Back in December, I reviewed Max’s Bookie, the sports betting comedy starring the comedian Sebastian Maniscalco. I reviewed it based on the first two episodes, and I … didn’t like it.

This is how I finished up the piece: “I wanted to like it. I wanted to love it. But it’s just a fast-paced non-farce that has, at its core, precious little to do with sports betting. I say it’s +800 it gets a second season.”

Well, much like all my other gambling advice this year, I was wrong. Max did indeed renew Bookie for a second go-round, so I figured maybe I was way off in my review. Maybe the show was actually good. Maybe I should go back and watch the whole season.

Which I did.

The results are in

And I can’t believe it got renewed for a second season. The entirety of the eight episodes were disjointed and not funny. 

To be clear: I am in the minority, and – spoiler alert – I am not a television/movie reviewer by trade. Richard Roeper – who is a television and movie reviewer by trade – liked it. 

“We’ve got a solid and funny comedy with Bookie,” he wrote. “It’s not a sure thing, but it’s a 7-point favorite to endure.”

Whatever.

For a minute, I thought the show found its footing when Rob Corddry showed up as fellow bookmaker, introducing Maniscalco’s Danny to Jack Han (played by C.S. Lee). Lee plays a whale who refuses to pay the vig, and bet $500K to win something like $1.3 million on the Texans moneyline. There were hints that Han was not only a whale, but also a (legitimate) killer, and it appeared the show was gaining some steam with a solid storyline.

It lasted one episode.

Honestly, that was my biggest problem with the series: It was all over the place. Plots would start, stop, start again, and never be heard from again. Charlie Sheen shows up as himself in the first and last episodes. Danny, who seems like a straight-up married guy, is found out to have a gal on the side. She is in and out of the show in two scenes. Danny’s partner, Ray (Omar J. Dorsey) has a seemingly endless supply of children out of wedlock, is dating Danny’s sister (who is also selling mushrooms and becomes a shaman) and there’s murder and …

And there’s one episode where the gang pays police a million dollars to come and kill a vanload of Russians. 

And that’s not even the half of it. So much was thrown against the wall, who knows what sticks for season two.

Bright side?

Was there anything I liked?

Sure. The Jack Han character was a riot, and Corddry’s bookmaker character had some awesome lines, including during a eulogy for another bookmaker (who we never met alive, and was told was Danny’s father figure, and who set up Danny with a job as a bookmaker after Danny got out of prison – all things we did not know and found out in about five seconds worth of exposition) the following: “He’s the lucky one. He got out at the right time, before DraftKings and FanDuel – pardon my French – stuck their corporate (bleeps) up the (bleep) of every decent god-fearing bookie in America.”

And uh … I think that’s about it.

I hate writing a bad review. I’m a nice guy. And I’m also an easy mark, generally speaking. But this show … man, it was not my cup of tea, not my single game parlay. It was tedious, unfunny, and felt longer than it should be.

Is there a good show in this mishmash? I mean, sure. Maniscalco is endearing as a human being, and a show about bookies could definitely be entertaining, but … yeesh. It’s gonna take some doing.

In the meantime, just a few more sleeps until the last season of Curb Your Enthusiasm debuts on Max. Now that’s a -10000 favorite against any show, anytime. 

Photo: Adam Pantozzi/NBAE via Getty Images