‘Pam And Tommy’ Episode 4 Recap: “The Master Beta”

Over the first three episodes of Pam & Tommy, we got to see how Pam and Tommy’s infamous sex tape was made in the first place, and how it arrived in the commercial marketplace. Now it’s time to meet the end user. In an opening (what else) montage, we see a guy in an internet café verrrrrrrrry slowly load the landing page for “PAMELA’S HARDCORE SEX VIDEO” and decide it’s worth the $59.95. He writes a physical check and mails it to Toronto, where we see another guy handing off materials to a third guy, who neatly writes down all the purchasers’ mailing addresses by hand and faxes them back to Rand for fulfillment. Rand goes to the post office; the middleman in Toronto brings his checks (or, as they’re known there, cheques) to a local bank (so I guess it wasn’t safe deposit boxes Uncle Miltie was opening in Episode 3? Forgive my ignorance about how illicit money moves); the bank in Amsterdam gets notice of (I believe) a wire transfer. Finally, our internet café patron receives his tape and settles in on the couch, hand cream and Kleenex close by, to give himself a treat. This is how masturbation worked when most people only knew of the internet as “that thing in the computer.” Kids: ask your grandparents.

From the stranger gratifying himself with Pam and Tommy’s sexual activity, we cut straight to them learning more about the results of their many assignations: they’re in a doctor’s office, excitedly observing their first ultrasound.

Tommy devotes himself to the care of the “peanut,” making Pam a whole-grain pancake in the shape of Mickey Mouse. When he accidentally knocks the ultrasound print-out off the fridge, he decides to put it in the safe. But whoops, the safe’s not there. As Tommy lists all its contents to the cops, a horrified Pam suddenly remembers the tape. Once the cops have left, Tommy assures Pam that they’ll get it back themselves…

…which is how they end up in the office of private investigator Anthony Pellicano (Don Harvey); for more on Pellicano, jump down to VHS Rewinder. Pellicano tells the couple that the motive for such a theft is either money or revenge; who may hold a grudge against either of them? Pam, the sweet Canadian angel, can’t think of anyone, while Tommy rhymes off a dozen figures in the music industry (Bret Michaels, David Geffen) and ends on John Stamos. (Pam: “John STAMOS?!” Tommy: “Fucking asshole.”) When Pellicano learns (a) that Rand installed the security cameras at the house, and therefore would know how to destroy footage, and (b) how Rand’s employment ended, he guesses Rand is the likeliest suspect; Pam is quietly horrified by Tommy’s recklessness.

And here is where our two plot threads start to twist back together. Rand is at home, getting high and leafing through a yacht magazine, when Pellicano arrives, to rough Rand up and look for his clients’ property. Rand manages not to blurt out everything he knows, but after Pellicano has left on a threat to return, whereupon Rand had better hand over the tape, Rand calls Uncle Miltie…who doesn’t pick up, since he’s sitting in his new massage chair while two ladies address his erogenous zones. Rand has apparently only gotten paid $400 so far, which he turned straight over to Erica to repay a four-year-old urgent care debt; Uncle Miltie doesn’t seem to be counting his pennies.

When Rand gets back to work the next day, picking up box inserts at the printer, the clerk comments that he has that tape, without the fancy packaging. The quality assurance manager in Rand is dismayed that it came in the mail without a cover, but that’s not where the clerk got it. Cut to the parking lot at Tower Records, where an enterprising young man is selling bootleg copies of the sex tape at a deep discount. Rand furiously tries to enforce the copyright he definitely does not have on the intellectual property he stole; he is not successful. (Bootlegger: “Fuck your mom, sir! Have a good day!”)

Pellicano has just reported in on the case to Pam and Tommy in her trailer, confident that a boob like Rand will give up the tape by the weekend, when Pam cheerfully bounces to set. That abruptly ends when she hears her and Tommy’s voices and finds a bunch of crew guys — who at this point have been her trusted colleagues for several years — gathered around a TV in a truck, watching the tape. She storms to the studio to show Tommy that Rand is selling it; Tommy is confused by the URL printed on the box art, but Pam knows that represents a site on the World Wide Web: “They’re making one for Barb Wire.” Patiently, Pam explains to Tommy that while they have a computer at home, it’s not connected to the internet…

…so they head to the public library and pull up the website. (If Pam feels particularly betrayed that Rand is running money through her home and native land, she doesn’t say so.) They relay what they’ve learned to Pellicano, who has already sussed out Rand’s association with Uncle Miltie. Supporting Pellicano’s case that Rand is not a criminal genius: he’s in the phone book.

