Stream It Or Skip It: ‘One Dollar’ On CBS All Access, Where A Dollar Bill Connects People To A Small-Town Murder

A dollar bill passes through thousands of hands during its useful life. The mystery of that bill is that you don’t know where it’s been. The new CBS All Access thriller One Dollar connects a bunch of disparate people in a small Pennsylvania town via that dollar bill. Is it worth it to see where that dollar goes? 

ONE DOLLAR: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A shot of a steel mill, and a man in work clothes walking away from it in the foreground.

The Gist: The man walking is Garrett Drimmer (Phillip Ettinger), who works in a steel mill in Braden, PA. He’s barely scraping by, behind on payments to the woman who babysits his toddler daughter while he’s at work. When his boss, Bud Carl (John Carroll Lynch) says he has to cut hours, he tries to get Bud to fire his friend so he can get overtime.

Meanwhile, on the other side of town, at a country club, recent high school graduate Dannie Furlbee (Kirrilee Berger) is being romanced by a guy working for her real estate developer father Wilson (Greg Germann). Wilson’s wife has enlisted a local P.I., Jake Noveer (Nathaniel Martello-White), to look into Wilson’s philandering. But Wilson has also hired Noveer to investigate Carl, whose workers all call “Pop”, because Wilson is looking to develop the land the mill is on.

Garrett is called in the middle of the night to help someone out for easy cash. We then see him walking through the woods, with blood on his face, a dog at his side. He hears screams, and comes out of the woods to attack Dannie’s date, thinking she was in trouble, then disappears.

The next day, a large pool of blood is found near the mill. Chief Peter Trask (Christopher Denham) eventually finds out it’s the blood of seven different people.

Our Take: Notice that in the Gist section above, we mention nothing about the One Dollar in the show’s title. Supposedly, this dollar bill, marked with a number on it so we can track it, is supposed to connect the people of Braden together as it’s passed back and forth. A clueless woman gets it from a bakery register, then puts it in Garrett’s coffee cup, thinking he’s homeless. Then he uses it at a bar. Then the bartender gives it to a petty thief (seen stealing phone chargers out of cars at a swanky party) named Ken Fry (Sturgill Simpson), whose perspective will be shown in the next episode.

Here’s the problem: The dollar bill is less a unique plot device and more of a distraction. This Fargo-esque small-town murder story doesn’t need a gimmick in order to connect everyone together. What One Dollar really needs is more interesting characters and more action to propel things along. The first episode dragged so badly that we were surprised to hit pause and see we had over half the 49-minute running time left. Add in the ads many CBSAA subscribers have to sit through, and you’ve got a recipe for people to find out what else is on.

Also, there’s a snarky streak that runs through the first episode that seems misplaced. Out-of-place wiseass remarks that are supposed to lighten the dirge-like pace mostly fall flat. Even the presence of comedic veterans like Lynch and Germann isn’t enough to make up for how boring the show is (also, Lynch tries to put on a working-class-Pennsylvania accent and does a horrible job of it, something we’re surprised to see from such an accomplished actor).

Sex and Skin: Dannie and her date make out in the pool and on the lawn of the country club, but everyone keeps their underwear on.

Parting Shot: The petty thief gets the dollar as change from a beer, and when the bartender finds out he wants a five and a one, she mutters “stingy motherfucker.” Then she’s surprised as he leaves her a five-dollar tip and he walks out. He still has the dollar.

Sleeper Star: Martello-White’s character of Noveer is so involved in the town’s doings that he even has a beef with Chief Trask; he used to be a detective on the Braden police force but left under not-very-pleasant circumstances. He also is an insomniac.

Most Pilot-y Line: The constant discussions about what people will go as at the party held by town benefactor Randall Abatsy (Leslie Odom, Jr.), who wanted guests to come as their favorite movie characters, are grating to no end.

Our Call: SKIP IT. This is supposed to be an anthology series, with a new story every season. We doubt it’ll get a chance to tell that second story.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, VanityFair.com, Playboy.com, Fast Company’s Co.Create and elsewhere.

Watch One Dollar on CBS All Access