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Winning Time episode 7: ‘Invisible Man’


Sean Small as Larry Bird and Quincy Isaiah as Magic Johnson.

Sean Small like Larry Birds and Quincy Isaiah as Magic Johnson.
Photo: HBO

When John C. Reilly and, ostensibly, Dr. Jerry Buss return to the camera, he speaks not in the future but in the present. Reilly’s Buss had no foresight about what would become his Lakers. He is far from an omniscient storyteller and has no way of knowing all, everything. Instead, breaking the fourth wall primarily serves as a vehicle for Buss to deal with on his own. He’s debating his frustrations, as we see in the opening montage of Episode 7, “The Invisible Man”. The title is both a reminiscent of Ralph Ellison’s literary classic on the other side of African-Americans, and for unseen audiences, neither us nor Buss’.

When Buss spoke to the camera, it was to comment on what is happening here and now (ie 1980). This innovative choice makes Showtime simulations not only entertaining, but also believable. If creator Max Borenstein allowed Buss or any of the characters to see the future, or comment on how choices would affect themselves or others, it would plunge the show into confusion.

By limiting the character’s POV, the show stays in its world, no matter how surreal and bizarre it may be. It also allows the less-started in NBA folklore to enjoy the stage as the scenes unfold. Part of the fun is how the arc of the Showtime Lakers’ first championship season is removed from recent memory. We’re all a little vague about the story, making the 1980s Los Angeles date and place welcome.

This episode finds each character involved in their situations. Pat Riley left the broadcast stand to take on the role of assistant coach on the bench. Paul Westphal beat rival Boston Celtics to keep his job for another day. Jack McKinney learns to lace his shoes again after a near-fatal fall. Claire Rothman devises a financial plan to save the team. And Magic found his great white whale in Larry Bird, his ultimate peer, rival, and antithesis.

Magic takes on the role of Ellison’s unnamed narrator, guiding us through a three-match East Coast road trip as the fates of Westphal’s coaching career and the Lakers’ potential championship lay at stake equilibrium. We see fans like a random white girl in Bird’s home state of Indiana who flashes Magic with Bird’s name written on her chest, telling him Bird is going to have lunch. mine. It was an aggressive, sexually violent gesture that, throughout history, the history of white women lying has led to the imprisonment of so many innocent African-American men.

Magic navigates social, business, and racial dealings as a new-found dual-conscious Black man struggles. As literary critics use Black Existentialism as a prism for reading Ellison’s masterpiece, we can also use it to deconstruct Victory time. The invisible person at play is both Earvin and Magic. As Earvin, he finds warmth in his father’s sensibility, his mother’s maxims, and the loyalty of his lover, Cookie. But as Magic, he’s just a pawn in his white master’s plot. He has to smile for the camera, win ball games and stand in line. Magic constantly has to overcome racism as an obstacle to achieving his dreams and strengthening his identity.

When Earvin went to his hometown of Detroit to face the Pistons, he was reunited with Cookie. But he is immediately distracted by Magic’s responsibilities – business dealings, isolation, and a deadly game between power and morality. By now, Magic had acquired a reputation as a flirt. In the next sequence, a white woman notices Cookie, thinking she’s an accomplice competing for Magic’s time, mocking her for not wearing an outfit bright enough for him to notice. idea. Earvin may have his eye on raising a family and settling down, but Magic is amused by the level of visibility he’s achieved.

There’s a poignant scene between Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Magic’s father, played by Rob Morgan, at Christmas dinner before the big game against Boston. Both of them were amazed at the innocence of Magic. How could he not be baffled by all the bad stuff white America continues to throw at black men? Kareem loves knowledge. He connected himself deep within the rising Black consciousness. But that’s how Earvin Jr lived, noting that growing up in Mississippi, he saw lynchings almost weekly in the Jim Crow South. So, Earvin Sr. asked Kareem, the Lakers’ elder statesman, to kick his son’s ass if he went out in the street. It was a simple, loving gesture from a father and brother to one of them. It shows how people of color were/have to find each other among the white wolves and the acid-laden businesses surrounding the young prodigy.

It also reminds us that there are a lot of characters that are important to telling the Showtime Lakers story correctly – some will be left behind. It’s a pity we couldn’t see more of Sally Field and Morgan. The romantic dinner scene could be easily forgotten in an episode that revolves around the pivotal game between the Celtics and the Lakers. But the stakes of the Magic soul, and the brotherhood of the Magic family, on and off the court, are bound together by scenes like these. Whether it happens exactly like Victory time say it doesn’t matter because these are the matches in which the audience is most invested. Not the Lakers vs. Celtics, or Bird vs. Magic which is Magic vs. Earwin. Plus, anyone who watched this show and descended from these Lakers then and now knows, “Fuck Boston.”



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