HARDCORE PAWN, Episode Eleven: A 'Case' for Ashley's Revenge

"In the heart of Detroit's 8 Mile lies the city's biggest and baddest pawn shop...."

I am Michiganian by birth, Detroiter by heart. I spent more than 30 years in the Automotive Capital of Earth, became a man and a professional there, so shows that are set in Detroit or attempt to capture a slice of life in the Motor City are especially dear to me.

Hardcore Pawn is an amazingly successful, largely unsung Detroit TV wonder. Shot inside the now-iconic American Jewelry and Loan on Eight Mile Road, Hardcore Pawn is truTV's most consistently successful series: its season seven premiere last March 26 drew the cable channel's largest audience ever in the coveted demo of adults 18-49. It's basic cable's No. 1 unscripted program in its 9 p.m. (EST) Tuesday time slot, spawned a spinoff series in Hardcore Pawn: Chicago and, if it weren't for the unbelievably whacked-out string of belligerent, ignorant, foulmouthed customers it spotlights, would be a continuing source of pride for Detroiters.

Moreover, I have grown to know series stars Les and Seth Gold and Ashley Gold Broad personally. I've written several stories on the family-owned business, including this feature for HOUR Detroit magazine. I've even patronized the place: the wristwatch I wear every day was purchased at American Jewelry and Loan. So for its lucky seventh season, I've selected Hardcore Pawn as a series to review here on a weekly basis. Here's a recap of Episode Eleven, aired on June 25:

Any successful TV series that's been on the air seven seasons invariably is going to have episodes that seem imitative, lackluster, or make you feel certain you've seen them before. Such is the "case" (a play on words that will become clear in a minute) with this week's Hardcore Pawn Episode Eleven, a half-hour that felt like it was being used primarily as the setup for bigger fireworks to come next week.

Coming as it did on the heels of one of the year's most entertaining episodes – featuring Ashley prancing about the store last week as an oversized dollar-bill mascot, and a running naked guy terrorizing the parking lot – made this show look all the more uninspired. It centered around the eternal Hardcore Pawn conflict: Ashley vs. Seth in the battle of who can run the store more effectively. But while this theme has been played out time and time again in fresh and inventive ways (remember the massive "Make Her Quit" billboard Seth purchased to hover over American Jewelry and Loan in Episode Three?), this episode's sibling clash seemed recycled and flat by comparison.

It began when a young man brought in a trio of Native American artifacts to sell. One of the pieces, a war club, had a small face carved in the handle with brown strands sticking out of each side as hair. Seth playfully put the handle next to Ashley's face, prompting the customer to comment, "It looks closer to you...It has the same color hair."

They may have been teasing, but Ashley was not! She sent the customer, his relics and his smart remarks packing without even making an offer on the items.

"He was rude, Seth," she explains.

(Credit: Mark Hill/Turner)

"You can't close a deal if your ego gets in the way," Seth responds.

In Seth's view, Ashley goes on to potentially ruin two more deals. One was with a fellow who had cases of faucets, tiles and other home improvement goods, when she insisted he go back home and bring in all the materials he wanted to sell before she would make an offer. The other was a kindly gent named Peter who needed to sell an ornate, heirloom gold pocket watch and other gold pieces to help put his kids through college.

He asked for $3,000; Ashley countered with $2,000. He went down to $2,500; she eventually came up to $2,400. But surprisingly, Peter turned her down, stuffing his jewelry back in his pocket while asking the question many customers (and viewers) probably as: "Why didn't I get that price in the beginning, that offer?"

"Do you know where you are?" Ashley snapped back. "This is a pawn shop. We negotiate."

Well, negotiate this, Peter responded by his actions, turning on his heel and hitting the door. (Ashley wouldn't even shake his hand at the end of their dealings, a small slight I found disconcerting.)

