Allison Janney is back, and the bad guys are gonna be sorry.

You remember Allison Janney, of course, you do. (C.J. on “West Wing” and the terrible “Mom”)

She looked so great back in those days, trim and pantsuited, professional and sweet on the side.

Well, avert your eyes for a moment.

Allison here, is like a torn and discarded antique rug, and will scare the threads out of you.

Here, she’s “Lou,” tall and lean, all “jeaned” up, with long, very gray hair, a log-roller’s complexion, work boots and Lon Chaney makeup.

Allison went way out of her way to look like she’s been in the woods for 10 years, which she has, in a logger’s cabin with no microwave or “Jeopardy.”

We first meet Lou in a local bank, on a sparsely populated island in the Pacific Northwest.

She sees President Reagan on the bank TV and frowns. That’s a clue?

For a reason not yet revealed, Lou withdraws her entire account, and it’s a hefty amount, because the teller asks, “All of it, that’s a lot of money.”
“I know it is,” Lou whispers dryly. “I put it here.”

We’re left wondering why she’s taking this bag of cash out. It’s not explained, because the writers Maggie Cohn and Jack Stanley want to enrich it piece by piece.

Soon we see Lou standing on the cabin porch, looking down on a trailer occupied by Hannah Dawson, (Jurnee Smollett) who has a cute little girl Vee (Ridley Bateman.)

When you see a cute little girl or a handsome dog, you feel something bad is going to happen to one of them.

Mama Hannah is behind on her rent for this space, and Lou lets her know she ain’t happy.

“Have it by tomorrow, leave it on the kitchen table, not outside where it’ll get wet, got it?”

This dialogue tells us Lou has been to some dark, bad places and is a qualified bad date.

The plot then suddenly escalates, adding more dark notes quickly, telling us more than we want to know that early.

Later we will learn that Lou was a CIA field assassin in Iran. This information comes as a disappointment for those of us who, reading the promos, have been writing our own scenarios.

We thought of her, perhaps as a young woman, who was one of the three rifles at the grassy knoll in Dallas back in November of ’63.

That’s a better story than what we end up with.

There is an “Ian”-force storm darkly energizing the night, and the story grows as dark as the clouds.

Little Vee is kidnapped. (I told you so.)

The kidnapper is revealed, but we already know who he is.

The undercover Lou springs into action when she confronts two baddies in a cabin. She pretends to be a lost old lady, but it doesn’t work.

A great gun and karate battle ensues, and a kitchen tip tells us that the open lid of a soup can is a cool way to slice a throat.

Towards the end, we learn more about Lou, the kidnapper and his buddies that Lou took out.

Hannah too, has her secrets, and there is one helluva scene we are not ready for. Enjoy.

“Lou” streams on Netflix.

 

J.P. Devine of Waterville is a former stage and screen actor.

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