TV Watch: "Million Dollar Listing: Los Angeles" completes a strong season, with an emotional farewell to Josh Flagg's beloved grandmother

Edith Flagg (1919-2014)



"I've always known that one day I would walk through the doors of that penthouse, and she would no longer be there anymore."

-- Josh Flagg, on returning to Grandma Edith's apartment,
in the Million Dollar Listing: Los Angeles season finale

by Ken

Here again is why I avoid burning up the Intertubes for TV news that I don't need to know until I need to know it. I guess the rest of the world knew in August that Edith Flagg, the 94-year-old grandmother of Million Dollar Listing: Los Angeles real-estate flogger Josh Flagg, had died, whereas I got to watch it as it unfolded in Season 7, which finished airing this past Wednesday.

Oh, it was pretty clear at the outset of Season 7 from Edith's absence that something was up, but it was awhile before we saw Josh telling people who asked that no, his grandmother was not doing well.

As I approached writing about Edith's death, I couldn't help but think back to my Friday-night post about AMC's in-the-works series Better Call Saul, which made prominent reference to two of the best-loved characters from its parent series, Breaking Bad :the infinitely ethically flexible Saul Goodman (Bob Odenkirk) and his right-hand man, all-around fix-it and enforcement guy Mike Ehrmantraut (Jonathan Banks). I didn't try to explain why Saul and Mike became such fan favorites. They're  not exactly what you'd call salutary life models, after all. But in both cases there's something in the characters' basic identities, and the actors', and in the writing and acting, that had audiences unable to get enough of them.

Edith wasn't "written," of course. Oh, she was subject to the manipulating and stroking of the creative team of Million Dollar Listing: Los Angeles, but you get a pretty strong feeling that what we saw over the years was pretty real. Edith was a survivor, obviously -- not just of Hitler and the Third Reich but of the ravages of time. She came to this country with nothing, and built herself a fortune, and in the process commanded the respect and affection of (it seems) everyone she knew. It would have been awfully hard not to succumb to the eccentric charms of Edith, her grandson's best friend.

Through the earlier seasons viewers had to wonder how the extraordinary closeness between Josh and his grandmother would play out over of time, given her age when we first met her. Happily, she remained a vital presence, counseling and kibbitzing, just being Edith -- until this season, when it was evident from her absence that time was catching up with her.

Edith's end was handled with a lot of grace, not least with the unexpected sitdown engineered by Josh Altman.



It was a strong season all around for MDLLA, with all the principals involved in some intriguing deals highlighting all sorts of interesting issues (by rights, I should be wishing for these often-appalling Richie Rich clients to fall over the edge of the earth), and for personal drama there was not just Josh Flagg's ordeal but the rocky path of Josh Altman and Heather's wedding plans, and Josh A's awareness of the possibly unresolvable tension between his professional ambitions and his hopes for a satisfying private life. When, in the season finale, he found himself confronting a career-changing listing opportunity, he actually recognized the terribleness of the timing, and the possibly disastrous implications for his relationship. Oh, he took the job anyway (oops, sorry: belated spoiler alert), but the fact that he understood those possibly disastrous implications was most un-Altman-esque. (I also thought it was charming that brother Matt carefully refrained from offering an opinion on what Josh should do.)

And of course we had the greedy Brits replacing Malibu Madison, and quite a pair of characters they are. It's truly weird that for two guys who really don't look much like each other, and really aren't that much like each other, as they themselves note, they're almost impossible to tell apart. And they brought a welcome new dimension to the show.

Of course Madison made his cameo appearance at David and James' brokers' open in the finale, of which there's an extended version online, along with this update from Madison himself.




JOSH FLAGG TALKS ABOUT EDITH'S PASSING


Bravo's Andy Cohen talks to Million Dollar Listing: Los Angeles's Josh Flagg about his late grandmother Edith. Seen but not heard are Josh A's MDLLA Season 7 costars, frequent nemesis Josh Altman and the new Brits, David and James -- or is it James and David?

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