If you’re looking for a fringe TV drama to watch besides “The Pitt,” I’d recommend “The Rink.”
Because this week’s men’s figure skating competition at the Winter Olympics provided more shock than any other show.
Go see for yourself. Well, do that after you read all the way down. Insanity must be seen.
Craziest of all was when American star Ilia Malinin finished in eighth place after Friday’s free skate – “Game of Thrones” “Red Wedding” on ice.
Malinin’s epic flame-out may have been worse than the Stark massacre.
NBC commentators Johnny Weir and Tara Lipinski were surprised by the poor performance of the 21-year-old, who was on top after an almost identical short program just two days earlier.
“Oh my God” was all Lipinski could say when Malinin fell after his last jump. During those four busy minutes, he went down quite a few.
Adding to the season-ending status is Virginia-born Malinin’s nickname – which he gave himself out of curiosity, asking for a trademark and stamps to sell it.
“He’s a Quad God,” referring to the unusually difficult quadruple jump with four turns that he usually excels at.
However, it is a bad thing to call yourself a god, especially since many viewers first met him, the god came in the eighth place.
With Ilia out of the picture, the most unlikely gold medalist was Kazakhstan’s Mikhail Shaidorov, who was in fifth place before Friday night. His country had never won gold in male figure skating.
But perhaps the 21-year-old foresaw an upset victory during his short show on Wednesday when he dressed as Paul Atreides from “Dune” – the dreamy savior of the planet Arrakis played by Timothée Chalamet – and slipped into his music by Hans Zimmer.
Shaidorov gave us sci-fi, and his “Dune: Prophecy.”
In the middle of his special free skate on Friday, Lipinski said, “You just planted the seed now for the next Olympics.”
Not immediately.
After half an hour Malinin was depressed and the spectators were chanting “Lisan al-Gaib!”
Completely absurd and fun was the sit-com-style from Tomas Llorenc-Guarino Sabate from Spain.
Surrounded by cool boats, he dressed as a Minion from “Despicable Me” — a yellow shirt and overalls, not the costume of the giant Times Square mascot — and performed a hilarious routine to a song full of Minion gibberish.
It was ridiculously fun, and it’s become an internet sensation. No one would care where he put it.
Beyond the adrenaline of winning and losing, and the occasional yuks, there were also intense tears.
They come courtesy of American Maxim Naumov, a 24-year-old from Connecticut, who skated in honor of his parents, former world champion Evgenia Shishkova and Vadim Naumov.
They died last January in a horrific plane crash over the Potomac River that killed 67 people, most of whom were skateboarders, their parents and coaches.
“All I wanted to do at that point was lie in my bed or lie on the couch and rot,” he told the Times of the life-changing event.
But just 13 months later, the 24-year-old was in Italy at the Olympics for the first time, holding a picture of himself as a child with his mum and dad during a Kiss & Cry and a smile.
The elegant and modest Naumov came in 14th during a beautiful short program that was not as technically advanced as the others, and was in 20th place at the end of the competition on Friday.
Watching at home, his success felt much bigger than that.
“What we wanted from the beginning, I was able to do that. And I didn’t just do it for myself – I did it for them,” he said to the camera after leaving the rink.
The Olympics are about the greatest athletes in the world coming together to do amazing things.
And that’s exactly what Naumov did.
Now go and watch.
