Why Cary Dubek Embracing His Villain Era Was a Good Thing for the Character

Cary Dubek’s villainous arc in The other two it was a surprising twist for the character, but also a brilliant one. The HBO Max comedy series The other two is a hilarious behind-the-scenes look at modern celebrity and media life, centering on the Dubek twins, Cary (Drew Tarver) and Brooke (Heléne Yorke), the two older adult siblings of Chase Dreams (Case Walker), the new pop warmer. planet star. The series follows their hilarious misadventures as they try to step out of their famous younger brother’s shadow.

The other two served as a smart, hysterical satire of show business in the 21st century, skewering everything from industry parties to method actors and procedural shows. However, at the center of the show were Cary and Brooke’s respective journeys as they sought their own fame and recognition. The last season of The other two found Cary’s Hollywood dreams coming true, albeit at the cost of following a much darker path.

Cary Dubek’s fame turned him into a villain

Cary finds success, but becomes a worse person as a result

At the beginning of The other twoCary is a struggling actor who is embarrassed to find himself eclipsed by his younger brother, who rose to fame seemingly overnight. However, it soon became clear that jealousy and insecurity were the driving force behind Cary’s professional ambitions. As the series progressed, his motivations changed from the relatable feeling of not wanting to be looked down upon like his infamous brother and became the more villainous desire to look down on others..

While there were certainly signs of Cary’s pettiness throughout the underrated sitcom, season three of The other two This is when the show really made Cary the villain of its story. Every decision in life revolved around how he would become a star and be “better” than everyone around him. In one episode, Cary goes to his high school reunion to praise his fame over his former classmates, literally singing a song about how happy he was to be superior to them.

However, his villainy can best be seen in his relationship with his best and only true friend, Curtis (Brandon Scott Jones). Curtis is also an aspiring actor, and although he is not at Cary’s level, he begins to gain momentum in his career, including a new television series. As Cary continues to climb the ladder of fame, he rejects Curits’ attempts to leave while secretly rooting for his friend to fail so that he can continue to be more successful than him.

Cary’s villainous turn makes him a more complex protagonist

Watching Cary Spiral shows the double-edged sword of fame

While it’s risky for a television show to turn a main character into a villain, it’s an arc that serves Cary well. The other two. There is an old belief that the best villains are those who don’t know they are the villain. In fact, the best part about Cary turning into this self-centered, obnoxious character is that he doesn’t recognize the path he’s on. Even as he continually embarrasses himself and finds his perceived happiness fading, he comes across a new highlight in his career that distracts him from how horrible he has become..

After Curtis criticizes Cary for how selfish he has been, correctly seeing through his friendly exterior to identify his own self-centered motivations, Cary appears to take this as a personal blow. However, even though he has just lost his caring and supportive friend, the moment Cary finds out that his show is critically acclaimed, he forgets all of that. Likewise, Cary is disheartened to discover that his successful reunion has not brought him happiness. Instead of realizing that he lacks true friends in life, he decides that what he’s missing is an Oscar.

The unconscious nature of Cary’s villainous spiral makes it possible for him to sink deeper and deeper without the audience losing touch with him.. At the start of the show, it was easy to feel sorry for him for being ignored, while also finding his need for fame amusingly pathetic. By season three, the character’s goofy fun has practically taken over. He wasn’t acting out of malice, but rather desperately looking for happiness in all the wrong places. A unique villain arc was created that left room for redemption.

What Drew Tarver Said About Cary’s Vile Turn

Tarver compared Cary’s arc to another television antihero

Drew Tarver’s performance as Cary Dubek is one of the highlights of The other twobut he takes the character to a new place in season three. Tarver is able to make Cary the noteworthy character he often needs to be to get the biggest laughs, as well as being in on the comedy’s darker moments. However, he is also excellent at participating in the drama in the final season. Tarver himself acknowledged Season 3’s difficult journey for Cary, joking that he thought the character just needed to be killed off (via HQ):

“Chris and Sarah were joking while we were filming this season: ‘Wait, does this man need to die? Does this character need to just fall off a cliff?”

However, Tarver also talked about the fun of the more difficult story with Cary in Season 3 and the challenge of ensuring that audiences are still willing to stick with Cary (through Variety):

“Becoming a full-on villain in season three has been a really fun thing to play, and trying to do that and thinking: Can I bring an audience along with this character, so far in a Walter White way? [territory]?”

Despite the differences in the show’s tones, Tarver isn’t far off from comparing Cary’s arc to Walter White becoming Heisenberg in Breaking Bad. Both were protagonists who started out with altruistic and relatable motivations, only to be consumed by the power they gained when they finally began to achieve their dreams.

Cary’s role in the Disney film highlights the continued lack of LGBTQ+ roles in mainstream films

There are many shows with LGBTQ+ characters, but The other two has always been very intelligent when commenting on how the community is represented in show business. From the beginning of the series, Cary struggled with the limitations of “gay roles” in Hollywood while also being cornered based on his sexuality. However, even Cary’s villainous arc allowed this commentary to continue with a hilarious story about the studios’ empty gestures of representation.

Cary gets another big boost in his career when he is offered a role in a Disney animated film, in which he would voice the studio’s first openly gay character, in a scene that executives repeatedly call “openly gay.” Although Cary goes on a major press tour to highlight this supposedly important moment, which has attracted support from gay rights groups and criticism from religious activists, the moment turns out to be so small and insignificant that no one even recognizes it.

The moment reflects real examples of Disney publicizing supposedly groundbreaking moments of LGBTQ+ representation in its films, such as the gay kiss in Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker or the first gay character in Beauty and the beast which were largely meaningless. The other two effortlessly recognizes this problematic tendency while also making it part of Cary’s self-centered journey. He gets sucked into the excitement of being the face of this movement while using the LGBTQ+ community as a way to raise his own profile in the business.

The other two end with Cary’s redemption

The series finale shows Cary finding what he needs

With its surprise cancellation in season 3 The other two became one of those shows that ended too soon. However, where there were more plans for Cary’s arc, the series finale served Cary perfectly as it gave him a touching redemption after a season of villainy. The ending focuses on Cary’s relentless desire to win an Oscar, thinking that this is what his life is missing. After gaining momentum in an Oscar-winning film, Cary spirals out of control when he thinks his agent has been ignoring his calls for months.

Cary decides to ambush his agent, Mackenzie (Nadia Dajani), in the Hamptons and demands some answers. However, he realizes that not months have passed without her returning his texts and calls, but only one day, showing Cary’s detachment from reality as he meddles in her self-centered path. The moment turns revealing when Mackenzie calls him out for suggesting she doesn’t work hard enough for him when that’s all she does. Despite her anger, she invites Cary to stay where he sees she spends her off hours caring for her dying mother.

In a powerful moment for Cary, he breaks down in Mackenzie’s bathroom, finally confronted with how selfish he has been and how his obsessive focus on work has caused him to fail to consider other people.. Cary then goes to Curtis to make it up to him and swears he’s stepping away from work when he sees what it’s doing to him as a person. When he gets a call that his dream project is moving forward, Cary decides to simply stay in the Hamptons and reconnect with himself.

The final moment where Cary makes new friends reveals that there is hope for him in the future. The more success he achieved, the more isolated he became from the world and people around him. Being able to find his way back to the real world is a victory moment for him. As Drew Tarver suggested, it was difficult for audiences to follow Cary during the final season of The other twobut he proved he was still capable of the self-realization fans wanted for him, which resulted in a satisfying ending.