PARTING SHOT
BROCKMIRE, IFC’S ROUGH-AND-FUNNY COMEDY, STARTED AS A VIRAL SHORT video on the Funny or Die website. Hank Azaria—known for films like The Birdcage, the TV series Huff and voicing multiple characters on The Simpsons— plays a sportscaster, once baseball’s youngest play-by-play man, who was fired after a foulmouthed on-air meltdown over his wife’s infidelities. The first season of the series followed Jim Brockmire in drunken disgrace as he calls games in a small town, sparring and boozing with Jules (Amanda Peet), the equally damaged owner of the local team. Season 2 went darker; Jim has split with Jules and moved to New Orleans, where his in-the-bag, postgame tirades are making him famous again. After some seriously self-destructive behavior, he ends the season sober. With Season 3, the show’s creator, Joel Church-Cooper, has hit the reset button, and Jules is back. Will Jules and Jim get back together? “I won’t spoil it for viewers, but they certainly keep trying,” Azaria tells Newsweek. “Having read Season 4 scripts, I can say it will be very Amanda Pete–heavy.”
Illustration by BRITT SPENCER