By Cindy Summers –
“Running Point” is a sports comedy series that stars Kate Hudson as Isla Gordon, who worked charitable endeavors for her family’s professional basketball team, the Los Angeles Waves, until her brother Cam’s trip to rehab unexpectedly put her in charge as team president. Though her other brother Ness (Scott MacArthur) was the general manager and brother Sandy (Drew Tarver) was the CFO, Cam made the decision to have Isla run the business, which initially did not sit well with her other brothers. It also caused a lot of public scrutiny due to basketball being such a male-dominated sports industry.
Isla loved the game but her suggestions often fell on the deaf ears of her male-dominated family. Now that she was president, she was determined to improve the team’s operations and lead them to success, but received lots of pushback from the public, the press, and the players. One player in particular, Travis Bugg (Chet Hanks), was constantly creating drama with the goal of getting traded, but Isla cleverly explained that she had no intentions of trading him and that if his attitude didn’t improve, he would ride out the last two years of his contract on the bench.
Ali Lee (Brenda Song) was Isla’s best friend and chief of staff, who was determined, devoted, very skilled at her job and, due to being from the South Side of Chicago, was tough and tended to swear a lot. After helping thwart Ness and Sandy’s coup attempt, Ali discovered that the family had a younger brother Jackie (Fabrizio Guido), who was the illegitimate son of their father Jack and the housekeeper. They had an affair while the rest of the family was on vacation, and Jackie’s mother kept it a secret until her death. The family offered Jackie $2 million to keep quiet, but Jackie was on his own after losing his mother and just wanted to have a sense of belonging to the family.
After refusing the money, Isla offered Jackie a job as an assistant to help promote his interests and get to know and be a part of the Gordon family. Ness took Jackie under his wing and looked to mentor his younger brother, while Sandy originally felt threatened and sought to undermine him. Over the course of the rest of the season, Isla confronts numerous other internal family conflicts, as well as trying to maintain a healthy relationship with her fiancé and pediatrician Lev Levenson (Max Greenfield), to whom she had been engaged for three years due to issues like COVID and now her new role in the family business.
Initially under Isla’s new leadership, the team lost ten straight games and the fans and players were beginning to lose faith in the team’s new direction. Though it was a bumpy road filled with obstacles related to team dynamics and personal dilemmas, Isla eventually ended up leading the Waves to the playoffs. Unfortunately for the team, they had to play without one of their star players, Travis, who was discovered to have a drug-related problem of his own and was personally taken to rehab by Isla.
The series is filled with family issues on and off the court, but toward the end we find the Gordons working together and supporting each other for the success of the team.
“Running Point” was created and produced by Mindy Kaling and highlights the challenges of managing a professional basketball team, though does so with comedy and compassion. The series is loosely based on the true story of Los Angeles Lakers owner and president Jeanie Buss, who boosted the show’s authenticity by serving as an executive producer on the series. Kate Hudson is perfectly cast for the role with an equal balance of strength, sensitivity, and sarcasm, and the series is well balanced by a talented supporting cast.
Runtime: 10 – 30m Episodes
