{"id":582953,"date":"2026-04-14T04:28:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T04:28:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/582953\/"},"modified":"2026-04-14T04:28:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T04:28:08","slug":"the-fall-and-rise-of-reggie-dinkins-season-1-finale-recap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/582953\/","title":{"rendered":"The Fall And Rise Of Reggie Dinkins season 1 finale recap"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over tonight\u2019s two episodes, The Fall And Rise Of Reggie Dinkins<\/a> concludes its first season by putting its focus back on its premise. The series began as a high-concept sitcom about a disgraced former NFL star\u2019s attempt at image rehabilitation, but quickly (owing to the brief episode order) split its attention among its more or less fantastic ensemble.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Reggie wants to get into the Hall Of Fame, despite his gambling habits (think Pete Rose but Reggie actually did only bet on himself to win) turning him into New Jersey\u2019s richest pariah. Documentarian Arthur Tobin similarly needs to redeem his once-promising career (following a hubris-based MCU flameout) by turning Reggie\u2019s self-serving vanity project into an actual film as powerful as his Oscar-winning A Rose For Joshua. And ambitious sports agent Monica Dinkins wants to launch her own career into the big time while dealing with the burden of keeping her infamous ex-husband\u2019s baggage from weighing her down.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ready to sub in, there\u2019s also Reggie and Monica\u2019s sensible teen son Carmelo, Reggie\u2019s influencer fianc\u00e9e Brina, and Reggie\u2019s former teammate and permanent house guest Rusty, who all provide vivid if fleeting color. The Fall And Rise Of Reggie Dinkins has done an admirable job of establishing and variously nurturing its characters through 10 brisk and eventful episodes, finding room to turn what on paper looked like a two-hander odd-couple clash between the delightfully disparate styles of Tracy Morgan and Daniel Radcliffe into a reliably charming and clever hangout comedy.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Still, there\u2019s been the creeping sensation of Reggie\u2019s titular journey getting lost. Which, honestly, hasn\u2019t been a terrible thing. While the \u201cWill Reggie get into the Hall Of Fame?\u201d arc came out strong, subplots about, say, Arthur\u2019s love life, Monica\u2019s career struggles, and the various C-plots serving Rusty, Brina, and Carmelo have been amusing and engagingly performed enough to supplant the series supposed central narrative nicely.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But this two-part season finale grabs hold of that wayward premise and drives the show back on its stated course, as Reggie and Monica mount a concerted effort to finally score him at least one \u201cyea\u201d in the upcoming Hall Of Fame voting process. (They have a big cork board complete with photos of prospective voters and everything.) The big stumbling block is, of course, Reggie\u2019s scandal, a major plot point that the series has never truly reckoned with. While there have been nods to the creeping hypocrisy of sports leagues having a zero-tolerance policy for a practice they now reap billions of dollars promoting, Reggie\u2019s transgression has been chalked up mainly to his erratic but innocent self-obsession.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Indeed, the season has sanded down the initially prickly Reggie into a cuddly sort who\u2019ll not only put a blanket over sleeping guests but also surreptitiously brush their teeth. (Cue Erika Alexander\u2019s Monica shooting another killer Jim Halpert look to Arthur\u2019s camera.) Betting on games you take part in is, for all the cynicism, a real danger to pastimes whose value rests in fans\u2019 faith. Reggie, for all the show\u2019s done to wave away his transgression, did violate that faith. Is the NFL hypocritical in shunning him? Maybe. (\u201cGambling is a sin, right? But only if you play sports?\u201d Heidi Gardner\u2019s self-righteous Tisha Basmati attempts to untangle at one point.) But The Fall And Rise Of Reggie Dinkins is so dedicated to making this another comfy ensemble watch that a lot of what was initially complex gets neutered.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Look to the actual obstacles Reggie and Monica must overcome in this finale. First up is Corbin Bernsen\u2019s Duck (real name Duckery) Donovan, Reggie\u2019s dissolute former head coach who\u2019s now a shell of a guy reliant on his support cat and refereeing singles flag football. From staring at his toupeed head shot on their big board, Monica and Reggie easily manipulate the newly appointed HOF voter by convincing him that a vote for Reggie will absolve Duck of the mess he\u2019s made of his post-NFL life. (Reggie was so good that only his exile could explain why the Jets imploded and Duck went viral for his drunken Golden Bachelor audition tape.)\u00a0<\/p>\n

But once the grasping Duck is taken out by the machinations of returning rival and hater Jerry Basmati (Craig Robinson, still glinting with charismatic menace), Reggie and Monica\u2019s effort to similarly manipulate the preening media darling hits a wall. Sure, Hall Of Famer Jerry needed a great on-field rival to cement his playing legacy, but, as Jerry notes, his resentment at always being linked to the more talented Reggie has turned him into the manufactured egomaniac happy to interview 911-dialing lizards for daytime TV.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s when Arthur Tobin arrives to save the day\u2014or at least abandon all pretense of documentary objectivity to majestically tell off the sneering Jerry for daring to call Reggie Dinkins a bad person. Radcliffe\u2019s tortured artist had spent all of \u201cMischief And Memories\u201d hilariously withdrawing (via camo clothes and a potted plant) from his place at the heart of the Dinkins mansion antics once he realized just how far he\u2019d strayed. (Footage of a raucous family game night reveals that both Oliva Colman and Gary Oldman<\/a> spit in his mouth at BAFTA after parties.) Watching the undeniably tiny Arthur make the imposing Jerry back down is a big moment that nearly lands. (Arthur, being Arthur, retorts that he can\u2019t be an \u201cElijah Wood-looking-ass bitch\u201d since he\u2019s actually three days older than him.)\u00a0<\/p>\n

