‘Pam And Tommy’ Episode 7 Recap: “Destroyer Of Worlds”

Cast your mind back to the Pam of Pam & Tommy Episode 3 (“Jane Fonda“) excited to meet her publicist and start planning the hype campaign for Barb Wire. That Pam had nothing but high hopes for her career, her marriage, her life. But now the publicity tour is actually happening, and the Pam who’s on it is a different person. She fiercely denies a press conference suggestion that she and Tommy leaked the tape for publicity. She has to sit next to Jay Leno — whose tacky monologue joke about the tape first alerted her and Tommy to how far it had actually gone — and pretend to be his cheery showbiz friend to sell the movie. When Leno moves on from the softball questions to ask what it’s like to have the tape out, she can’t control her anger: it’s “horrible” and “devastating” to be exposed to the world this way.

This probably won’t change the tenor of Leno’s monologue jokes going forward, but at least he seems chastened in the moment. It’s lucky for Leno that Pam has a movie to promote under challenging circumstances or she might not physically stand in the way when Tommy tries to go kick Leno’s ass.

Not even the people who’ve ruined Pam’s life with the tape are reaping many benefits from it. Well: Uncle Miltie is; he’s apparently spending all the revenue on drugs, and dodging Rand’s calls. Rand’s situation was already bad when he was only doing all the work to get copies of the tape to buyers and seeing only a tiny trickle of cash for his efforts, but now Butchie’s henchmen have told Butchie what a big hit it is and Butchie wants his piece of the action. Knowing that Miltie has fled the country, they find Rand land bring him back to Butchie’s to rough him up: Rand owes Butchie $50,000, and he needs to start paying it back.

Rand turns to the richest person he knows — Tommy Lee — and types out a demand for exactly $26,938. When they meet, on opposite sides of a Dodgers Stadium fence, Rand explains that he’s only asking for what Tommy owes him for his labor and tools. Tommy had come to kick Rand’s ass, but since the fence won’t permit it, Tommy will just destroy him psychologically instead: Rand is a loser, and the $27,000 Tommy has brought won’t change that, so instead of handing it over, he’s going to make it an “offering to the gods,” setting it on fire and tossing it at Rand’s feet.

So since Butchie’s not going to be satisfied by these ashes, Rand will have to work off his debt, going after a gambler who owes money to a third guy who owes money to Butchie. Somehow the gift of a small bat that will fit up his sleeve doesn’t make Rand feel better about this mission!

Meanwhile, Tommy’s lawyer Sandy gathers his clients to give them more bad news: the judge has thrown out their suit against Penthouse. The tape is newsworthy, and Penthouse is within its First Amendment rights to publish material derived from it. Pam is grimly unsurprised by this outcome: she works in a swimsuit, she’s posed for Playboy, so as a “slut” in the eyes of the world, she has no right to decide what happens to pictures of her body. She reminds both men that this is exactly why she didn’t want to sue; Sandy tries to say he understands her position, but she shoots back, “You will never understand my position.”

That night, Rand returns defeated from his first attempt to get back the gambler’s money — would you believe in broad daylight at a bus stop is not the most effective approach? — to hear about the failure of Tommy’s lawsuit. This leads into a discussion about Erica and her girlfriend Danielle’s impression of the tape, which they watched at a party; as an adult film performer, Erica was fascinated by Pam’s directorial choices and the emotion she captured from her co-star: “He’s like some kind of sensitive caveman.” However, this nice moment is forgotten the next night, when Rand finally confesses to Erica about his burglary. Erica, who had already demanded that Rand leave within the week due to the bills he’s run up calling Amsterdam, orders him out immediately; when Rand says he never thought she would get so upset about a porn video, she VERY LOUDLY explains that Pam and Tommy’s private sex tape is not porn, since porn actors give consent and sign releases. (Rand: “You’re one of these fucking release people too?”) Once again, we must acknowledge the irony of this series portraying the pain this tape’s theft and reproduction have caused Pam while also not receiving her consent to make this series about it.

At the party after the big premiere, Pam overhears someone calling Barb Wire the second-best movie Pam’s been in this year. Any hopes of a sequel dashed by the bad buzz from the production’s own invited guests, Pam just wants to go home, but Tommy insists on taking in a late-night screening with a regular audience…and regrets it when patrons start openly mocking the movie.

And then we’re with a desperate Rand as he lets himself in at the gambler’s house. The gambler (Brian Huskey) obviously has no idea who he is, and Rand’s reply — “I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds!” — isn’t very illuminating. However, the mention of Butchie’s name lets the gambler know how much danger he’s in even before Rand starts beating him with the gambler’s own copy of The Celestine Prophecy, screaming, “You did this to yourself!” (Rand is mostly directing this admonition to himself, one assumes.)

We close on our titular couple, sadly heading home after Tommy’s ill-advised trip to the cineplex.

At least Pam isn’t telling Tommy “You did this to yourself.” But she could.

VHS Rewinder

• At least one of Pam’s requests of the universe has been answered: she’s pregnant again.
• I did search for the original version of Pam’s Barb Wire-era appearances on The Tonight Show; just the very beginning is on YouTube, but it is worth a peek to see how closely the styling on Lily James aligned with the historical record.
• Legendary porn star Ron Jeremy gets a nod when Rand finally gets through to Uncle Miltie by pretending to be Jeremy. Much like Anthony Pellicano, Ron Jeremy’s also run into in some very dark legal problems since the events of this series.
• We get a brief check-in with the cam guy in Seattle: traffic is steady but flat, so they need something to goose it. BUT WHAT COULD THAT POSSIBLY TURN OUT TO BE IN THE SERIES FINALE?

Television Without Pity, Fametracker, and Previously.TV co-founder Tara Ariano has had bylines in The New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, Vulture, Slate, Salon, Mel Magazine, Collider, and The Awl, among others. She co-hosts the podcasts Extra Hot Great, Again With This (a compulsively detailed episode-by-episode breakdown of Beverly Hills, 90210 and Melrose Place), Listen To Sassy, and The Sweet Smell Of Succession. She’s also the co-author, with Sarah D. Bunting, of A Very Special 90210 Book: 93 Absolutely Essential Episodes From TV’s Most Notorious Zip Code (Abrams 2020). She lives in Austin.