For six strange episodes, viewers with a Peacock subscription were able to follow the unusual story of Paul T. Goldman, a man who discovered that one of his ex-wives was unfaithful to him and could be involved in prostitution… only to see the story take a few left turns from there. Paul Finkelman plays Paul T. Goldman, the character he created in order to tell his story, first in the pages of a novel called “Duplicity: A True Story of Crime and Deception”, and now in this series “Peacock” under the direction of Borat: Subsequent filmmaker Jason Woliner. However, during the course of the series, viewers’ opinions about Paul and his actions had to change and evolve as more details about this man’s life were revealed. And Finkelman entrusted Woliner with the correct presentation of his story, no matter how incredible it was. Therefore, when Paul T. Goldman released the season finale on “Peacock”, I had to ask Woliner what Paul’s reaction to this season was in the end.
The rest of this story will end up in major spoilers for Paul T. Goldman, so essentially stop reading now if you don’t want to know what’s going on throughout the series and especially in the finale.
Paul Finkelman is not a reliable storyteller. Although he begins the series with a story about his marriage to a fraudster and his belief that she was involved in an international scheme of human trafficking for sexual exploitation, we begin to understand that Finkelman’s story may be inaccurate. First of all, because at some point in the season- when Paul’s ex—wife and her pimp were “arrested”— Paul confesses to Jason Woliner that he invented this part.
Paul begins to acknowledge that in a series of books he continued to write called The Paul T. Goldman Chronicles, Finkelman began to shape the narrative to fit what he believed in. This included turning Paul into an international investigator—Agent 007 meets Mr. Bean — and even seeing Paul meet President Barack Obama. The problem is that Paul began to really believe in this lie. And we watched him face the truth in the series finale.
It was uncomfortable. So when I got the chance to talk to Jason Woliner before the finale, I asked him what Paul thought of the show when it ended. And the director said CinemaBlend:
I think it’s difficult. …By the time we were shooting, he knew that this was a series that would use his scenes, as well as behind-the-scenes and documentary elements, conversations with real people and all that stuff. And he knew the cameras were there to capture interesting things on set. Of course, looking at the show now, the decisions I’ve made… he wouldn’t make all the decisions the same way. But as he tells me in the finale, he says he understands why I did what I did and that it was for real. And he could appreciate it.
Paul T. Goldman’s format is extremely unusual. Because of shows like “The Office” and “Parks and Recreation,” where the characters playing the role behave just like Paul, it takes at least three episodes before you finally come to terms with the reality that Paul isn’t pretending. He is a real person who behaves like a TV character. And his exaggerated reality, documented in the Paul T. Goldman Chronicles, really plays out, as in Michael Scott’s imaginary movie “Threat Level at Midnight” from the NBC series “The Office”.
So, Paul had an unexpected problem with the series, as explained by Jason Woliner:
I mean, most of his problems with the series right now are jokes that he came up with, but I cut them out (laughs). For example, we shot 20 pages of the courtroom for his divorce proceedings, and I just didn’t have time for it. this stuff. There are a lot of great scenes in The Paul T. Goldman Chronicles that we shot, and I hope to post them on YouTube soon. I have a 10-minute behind-the-scenes… just a 10-minute recording of The Paul T. Goldman Chronicles, which I think is pretty good (laughs).
Anyway, Paul T. Goldman was an exciting experiment for Peacock and another remarkable achievement in emotionally unsightly comedy for Jason Woliner, who sharpened this blade in the film “The Subsequent Borat Film”. Be sure to catch up with a Peacock subscription (opens in new tab) if you somehow got this far, but haven’t looked yet.
