Review: The Studio Finale was a perfect ending to a new favorite show
The first season of The Studio closes with the kind of Hollywood chaos that feels both inevitable and weirdly poetic: a two‑parter set amid Las Vegas neon and laced with enough psychedelic mishaps to make Hunter S. Thompson blush.
Part one, “CinemaCon,” sends Matt and his bedraggled lieutenants to Caesars Palace to preview Continental Studios’ 2026 film slate for theater owners. On paper, it’s a straightforward corporate dog‑and‑pony show; in Matt’s world, it’s an excuse to host a throwback “old Hollywood” soirée where the hors d’oeuvres include an alarming assortment of recreational chemicals. By the time dawn creeps over the Strip, everyone’s pupils are the size of IMAX screens.
Things truly unravel in part two, “The Presentation.” Thanks to a mislabeled baggie, the cast ingests heroic doses of magic mushrooms mere hours before they’re due on stage. That would be disastrous enough, but there’s a brutal new wrinkle: Griffin Mill—Matt’s boss, the keynote speaker, and Continental’s last line of defense against an Amazon buyout—joins the binge. Griffin is played by Bryan Cranston, and his performance is the episode’s secret weapon. Lesser actors might lean on goofy faces or slapstick pratfalls. Cranston gives us something more unsettling: a titan of industry whose synapses now fire like broken neon. He slurs grandiose corporate mantras, forgets where the stage door is, and at one point attempts to lecture a ficus on synergy. It’s hilarious—but because the stakes are spelled out so clearly (lose the room and the studio gets swallowed by Big Tech), every laugh lands with a wince.
Drug‑trip comedy can wear thin quickly; the writers avoid the trap by making each character’s bad voyage distinct. Dave Franco’s producer morphs into a sweaty frat‑bro DJ, mashing nonexistent buttons behind the projection booth. Zoë Kravitz, ever the cool kid, spirals into existential dread over whether cinema even matters in a world of infinite content. Griffin, meanwhile, lurches across the greenroom like a business‑casual Frankenstein, speech cards fluttering from his pockets. The visual gags border on cartoonish, yet they never feel arbitrary because each meltdown feeds the central question: can this motley crew pull themselves together in time to keep the lights on?
Miraculously, they can—largely because Matt, battered by a season of humiliations, finally channels his disasters into something useful. With Griffin too blitzed to string two coherent words, Matt hijacks the keynote, turning the debacle into a crowd‑pleasing chant: “Movies! Movies! Movies!” It’s pure, shameless showmanship, and the audience—doped up on stadium popcorn and Vegas enthusiasm—goes wild. Continental lives to fight another fiscal year, and for once our beleaguered bean counter isn’t left sobbing in a limousine or being wheeled toward the ER.
The finale is broader, sillier, and less tethered to reality than earlier episodes, but that looseness feels earned. We’ve spent eight installments watching Matt’s aspirations combust; seeing him win by sheer force of will delivers catharsis without betraying the show’s core empathy. The Studio has always asked us to care about the spreadsheet guy nobody invites to the wrap party. By rolling the dice in Sin City—and letting Matt finally crap out a victory—it sticks the landing with a delirious, mushroom‑stained grin.
