How To Make It In America

Last night, I watched the pilot episode of the HBO series, How To Make It In America. It is a series starring Bryan Greenberg as Ben Epstein and Cam Calderon, played by Victor Rasuk, focused in Brooklyn. Along with their friends, the two are trying to jumpstart their road to the American dream by fulfilling their entrepreneurship ambition.

Within the first episode, we met the main characters and learned a little bit about their life style and how they are all connected, just like a typical pilot episode. But, from there, we also saw the plot greatly develop with Cam’s cousin, Rene, returning home from jail. Cam secretly took a loan out from Rene in order to help Ben try and start a company, but lied to Ben and told him that he received it from an investor. As a result, they need to find ways to pay the money back, so the plot has begun. There is also development between Ben and Rachel, Ben’s ex-girlfriend who he has not been able to get over. During the pilot episode, he ran into her for the first time with her new boyfriend, causing jealousy and relationship insecurity for Ben.

Overall, I was not blown away by this pilot episode, but I did enjoy it because it was very interesting. I am not a big fan of pilot episodes to begin with because they normally just establish the characters and do not have any development, but this pilot had more to it than that. I also really enjoyed the artistic aspect of the show, which was the photography. In order to establish a new scene, they used photographs from that scene in order to establish what is going on. It was also used in the opening sequence, which was one of my favorite opening sequences for any show I have ever seen. This whole idea added a very cool aspect that really drew me in. I will definitely continue to watch this show to see how it develops, both character wise and plot wise.