From
AV Club's Year End CoverageThe worst performance of 2016
Bobby Cannavale, VinylThe single worst TV performance of the year?and arguably the worst to ever come out of HBO?s once-unassailable prestige-drama factory. Vinyl seemingly had everything it needed to be a critical hit: a rich, historical backdrop; the built-in erudition of record-collector geekery; the powerhouse production team of Terence Winter, Martin Scorsese, and Mick Jagger; tasteful nudity. Then Bobby Cannavale?s Richie Finestra came along to crush all those ingredients up and snort them, then scream about Bo Diddley as the camera zoomed in on his quaking, sweaty face. There were a lot of things wrong with Vinyl: its tired drug clichés; its office-party celebrity-impersonator versions of musicians like David Bowie and John Lennon; its pointlessly distracting murder subplot; those irritating, magical-realist musical interstitials. But all these flaws could have been? well, if not overlooked, then at least improved upon in the series? scrapped second season, had its main character not been so one-note-of-piercing-feedback. It was a blessing when HBO finally turned it off. Granted, Cannavale wasn?t given a whole lot to work with, as Richie was an unsympathetic dick by design. But the actor?so good in small doses, as on Boardwalk Empire?was so out of his element that it was morbidly fascinating, lacking the slightest shred of charm that makes even the most irredeemable antiheroes worth rooting for, radiating nothing but rage and smarm, and delivering every line like a brick hurled through a window. Our TV is in a better, more peaceful place without him, even if it means we?ll never enjoy the cheap laugh of watching him get all coked up and scream, ?These guys are the truth!? at an ersatz Ramones.