Critic Reviews
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Funny and wicked with very mature humor, Palm Royale is a throwback to yesteryear classics but with more intricately pointed nuance. Whereas a lot of comedy today is about making the audience cringe and feel uncomfortable, Palm Royale plays like the best old-school, slapstick charm, with humor and depth that makes you feel good at the end.
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Paired with Burnett (flexing her physical comic chops) and Dern (who draws out a few tears), Janney and Wiig make sure a highly anticipated combination of stars doesn’t disappoint. Together, they help ensure the “Palm Royale” is where you’ll want to be.
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A deft mix of social commentary and campy social climbing, Palm Royale is one of the year’s smarter comedies and a great vehicle for Kristen Wiig.
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“Palm Royale” is above all Wiig’s show, and she is terrific and genuine, alive in her role from moment to moment. It’s a complex performance, funny and painful and endearing, shot through with hope and fear, sass and sadness. .... But even characters who in a lesser piece would be frozen into caricatures are granted some depth and fluidity, which helps sustain the series over 10 episodes.
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While its side narratives about the burgeoning women’s rights movement fall flatter, Palm Royale has enough Aqua Net and quaaludes to buoy the series. A bewitching performance by Wiig ties the whole affair together in one big discount store bow.
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The self-aware soap is an increasingly popular format, and Palm Royale adheres to familiar conventions. But showrunner Abe Sylvia (Dead to Me), loosely adapting Juliet McDaniel’s novel Mr. and Mrs. American Pie, makes it feel fresh by nailing both the comedy and the melodrama, in a punchy first season that gets weirder with each episode.
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By the time the series ends, Maxine is someone viewers want to root for. Watching her follow her materialistic-centered dreams is a joyfully delicious experience.
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While a few of the middle episodes might test your patience as the storyline meanders this way and that, this is one great-looking and stylish period piece, popping with sunny colors and often hilariously accurate and quite ridiculous fashions and hairstyles of the time.
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It’s still annoying to watch an entire season of TV and feel absolutely zero closure for every minute twist and head-spinning plot that just unraveled over 10 hour-long episodes. But even in its flaws, Palm Royale is still a hell of a good time, and a sudsy, campy series to carry us through the spring TV season.
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Even if it never quite gels (and the finale leaves open the possibility of future seasons that strike a better balance), that doesn't make Palm Royale unsatisfying. It's a pleasant visit, even if few watching would be allowed to live there.
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The first half stumbles as much as Maxine does, but as she gets closer to inserting herself into high society, the lengths to which she’s willing to go to achieve her dream give Palm Royale a much-needed shot in the arm. That makes this another Apple TV+ series to stick with as it heads toward a satisfying finale.