Seth accuses Ashley of screwing up potentially profitable deals for American Jewelry and Loan with everything she touches and takes his complaints to Daddy Les, with Ashley joining in to defend herself. Les really is concerned about only two things: (1) closing every deal to make money for the store, and (2) not violating his No. 1, cardinal rule: No arguing in front of customers on the sales floor. To forge an uneasy truce, Les assigns Seth to the showroom and Ashley to the back office. Ashley, of course, believes the men have taken sides against her.

The only true highlight (or lowlight, depending upon your point of view) of this show came with the arrival of one of AJ&L's recurring customers, a wild-eyed loon who appears to be a few diamonds short of a brooch. This time he enters the store dragging a large black upright bass case (this is the "case" reference, see?) with something inside it that's clearly not a bass violin.

Now, in these dangerous days, anybody carrying a suspicious-looking package – especially one that big – into a public place is subject to immediate scrutiny. But Mr. Maniac doesn't want his case touched, much less searched, and hangs onto it like a junkyard dog with a new trespasser's leg...until his strap breaks.

Some people have said I give away too many details in these recaps and potentially ruin the surprises for those who haven't see the episode. So I'll just put it this way: When Les wrests the case away from Customer Kooky and zips it open, even a veteran gold merchant such as he was impressed by the look and dazzle of a gold lamé G-string.

Even the obligatory angry customer at the pawn window didn't seem to express his outrage as vehemently as his predecessors in past weeks. (True, he did bang his stocking-capped head against the thick glass partition, but not hard enough to actually break it.) Everybody except crazy bass-case carrying dude gave the impression of going through the motions. And when Ashley storms out of Les's office warning, "STAY OUT OF MY DEALS!" at show's end, you just know she's plotting some wicked scheme of retribution against Father and Brother.

Which we'll have to wait until next week to enjoy. Same time, same station.

As Jim Leyland says at least 20 times a season after a Detroit Tigers game, they can't all be gems. Our 13-year-old twin girls walked through the room just long enough to see Ashley's encounter with Peter the Insulted Gold Watch Seller. One of them turned to me and said, "She was so rude to that guy."

From the mouths....

*          *          *

Nothing this week worthy of upsetting the apple-pie order of our Top 5 most outlandish Hardcore Pawn ejections of the season. So after a complete upheaval of the rankings last week, the list remains untouched this time around.

Our rogues' gallery reads as follows: 

5. The aforementioned "running naked guy" above from Episode Ten who knocked over and broke a floor lamp on the AJ&L sales floor, then tried to blame security chief Byron for the damage. After Byron responded by showing him the door, he vented his outrage by stripping off his clothes and dashing au naturel around the parking lot yelling, "I make you horny bitches." A tough act to follow – in more ways than one.

4. The sentimental fool from Episode One who tried to pawn one of his late grandmother's rings in the same breath he mourned her recent death. His verbal and physical assault on Ashley sparked Les's rage, because NOBODY insults his daughter in his store. The confrontation brought Ashley to tears.

3. "DogMan," the tall computer genius with anger management issues in Episode Two who orders Les to retrieve the hard drive from his pawned PC and calls everybody "Dog." "Who let the dog out?" asked Les, who unleashed his first "MF" of the season. "Byron let the dog out!"

2. The belligerent, bare-butt bonehead from Episode Seven who pulled items off the shelves as Les looked on, then tried to sell Les's own merchandise back to him. When his scam was revealed, the ballsy burglar was dragged kicking to the exit – and his balls were about the only thing we didn't see as his jeans dropped to his ankles. "Time for your ass to be thrown out," Les ordered. "And what an ass that was."

And all hail the past and present champ, still ruling at No. 1:

The boy genius from Episode One who came in looking to buy a portable generator and asked, "It doesn't run on electricity, does it?" When he demanded to bring the generator to his home to test it out and is denied, he got the Byron Bounce and ended up humping one of the tall front-door pylons on his way to the parking lot.

Brings a whole new meaning to the phrase, "Poletown."

