Spoilers ahead for the series premiere of Kim Cattrall's Filthy Rich on Fox.
Filthy Rich launched as one of the earliest big broadcast TV premieres of the thinner-than-usual fall season, with Kim Cattrall playing what could be her wildest character since Samantha Jones on Sex and the City. That said, after watching the series premiere of the primetime soap, I find myself pondering the relationship between two of the siblings of the series after some of their scenes together, rather than Cattrall's Margaret Monreaux. Yes, we're one episode in, and I'm asking if a couple of them are already too close for comfort.
Margaret Monreaux (Kim Cattrall) finds her privileged life turned upside down when a plane crash that seemingly killed her husband Eugene (Gerald McRaney) brought his three secret illegitimate children out of the woodwork because he left them each 5% of his company in his will. Since the Monreaux family created a wildly successful Christian TV network, that 5% would have amounted to about $30 million each... if Margaret and her two kids were going to let it happen.
In the process of the three surprise kids meeting Margaret and her kids, there was one pair of siblings that crackled with a little bit too much chemistry to go unnoticed. Rose Monreaux (Aubrey Dollar) and Jason Conley (Mark L. Young) seemed to be looking at each other in ways that weren't entirely sibling-esque.
Admittedly, I originally thought I was just being paranoid due to my years of watching Game of Thrones and maybe I was reading too much into two actors who just happen to have chemistry, but then Jason went ahead and planted a kiss on Rose. To her credit, she looked more weirded out and uncomfortable than anything else, and Jason himself couldn't believe he did it, but... it happened.
At least they're seemingly only half-siblings who just met, I guess? Neither Rose nor Jason reacted to the kiss in a way that makes me think they'll be sneaking to each other's rooms in the family house by the second episode, but the episode also didn't end on any closure to the moment.
Since Filthy Rich is a family soap opera, I'm not going to just assume that a love connection won't happen, even if it is definitely not the norm for relatives in primetime. It does seem that Jason might not be Eugene's blood son after all, but since Rose thinks he's definitely her half-brother, I'm still counting the connection as too close for comfort!
And yes, this might be at least a little bit because of Game of Thrones. I spent years watching a show that started with twincest, followed a character who was literally the product of centuries of incest, and ended with a nephew killing his aunt/lover, with a few other instances of incest over the years for good measure.
Filthy Rich is no Game of Thrones, and we can be sure that Rose and Jason won't go as far as explicitly on Fox as Jaime and Cersei could on HBO if Filthy Rich goes in that direction, but... well, we can only wait and see. I wish I could rule it out, but there's no such thing as a plot too outlandish for a soap opera.
Rose and Jason's connection wasn't exactly the A plot of the premiere, even if it did stick out as the weirdest part of the whole episode in my book. Filthy Rich got off to a gloriously soapy start, complete with a reveal that Eugene didn't die in the plane crash into the Louisiana swamp after all, scandal, and so much drama between family members that I might need a Venn diagram to keep track of everything by the end of the season.
Melia Kreiling's Ginger Sweet is the star of the illegitimate kids, while Benjamin Levy Aguilar's Antonio Rivera tugged at the heartstrings with his adorable young son. Jason... had his eye on his presumed half-sister. See what happens next and whether the love in the Monreaux family strays from the family tree with new episodes of Filthy Rich, airing Mondays at 9 p.m. ET on Fox. For more of what's coming before the end of the year, check out our 2020 fall TV premiere schedule!