Cue a series of scenes in which Rand barely stays ahead of both Pellicano and the bikers Tommy has sent after Rand, while Uncle Miltie acts…well, it feels redundant to say the guy who immediately decided how to profit from a stolen sex tape is being sketchy, but he is: when Rand frantically tells him who’s on their tail, Uncle Miltie takes off to Amsterdam, officially to tweak their banking setup but obviously to evade, you know, threat of death.

Meanwhile, with every day that passes, Pam gets increasingly anxious, trying to impress upon both Tommy and Pellicano how this feels for her. Tommy flippantly reminds her that he’s also on the tape, so it’s a big deal for him too; when she says it’s worse for her, he snits, “Because of your big career? So much bigger than mine?” NO, she says: it’s because she’s a woman. When this makes news, Tommy’s going to be a hero, whereas Pam will be a slut. Tommy, evidently not an assiduous reader of bell hooks, dismisses such talk, adding, “It’s not like they’re seeing anything they haven’t seen before.” True, Pam had modeled nude before this, but the difference is that SHE CONSENTED TO THOSE IMAGES’ PUBLICATION. Tommy tries to take it back, but Pam (rightly) kicks him out.

The following morning, Pam feels a pang. At the hospital, they learn Pam has experienced a pregnancy loss. I know from being an adult when it happened that Tommy is not always going to be so gentle with Pam, but the moments immediately afterward are the most emotionally wrenching and psychologically realistic we’ve seen from them: he quietly tells her he’ll call her mom when they get home; he snarls at the paparazzi swarming their car; when she sobs at a red light, he kisses her hand. The connection is severed when a single photographer stops next to them and starts shooting. Tommy gets out, screaming, but the camera stays on Pam as she takes the Club from the back seat and smashes the pap’s windshield. As the guy peels out, Tommy gathers up a sobbing Pam and carries her back to the car.

Rand, you piece of shit.

VHS Rewinder

• Seems like that brief meeting between internet know-it-all Rand and the guy (Fred Hechinger) down from Seattle to turn adult film stars into cam girls may turn into something later? Also at the porn shoot, Rand fact-checks me again: thought we saw him sign his divorce papers in “Jane Fonda,” I guess he’s waiting for his next dividend check to actually file them.
• Oh, you’re here for Anthony Pellicano facts? Okay! He was once a very powerful and connected Hollywood fixer, with clients including Elizabeth Taylor and Tom Cruise. He was convicted in 2008 of wiretapping and running a criminal enterprise, and released in 2019. In a 2018 interview with THR, while he was still incarcerated, Pellicano said, “I’m an old man now, and all of my associates are either in prison or dead….The old days are gone forever.” Or ARE THEY?! Pellicano is legally barred from working as a private investigator, but as of last January, he had set up shop in “crisis communications” and “trouble resolution,” and was working for producer Joel Silver in a dispute with a former associate, Daryl Katz. Sure, seems fine.
• After Pam mentioned it, I really hoped Barb Wire might be among those early-internet movie websites that are, for whatever reason, still live. RIP to the official Barb Wire site — but hey, if you’d like to own BarbWire.com, it could be yours!
• Not that we expect documentary-calibre accuracy in a project like this, but the actual timeline surrounding the burglary and Pam’s first pregnancy loss did not unfold as it does on the show: the loss happened in October 1995; Rand robbed the house in November.
• After spending the first three episodes inside Craig Gillespie’s vision, I’m thrilled to welcome this episode’s director, Lake Bell. Obviously the writing (by Matthew Bass and Theodore Pressman) also helps to crystallize Pam’s shame, anger, and fear, but Bell has a great eye; I was particularly moved by the choice to keep the camera outside Pam’s hospital room as she and Tommy comfort each other through the terrible news about the pregnancy. It’s the first episode where neither of the titular leads felt, to me, like cartoons. If you haven’t yet, rent Bell’s début as a feature film writer-director, In A World…. And while you’re at it, catch up on Bless This Mess, the sadly short-lived sitcom she created, starred in, and occasionally directed.

Television Without Pity, Fametracker, and Previously.TV co-founder Tara Ariano has had bylines in The New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, Vulture, Slate, Salon, Mel Magazine, Collider, and The Awl, among others. She co-hosts the podcasts Extra Hot Great, Again With This (a compulsively detailed episode-by-episode breakdown of Beverly Hills, 90210 and Melrose Place), Listen To Sassy, and The Sweet Smell Of Succession. She’s also the co-author, with Sarah D. Bunting, of A Very Special 90210 Book: 93 Absolutely Essential Episodes From TV’s Most Notorious Zip Code (Abrams 2020). She lives in Austin.