Anna Gunn on Life After 'Breaking Bad:' 'I'm Interested in Complicated, Complex Female Characters'

Anna Gunn as Skyler White in 'Breaking Bad.' (Frank Ockenfels/AMC)

Even people who've never watched Breaking Bad – both of 'em – know that the eight-episode arc beginning Aug. 11 on AMC will mark the end of one of TV's most extraordinary, genre-bending series.

Star Bryan Cranston, winner of three consecutive Outstanding Lead Actor Emmy Awards for his portrayal of meek chemistry teacher turned drug overlord Walter White, has transcended Hollywood's typecasting jinx even before the show's fifth and final season concludes. He appeared in six major motion pictures in 2012 alone, including the Oscar-winning Argo. (Then again, Cranston landed the role of Walter after playing goofball dad Hal on the sitcom Malcolm in the Middle, so maybe he's just really talented.)

But what of the rest of the cast? For example, will Anna Gunn, who has become the dictionary definition of "longsuffering" after six years playing White's wife Skyler, now be confined to stereotypical spouse parts once Breaking Bad shutters its set?

Hardly. In a live-chat interview a few days ago hosted by the Los Angeles Times, Gunn says she's already found work in a leading TV role a world away from Skyler White.

"I did a pilot with a pretty interesting character," Gunn relates. "She's a teacher, a blue-collar woman who teaches at a very entitled private prep school on the East Coast. She's a sort of unfiltered, kind of wild, very honest person, and she's very passionate about her teaching. But she's struggling to deal with the bureaucracy of the school and the entitled parents.

"She's also raising three kids, two of whom are already out of the house and one who's still in school and struggling with coming out. And she's saying, 'Be who you are and come out.' She's a very flawed, interesting, different kind of character, I think. It's got sort of a dark comedic edge to it, too. It reminds me of Nurse Jackie. And because [the show] deals with education and teaching, I think it's also very interesting. So we're waiting to hear about that."

Gunn's high television profile as Breaking Bad's heroine also has helped open professional doors previously closed to her and many other actors.

"I just got back yesterday from the Sundance Institute where I was workshopping a new film, playing sort of my own female version of Walter White," she says. "It's the psychological portrait of the making of a zealot, essentially. She's a woman who goes from being a normal housewife to being a radical. So it was a really interesting piece of work and we shot about five scenes from the movie at the Institute."

She says the Institute experience was her first time working with co-writers and co-directors. "It was one of the best things I've ever done," she beams, high praise considering her recent body of work. "It's amazing to be there. Sundance is like a little filmmaker's Utopia."

Clearly, then, if someone ever decides to make a new version of Breaking Bad with a woman in the lead, Gunn's up for the challenge.

"I'm really interested in complicated, complex female characters, and Skyler certainly was that," she says. "So I'd like to do some more of that. Doing the pilot was fine. And I'd like to get back and do some more theater in New York. That's on the agenda as well."

There continue to be rumbles about a possible Breaking Bad feature film in the near future, but to get to that point fans have to know how the series ends over the last eight episodes. And Gunn, like her show's co-stars, aren't giving up those details just yet.

"People sometimes think they can trick me into it if they get me talking," Gunn says, smiling. "Perhaps buy me enough drinks. At the Sundance Institute there was a night we were out, having a good time, and people thought if perhaps there were enough drinks flowing that I might spill some beans. But we are well trained. We are very well trained. We never spill the beans."

HARDCORE PAWN, Episode Ten: Big Bets, 'Major Savings' and Naked Guy

"In the heart of Detroit's 8 Mile lies the city's biggest and baddest pawn shop...."

I am Michiganian by birth, Detroiter by heart. I spent more than 30 years in the Automotive Capital of Earth, became a man and a professional there, so shows that are set in Detroit or attempt to capture a slice of life in the Motor City are especially dear to me.

Hardcore Pawn is an amazingly successful, largely unsung Detroit TV wonder. Shot inside the now-iconic American Jewelry and Loan on Eight Mile Road, Hardcore Pawn is truTV's most consistently successful series: its season seven premiere last March 26 drew the cable channel's largest audience ever in the coveted demo of adults 18-49. It's basic cable's No. 1 unscripted program in its 9 p.m. (EST) Tuesday time slot, spawned a spinoff series in Hardcore Pawn: Chicago and, if it weren't for the unbelievably whacked-out string of belligerent, ignorant, foulmouthed customers it spotlights, would be a continuing source of pride for Detroiters.

