How Hamilton Is All Over TV, in Good Ways and Bad
The ongoing cultural phenomenon of the Lin-Manuel Miranda musical about Alexander Hamilton continues to exert influence on pop culture, sometimes in peculiar ways.
Take, for example, tonight’s episode of FX’s Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll. It’s the culmination of a storyline about a Hamilton-inspired hiphop musical about the Irish potato famine, titled Feast. Two of Denis Leary’s bandmates have crafted the show, if you want to call their cheesy songs about potatoes “craft.” A show as innately rockist as Sex & Drugs has very little feel for hiphop, and consequently, the chief amusement from its premise derives from the excellently unhinged performance by Campbell Scott, playing a variation on himself as a Method-inspired actor who stays in Irish character throughout many of his appearances.
Much more edifying is this week’s episode of Hulu’s Difficult People, which premiered on Tuesday. The half-hour is delightfully intricate in its Hamilton satire and features a fine cameo by Miranda. For reasons I won’t spoil here, Julie Klausner and Billy Eichner’s Julie and Billy can’t proceed with their off-off-Broadway Taylor Swift homage Swifticle and decide to turn it into Carter — a Hamilton hip-hop rip-off, but about former President Jimmy Carter. The scenes from Carter are far more precise and stinging in their Hamilton parody than the Sex & Drugs parody is. Oh, and Billy uses a rave quote from Miranda in ads that really annoys the Hamilton creator.
Miranda is the go-to guy for almost anything these days. You can even hear him good-naturedly contributing to an upcoming Comedy Central Drunk History take on Hamilton in this promo.
If you want to see the original Hamilton, from which Miranda recently exited, you’ll have to wait until October, when PBS will present Hamilton’s America, a documentary about the making (and the triumph) of the show. Miranda is the star, but the show is not a film of the Broadway production; it contains a few snippets and scenes here and there. Until then, Miranda acting irritated with Billy Eichner is probably the best post-Hamilton performance of his that you will see.
Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll airs Thursday nights at 10 p.m. on FX. Difficult People is streaming now on Hulu.
