this effort is Tammy, his eternal Sunday morning after a hard Saturday night.
Tammy’s motivations for keeping George in her life are more obscure. She says it’s for their daughter, which may be partially true. But I suspect, underneath that, there’s a complex mix of guilt and greed at play. Because, at this point, Tammy has eyes only for the needle. And in her loyal, self-sacrificing Tammy Wynette way, she will give everything, endure any humiliation, and allow herself to be debased for its sake. It’s as simple, and as sad, as that.
Another Lonely Song
• As usual, the writing is the thing that holds back this week’s episode of George & Tammy. It’s just too groaningly obvious to have little Georgette turn to George and say, “You going to sing pretty for me, daddy?†right after he hoovers a big bump in the recording booth. (The moment when a fan neatly summarizes the feminist objection to Tammy Wynette outside her tour bus is also too blunt to bear.)
• By this point in the story, Georgette Jones, upon whose memoir this series is based, was old enough to have some idea of what was going on with her family — something to keep in mind when considering the show’s biases.
• Tammy smoking in her doctor’s office is a funny touch, but the punch line comes when the camera pans over to see the doctor is smoking, too.
• Interestingly, it takes until the late ’70s for the influence of the ’60s to really reach Nashville: Note the references to “Helter Skelter†and “free love†in an episode set in 1978.
• The (re)appearance of “the duck†this week is another real-life detail from the George Jones archives: In an episode of Mike Judge’s (very good, now defunct) Tales From the Tour Bus, Tammy’s hairdressers Jan and Nan say that when George Jones got all coked up, “the duck came first.†Another voice called “the old man†“came out later, so he’d have someone to talk to.â€
• Speaking of Jan and Nan, they are not having any of this nonsense with Richey, and it’s too bad Tammy chooses to side with a man over her female friends. (She was clearly raised to prioritize men above all else, so she does deserve some grace for that.)
• George’s story about Lefty Frizzell, the ’50s country star who co-wrote and performed “If You’ve Got the Money, I’ve Got the Time,†is also based on fact. Frizzell, a classic country boy thrown into the shark tank of Nashville with no guidance or real friends, died at the age of 47 after years of severe alcoholism.
• Based on the description given on the website for another George Jones–branded bar, the original Possum Holler — a real place that opened in 1967 and had two incarnations, BT (Before Tammy) and AT (After Tammy), each in a different location with a different vibe — is now the second floor of a honky tonk called the Second Fiddle that has a respectable four stars on Yelp.
• Some home-video footage shot at Possum Holler in the mid-’70s that I found on YouTube shows that a painting of Jones’s face loomed over the stage in real life, as it does on the show.