Moreover, I have grown to know series stars Les and Seth Gold and Ashley Gold Broad personally. I've written several stories on the family-owned business, including this feature for HOUR Detroit magazine. I've even patronized the place: the wristwatch I wear every day was purchased at American Jewelry and Loan. So for its lucky seventh season, I've selected Hardcore Pawn as a series to review here on a weekly basis. Here's a recap of Episode Ten, aired on June 18:

Before we go to this week's episode, first we have BREAKING NEWS: Les Gold tells TMZ that for the right price, he would purchase the poop-filled diapers of Kim Kardashian's baby if he could make a (very) fast turnaround for profit!


Or something like that. You know how TMZ loves to ambush people with stupid questions. Anyway, here's the video, from the TMZ website:

 

The reality that everybody except network TV programmers seems to understand jumped up and bit me in the backside: When you break up a show's string of new episodes with several weeks of reruns, viewers drift away. They forget. They fall out of their routine.

So it was that when truTV interrupted the flow of our favorite pawn-shop series a few weeks, I ended up missing the coverage of a first-run episode or two. Or three. Hey, I got busy. Sorry. So before we take a close look at this week's show, allow me to bring the Hardcore Pawn storyline up to date.

Les strikes a handshake deal with Gary, a watch broker with whom he'd done business before, to walk out the door of American Jewelry and Loan with a $50,000 Breitling wristwatch (negotiated down to $42,500) he was to show to an interested buyer. He left Les with an IOU scrawled on the back of a business card.

Ashley and Seth, to no one's surprise, assault their dad with howls of outrage, but Les uses the deal as a teaching moment: you have to have trust in your fellow businesspeople, he explains. Gary will be back the next day with the money, as he promised, and a high-end item will be off our sales floor.

(Side note: While this is going on, the backwoods witless wonder in Episode Seven who pulled merchandise off the showroom floor, tried to sell it back to Les, then called Les a "bucktoothed, bald-headed m----r f----r" when he wouldn't take the bait, catapulted himself into the pantheon of Top 5 Best Customer Ejections of the Year. See below.)

Of course, Gary becomes the Invisible Man. He's going out of town on business, he'll get back to Les soon, don't worry about the watch or the money. The Critical Kids are giving Dad major league grief. Security chief Byron announces that a big delivery has arrived for Les, who's unavailable, and asks Seth to sign for it.

Why, it's Gary's payment for the watch. Not in cash, but in kind – 40,000 watchbands!

Credit: Mark Hill/Turner

As Seth and Ashley prepare their sharpest insults and scramble to find a dunce cap for Dad, Les remains unbowed: Surveying boxes filled with watchbands stacked two stories high, he reasons that if he sells them all at $2 apiece, he'll walk away with a handsome profit for the Breitling. He becomes obsessed with doing just that and sticking his kids' wisecracks down their throats, going so far as to dress  dependable Bobby J in a sandwich board and have him waving watchbands on Greenfield Avenue.

Ultimately Les resorts to hawking the watchbands out of the box, Old School-style, to American Jewelry and Loan customers inside the store, for $1 each. He makes $40 for his fevered effort and Ashley and Seth are ready to swoop in for the verbal kill, but Les has something up his sleeve besides a watchband – a purchase order from a wholesaler who's agreed to buy 39,500 of them at $1.50 each, more than $20,000 profit! "Ashley and Seth need to learn: DON'T QUESTION THEIR FATHER!" Les pronounces.

By Episode 10 the watchbands have shipped out and things are back to normal at AJ&L – well, as normal as things get, anyway – in one of the most entertaining half-hours of the season.

