Editor’s Note: Welcome to our TV Rewind column! The Paste writers are diving into the streaming catalogue to discuss some of our favorite classic series as well as great shows we’re watching for the first time. Come relive your TV past with us, or discover what should be your next binge watch below:
Netflix’s No Good Nick is essentially a kid’s Nickelodeon sitcom accompanied by light swearing. It only has one season (split into two parts), and won’t see another. It’s no surprise that many people found the 2019 show a bit arduous to watch due to the cringe acting and unnecessarily slow approach to its climax, but the show wasn’t anti-climatic in general. The plot is actually incredible, and certainly not the reason for the show’s downfall. In fact, the fatal flaw was the structure the creators used to tell the story. No one knew the exact reason why Nick Franzelli (Siena Agudong) was conning the Thompson family until towards the middle of Part 2, in an episode called “The Italian Job.” The only thing acknowledged in Part 1 is that her dad, Tony Franzelli (Eddie McClintock), is involved in the scheming and has a lot of anger towards the Thompsons, accusing them of ruining his and his daughter’s life.
From the start, Nick was painted as the antagonist and the Thompsons as the protagonists. Though Nick’s reason for conning was initially unknown, her introduction was as an enigmatic…