Like Reggie\u2019s scandal, Arthur\u2019s lapsed professionalism has, as shown in miles of compromising footage, been largely overlooked until now. Monica\u2019s solution (and the show\u2019s) is, again, almost brilliant, as she pitches that Arthur\u2019s \u201cparticipatory\u201d and \u201creflective\u201d approach constitutes a whole new genre. (Arthur fake demurs at the creation of the \u201cTobinumentary\u201d as a source of cinematic study.)\u00a0<\/p>\n

I mean, filmmakers inserting themselves into their supposedly hands-off documentaries is hardly new. But the show treats it as if it were a big intuitive and comic leap, which feels unsatisfying. Same goes for the whole substance of episode 10, where the thwarted Jerry (now a Hall Of Fame voter himself) pitches a Hail Mary scheme to have Rusty elected to the esteemed body just to get Reggie\u2019s goat.\u00a0<\/p>\n

There\u2019s plenty of funny stuff for Bobby Moynihan to do in the most Rusty-centric episode yet, which isn\u2019t a bad thing. Rusty, whose 83-percent field-goal percentage Jerry neglects to mention stems from the backup kicker only ever attempting 12 field goals, wants no part in betraying his best friend, even going so far as to hijack an interview by starting an unsuccessful rap beef with none other than Kendrick Lamar. (Lamar, voiced by Reggie Dinkins writer Phil Augusta Jackson, is so impressed by Rusty\u2019s sweaty chutzpah that he starts wearing Rusty\u2019s Jets gear onstage.)<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not that Jerry plan is silly (Rusty\u2019s only recorded highlight was killing a bird with one of his three misses) so much as the show treats the whole caper as if it weren\u2019t. I remember my initial objections that 30 Rock wasn\u2019t making use of Tina Fey & co\u2019s intimate familiarity with late-night live comedy as much more than window dressing. In the end, the characters and their wacky interrelationships were the show\u2019s real heart. Here, it might be pedantic to quibble over Rusty\u2019s plan to scuttle his improbable HOF candidacy by deliberately misinterpreting the football rule book (he hurls his old helmet into Jerry\u2019s breadbasket, earning a real-life disqualification) as lazy. And it is the sort of lazy twist that\u2019d skate by on a lesser show.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Reggie ends up nabbing four votes, and Monica gets a foot in the door with promising college running back Slacks Madison. By quoting Monica\u2019s initial pitch that his film could be a win-win-win (Arthur tosses in three more wins to encompass the assembled Rusty, Brina, and Carmelo), the filmmaker, now possessed of a portrait of incremental growth rather than the phony Rudy crowd-pleaser he was hoping for, sets our expectations where they\u2019ve been intended to be all along. \u201cI actually think this is just the beginning,\u201d Arthur tells his unlikely new family, each basking in their own mini triumphs. \u201cWe are not those same people,\u201d he says. And if The Fall And Rise Of Reggie Dinkins made its characters\u2019 transformations gentler and less ambitiously complex than it first appeared they would be, it\u2019s still a very welcome place to end.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Stray observations\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2022 As for that ending, the ratings for this short season have been good enough that it looks like everyone will be back\u2014hopefully with more episodes.\u00a0
\n\u2022 A few last 30 Rock in-jokes. Sports Shouting exists in both universes. Also, like Jack Donaghy, Reggie thinks bird owners are super weird.\u00a0
\n\u2022 The show can still bring on the absurdity. Carmelo\u2019s #SupportRD social media campaign is co-opted by a drug treating \u201crectal dementia.\u201d One of Sports Shouting\u2019s oldest shouters dies on air, his body remaining draped under a sheet. Reggie\u2019s favorite sub shop owner has an existential crisis about just what he\u2019s been slicing up all these years.\u00a0
\n\u2022 \u201cHe died doing what he loved: shouting on TV about how he was being silenced.\u201d
\n\u2022 \u201cYou can\u2019t refer to yourself in the third and the first person, man.\u201d
\n\u2022 \u201cI talked to my fellow kickers, and they don\u2019t think any hand-touchers should be in the Football Hall Of Fame.\u201d
\n\u2022 The show\u2019s usually clever unpacking of the documentary sitcom formula is undermined in one shot, when we see Duck\u2019s abduction (by minions from Jerry\u2019s scam \u201cmen\u2019s retreat\u201d) via ATM surveillance footage without any sense that Arthur got hold of it.\u00a0
\n\u2022 Bobby Moynihan in the washing machine spin cycle is some prime \u201cvanity is the enemy of comedy\u201d stuff.\u00a0
\n\u2022 Arthur pitches a replacement: \u201cNow that PBS is gone, Ken Burns is just doing quincea\u00f1era videos.\u201d
\n\u2022 Brina and Carmelo don\u2019t get much to do, sadly, with Carmelo\u2019s Romeo And Juliet revelation that he\u2019s dating Jerry Basmati\u2019s daughter closing out the season on a limp cliff-hanger.\u00a0
\n\u2022 And that\u2019s it for my coverage of The Fall And Rise Of Reggie Dinkins season one. It\u2019s been, as ever, an honor.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Dennis Perkins is a contributor to The A.V. Club.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Over tonight\u2019s two episodes, The Fall And Rise Of Reggie Dinkins concludes its first season by putting its…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":582954,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[88,92],"class_list":{"0":"post-582953","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582953","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=582953"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582953\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/582954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=582953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=582953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=582953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}