Fans of the show may be talking about this week about Ashley losing a coin toss to Seth and prancing around the store as an oversized green dollar-bill mascot named "Major Savings." But they DEFINITELY will be jabbering about the scruffy lunatic who knocked over a floor lamp and broke it in plain view of Byron and Bobby J, then not only denied doing it but tried to place the blame on Byron.

After the man refused to pay for the lamp and was shown the front door via Byron's firm hand, he decides that if Byron wants a piece of him, he can have every piece. He tosses off all his clothes and proceeds to run around the parking lot completely naked, shouting "I make you horny bitches!" (whatever that means) and flashing everyone in sight, including Les, Seth and Bobby J who have gathered outside to watch.

"I know Byron is not going to apprehend this guy," Bobby observes. "You just let him go." And so they did, running out of the parking lot and into Hardcore Pawn Season 7 lore.

"I guess he didn't have any money for the lamp," Byron deadpans.

 

Pegasus (tvacres.com)

Ashley sees her chance for revenge on the "dancing dollar" humiliation when Don, a regular customer, walks in with a large metal "Pegasus" symbol, the red flying horse that was the trademark of Mobil Oil for decades in the early 20th century. Don wants $3,000 for the antique; Seth counters with $700. They negotiate. Seth comes up as high as $1,000, but Don eventually takes his flying horse and walks.

Ashley believes that Les always overpays for a vintage item with Detroit connections, and bets Seth $100 that Les would have paid more than $1,000 for Pegasus. "This is a prime opportunity to make Seth look like an idiot," she delights.

She calls Don back to the store. He shows Les the horse. The highest he'll go is $550. Drat! Seth wins again! Five $20 bills, please.

Seth lets Les in on the bet, and Les is perturbed that he wasn't let in on the action. Never takes long for another wagering opportunity to come along at AJ&L, however: A pilot is outside who wants to sell two first-class airline seats – not tickets, but the actual seats themselves. Ashley goes outside to take a look. No way will she make an offer on airplane chairs, Les declares. Seth proposes a new bet: This time, the loser will have to take over Larry the housekeeper's job and vacuum and clean the store.

The pilot seeks $800 for his seats. To Les's shock, Ashley counters with $150. And...she makes the deal!

Les was running his mouth; now he's running a vacuum cleaner, as a relaxing Larry looks on.

"You missed a spot," Larry notes.

*          *          *

Looks like it's "skin to win" when it comes to our ongoing ranking of Top 5 most outrageous Hardcore Pawn ejections of the season. As mentioned above, the belligerent bumpkin from Episode Seven who tried to sell Les stuff that he watched the fool pull off the pawn shop shelves has vaulted onto the list, not necessarily because he had the balls to attempt such a brazen stunt, but because his balls were about the only thing we didn't see when Byron "escorted" him to the exit.

"Time for your ass to be thrown out," Les orders. Literally, as the village idiot's jeans tumbled past his knees. "And what an ass that was," Les notes.

But if he makes the list for his pants falling off, how can we deny Naked Guy from this week's show who bared it all? Well, we can't, and our Top 5 has been thrown into upheaval as a result. The rankings now are as follows:

5. Lamp-breaking Naked Guy from Episode Ten.

4. The sentimental fool from Episode One who tried to pawn one of his late grandmother's rings in the same breath he mourns her recent death. His verbal and physical assault on Ashley sparked Les's rage, because NOBODY insults his daughter in his store. It also brought Ashley to tears.

3. "DogMan," the tall computer genius with anger management issues in Episode Two who orders Les to retrieve the hard drive from his pawned PC and calls everybody "Dog." "Who let the dog out?" asked Les, who unleashed his first "MF" of the season. "Byron let the dog out!"

2. Bare Butt Bonehead from Episode Seven, and,

Continuing its all-season reign at No. 1:

The boy genius from Episode One who came in looking to buy a portable generator and asked, "It doesn't run on electricity, does it?" When he demanded to bring the generator to his home to test it out and is denied, he got the Byron Bounce and ended up humping one of the tall front-door pylons on his way to the parking lot!

Mamas, don't let your sons wind up working the pole.