I was
so happy to discover that The Crazy Ones
is on Netflix now; I hadn’t seen any episodes of this wonderfully screwy
workplace sitcom since they originally aired, and it’s been great to rewatch. It’s the type of show where you can really put
the characters in any formation and get gold, but there’s something special about
Simon and Sydney, the best father/daughter advertising team out there.
At
first glance, you might look at these two and see an odd couple dynamic. It’s a reasonable enough deduction. He’s a flamboyant creativity bomb, an
endlessly-riffing, irrepressible free spirit.
She’s an orderly, tightly-wound by-the-book type who’s frequently tasked
with reigning in her own dad. It’s easy
to see her as a killjoy Cerberus guarding the gates of unbridled imagination,
or him as the ADHD toddler wreaking havoc on her meeting agendas.
And
sure, they clash and squabble, and he literally sets fire to her bummer of a “creativity
binder,” but that’s really not what Simon and Sydney are about. They’re both so different, but they both love
that about each other. Sydney is forever
amazed by Simon’s flashes of inspiration and remarkable knack for spinning
incredible ideas out of nothing at the last possible minute. She believes in his talent even when he
doubts it, and more than anything, her dream is to do what he does. More than once in the series, Sydney steps
out of her carefully-measured comfort zone and tries to “pull a Simon.” Sometimes, these gambles are impressive
victories, while others explode on the launch pad, but her father’s example is
the best impetus for her to take risks.
Meanwhile,
Simon’s proud-papa moments are numerous.
He’s forever encouraging Sydney, nurturing her imagination, and pushing
her because he knows she can do it. He’s
usually the first one to complain when she plays bad cop, but in truth, he
appreciates her levelheadedness. In the
pilot, he shares his philosophy of advertising – “Leap and the net will appear”
– and he ultimately confides to Sydney that she’s
his net. If he has a dream, it’s to be
who she sees when she looks at him, and he’s always striving to live up to her
faith in him.
For a
father/daughter relationship, it’s pretty atypical. Simon’s runaway attention span and tendency
to go all in at the drop of a hat aren’t the only reasons Sydney often feels
like the more responsible one. Although
he’s living straight now, Simon is a recovering addict who spent much of Sydney’s
childhood drunk or high (Sydney has one of the most harrowing “learning to
drive” stories around.) She grew up
quickly and learned to be “the adult” in the relationship, and their present dynamic
still reflects those early lessons. As
such, she frequently looks out for Simon, protecting and bolstering him. She may have a kneejerk opposition to some of
his flights of fancy, but when she asks why they’re important to him, she genuinely
wants to know and usually winds up supporting them. But as I said, the Simon we meet has it far
more together than the one Sydney grew up with, so she’s never the only
protective one. Simon forever wants the
best for her professionally, personally, and emotionally. He coaches her on the business, his eagerness
for her to have a happy love life sometimes result in well-meaning but
problematic meddling, and when her tornado of a mother blows into town, he
tries his hardest to shield her from the debris. In every way, they’re one another’s biggest
champion; it’s hard to ask for more than that.
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