Apple TV's Margo's Got Money Problems Finds Core of Wrestling and Its Fandom

"What I do is I just pretend stuff is make believe," says Susie as she tries to comfort the lead character Margo, "that's why I like wrestling, you know, instead of other sports. Because it's scripted, it's pre-thought out, and I feel safe watching it." Margo, played by recent Academy Award nominee Elle Fanning, is a pregnant college student struggling to make ends meet, and her absent father in the show is portrayed by Nick Offerman, who plays a semi-retired professional wrestler.

Earlier in the first episode of Apple TV's latest miniseries, Margo asks her mother (Michelle Pfeiffer) why she didn't terminate Margo, and Pfeiffer's character explained why she raised a child while he had his life on the road. While the professional wrestling is a sub-plot to the overall backdrop of the show, it's taken with care rarely seen previously in a fictional show. By the time we meet Nick Offerman's character in the second episode, he sells his championship coming out of rehab so that he could be with his new grandson. The first time she sees her father at the end of episode two, she remarks that she thought he may be dead.

It isn't A24's first forray into the pro wrestling business, as Sean Durkin's The Iron Claw used the story of the Von Erich family as a backdrop to tell its heartbreaking story of brotherhood amidst tragedy. Unlike their previous trip inside the squared circle, it's less about the family dynamic inside of the ring, and instead outside of it. Quite a few of Margo's problems, and even more of her mothers problems, stem from the fact that The Jinx, the wrestling persona of Offerman's character, hadn't ever been around. Margo originally doesn't tell Susie who her father is because Susie idolizes Jinx, and the para-social relationship so commonly found between wrestling fans and the wrestlers themselves have a tendancy to be shattered, and it isn't in what Margo says, but rather her body language when she doesn't say anything. For Margo, the world grew up with the father that she never did.

It also shatters an important illusion that isn't the temperament of a perform outside of their television persona: aging wrestlers are broke. For those readers who have seen Aronofsky's The Wrestler, or even listened to the titular track written by Bruce Springsteen for that movie, the depicted situation is unfortunately a very real one. There are very few professional wrestlers who make it, and even the wrestlers who do, say, a Ric Flair, have to live to the lifestyle as they're so beholdened to kayfabe, and then it becomes a natural extension fo who they are. As many feel Ric Flair has prostituted his legacy for a paycheck in between those moments off Tyson Ave's Hula Bay Club, he has to pay for the yacht nearby in Harbour Island somehow, and that's before you factor in the expenses from fifty years of questionable choices that led to him filing for bankrupcty. The limosuine-riding, jet-flying, kiss-stealing, wheelin'-dealin', oldest ride longest line, biggest house on the biggest hill on the biggest side of town gimmick isn't exactly a beacon of affordability. The most famous professional wrestler of all-time finds himself doing CarShield commercials with Pittsburgh Pirates second baseman Brandon Lowe in 2026 because he has to.

WWE mega-star Becky Lynch, funnily enough a major rival of Flair's daughter, recently made headlines during their WrestleMania week presser that any expense on the road, such as hotels, transportation, essential wardrobe for their characters, food, and other things required for the job are paid directly out-of-pocket for WWE superstars. They make pennies-on-the-dollar from their downside guarantee, all the while being freelance independent contractors who lose their job if they freelance for more income, making things you'd think would be encourage like even just transitioning to Hollywood to grow their brand significantly more difficult. Even when they do receive clearance to do that, the insurance rates for casting a professional wrestler in your motion picture are relatively atronomical, make it unnecessary discretionary spending for studios. That's why Dave Bautista or John Cena wait until they finished full-time despite already landing acting roles during their time in WWE. A professional wrestler has to be so much better than the alternative in the role. Tony Khan's venture, All Elite Wrestling, currently in its seventh year, does allow performers to do things outside of AEW as long as it doesn't conflict with AEW dates, as well as pays for all of their travel expenses. Perhaps with competition, eventually the billion company will have to begin treating their employees like employees, but it's regardless vastly difficult to make a reasonable living in an industry where you're destroying your body and your familial relationships.

That's the situation for the rare wrestler that made it. The average wrestler? They're working multiple times a night just to make ends meet, and they're not doing it because it's going to make them wealthy. There is one The Rock, and a million wrestlers like Apple TV's The Jinx, who after a lifetime as a good hand in the industry can't afford a cheap motel. The relationship and genuine appreciation he immediately shows Susie in the third episode encapsulates everyting that wrestlers do it for: it's an artform they fell in love with, and they do it for anybody else who fell in love with the artform. It's a way to tell a story, and it's a way to meaningfully bring comfort to people like Susie, who never felt like she fit in, and thus saw herself in the larger-than-life characters that guys like the Jinx brought to what felt like real life. Susie isn't working under the assumption that the man behind Jinx hated his opponents, and Jinx isn't working under the assumption that she is, but both allow themselves to get lost in the idea that the stories told were real life, and that's where both found solace. It's no different than somebody walking up to Lisa Kudrow and telling her how Friends helped them learn English, or a veteran walking up to Sylvester Stallone and talking about how First Blood helped them feel seen after coming home from combat with PTSD, or Kate Winslet about how Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind helped somebody through a hard breakup. These experiences may not be the personal experience of the wrestler, but like any artform, art starts conversations and makes people feel during vulnerable times in their life.

Susie is a die-hard wrestling fan as a character, even down to her actively sitting and watching an episode of AEW Dynamite. In the scene, the fictional wrestler played by Penelope Ford has Willow Nightengale, AEW's current TBS Champion, in a Muta Lock submission while referee Aubrey Edwards asks if she'd like to submit. It's in this sitting where there's a fictitious wrestler who Jinx mentions had left WWE because she would make more doing a month of non-sexual OnlyFans work than in a year working WWE, which goes back to the previously mentioned intricacies of the how the industry operates. This became a real sitatuon only a few years ago, when pro wrestler Mandy Rose made that choice while she was the Women's World Champion of one of their three televised brands. This is the plot device that gives Margo the idea of going toward OnlyFans to make money to provide for her child. It's also the scene where Jinx and Margo discuss becoming roommates to help out their situation, leading to Jinx being very vulnerable.

Jinx's vulnerability and his own money struggles stem from the lack of healthcare commonly found within one of the industries that destroy your body the most. In a very heartfelt scene that could easily get Offerman another Emmy, Jinx tells Margo that his addiction began with prescription painkillers from spinal injuries, and led to much harder drugs. Unfortunately, if you've followed wrestling at all, you're well aware how obscenely large the figure of pro wrestlers who passed prematurely is, and just how many of them were a victim to their own addiction that started with prescription opiates. It's something most wrestlers aren't able to open and honest about, but it's something that's unfortunately too real, and it's that sincerity that leads to Margo, which may get Fanning another Emmy, to allow him to stay as the two breakdown, finally understanding each other for the first time in 20 years. It's truly a powerhouse scene from two of the most underrated actors working today, but it's also one that takes a real crisis in the wrestling industry and humanizes it in a non-judgemental way.

Next week's episode promises to be wrestling-centric compared to the first three. AEW's Chris Jericho is set to appear, while Academy Award winner Nicole Kidman, reportedly playing a pro wrestler, is set to be a significant part of the episode. While pro wrestling isn't the direct backdrop of the show, it's a major plot device that's being treated both in and out of it, instead of lowbrow or glamorous, the two extremes most media portrayals go to, as a very real, human thing, both in how it's done and why it's done.

Photo credit: Apple TV.

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