Series / Pam & Tommy

Pam & Tommy is a 2022 American biopic drama Mini Series directed by Craig Gillespie (I, Tonya, Cruella) and written by Rob Siegel. It premiered on February 2nd, 2022 on Hulu and on Disney+ / Star in other countries.

The miniseries depicts the turbulent marriage between Pamela Anderson (played by Lily James) and Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee (played by Sebastian Stan) following the unauthorized leak of the infamous sex tape they recorded privately during their honeymoon in 1997.

The cast also includes Seth Rogen as Rand Gauthier, Nick Offerman as Milton Owen Ingley (aka "Uncle Miltie") and Taylor Schilling as Erica Boyer.

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Pam & Tommy provides examples of the following tropes:

• The '90s: Pamela Anderson's sex tape scandal blew up in 1996, and the trailer features people using VHS and dial-up Internet access, which are technological mainstays of the era. It also contains a lot of 90s music and pop culture references.
• Accidental Misnaming: More than once Rand has to correct people about his name, as no one takes him seriously enough to get it right.
• A Day in the Limelight: Episode six deals exclusively with Pam. The episode bounces back and forth between her backstory and her dealings with Bob Guccione's sleazy lawyer. Tommy only shows up twice.
• All Girls Want Bad Boys: Pam honestly wants to avert this, telling her friends that she wants a stable relationship with someone who treats her well and with whom she can build a real home and family. However, she is quickly won over by Tommy and falls into the same habits as before.
• Ambiguous Situation: Despite both saying that they made no money from it, rumors have circled for years that Pam and Tommy got a cut of the profits from the tape. This series floats both possibilities but doesn't say which one happened.
• Amoral Attorney: While most of the lawyers in the series are portrayed as this, the lawyers representing Penthouse Magazine are portrayed as particularly scummy, asking humiliating and invasive questions to Pamela in an attempt to rattle her. Pam's own lawyers also push her to sue Penthouse so they can make more money, despite Pam pointing out that this will only draw more attention to the tape.
• Animal Disguise: Rand drapes a shag rug over himself to look like Tommy's giant dog on the low-res security cameras.
• Anthropomorphized Anatomy: Tommy Lee has a long back-and-forth conversation with his own penis.
• Artistic License – History: The series takes some creative license with the timeline:
  • Pam's miscarriage happened months earlier during the filming of Barb Wire and it was likely caused by Pam performing fight scenes while wearing a tight, restrictive leather corset. The miscarriage did not happen during the fallout of the sex tape.
  • Tommy sees a Behind the Music about himself, even though the show wouldn't debut until the next year and Motley Crue wouldn't be featured on it until a year after that.
  • Many of the soundtrack choices, such as "Lovefool" and "Steal My Sunshine," come from later in the '90s.
  • On the show, Penthouse published pictures from the tape. In real life, they only published a written description of the tape with previously released paparazzi photos of the two.
  • Rand is able to get $10,000 by giving the original tape to Seth Warshavsky, the one who first streamed it online and wanted the source for better image quality. In truth, Rand and Miltie destroyed the tape after making the first copies, as it was after all evidence of theft.
  • The fifth episode features a scene where Tommy Lee and Nikki Sixx confront the members of Third Eye Blind over the latter being given a bigger recording studio than Mötley Crüe. Third Eye Blind frontman Stephan Jenkins says that such a confrontation never happened in real life, that their first album was not recorded in Los Angeles, and at the time the series took place he had never even heard of Motley Crue.
  • The album Generation Swine by Mötley Crüe was released in 1997, not 1996 as the show suggests.
  • There is no indication Rand met Tommy Lee ever again after stealing his safe, let alone in a meeting with money set on fire.
  • In the final episode, Pamela has the tattoo on her ring finger that says "Tommy" changed to "Mommy." While she did actually do this in real life, it didn't happen until after she'd divorced Tommy in 1998. The series suggests that she did it while they were still married.
• Asshole Victim:
  • Tommy quickly loses the audience's sympathy and it is easy to see Rand as being justified in robbing him to get the money Tommy owed him. On the other hand, Pam is portrayed as a nice person with poor taste in men who did not deserve what happened to her. Tommy later lampshades this when he confronts Rand and points out that he might be an asshole but nothing Pam did deserved what Rand put her through.
  • After Pam miscarries, a paparazzo follows her and Tommy from the hospital so he can take a photo of a crying Pam. Pam is shown to be quite justified in grabbing a pipe and smashing the paparazzi's car window.
• Bad "Bad Acting": We see Pam rehearsing a major monologue for her show, apparently the first major acting scene she's had in a long time. Her acting skills show you why.
• Based on a True Story: The trailer states that the series is "Based on the true F**KING SCANDAL". The on-screen credit is given to a Rolling Stone article.
• Beeping Computers: The familiar dialup noise plays whenever the Internet is used.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Pam is a friendly, sweet-natured person but the grief brought on by her miscarriage and the stress of the tape getting out causes her to go absolutely ballistic on a paparazzi who follows her and Tommy after the former and smash his windscreen with a car jack in a display of anger that even Tommy is a little bit disturbed by.
• Bigger Is Better in Bed:
  • Subverted. Erica is more comfortable shooting a porn scene with Rand rather than someone more well-endowed, though this doesn't stop her from making a small-penis joke at his expense later.
  • Played straight with Pamela's delighted reaction the first time she sees Tommy's (quite large) penis.
• Binge Montage: After opening the safe, Rand uses the money found therein (and the money he gets from pawning the jewelry and guns also found therein) to pay his bills before blowing some of it on alcohol and getting wasted.
• Both Sides Have a Point: Rand is absolutely right to be angry that Tommy ripped him off on their deal and in his assessment that he is a terrible person who deserved a comeuppance. Tommy is similarly right that while he may have deserved it, Rand's actions only ended up hurting Pam who never hurt him or anyone else.
• Break the Cutie: The show becomes this for Pamela. For the most part she's a kind, sweet person whose biggest flaw is that she has bad taste in men. At the start of the series she is a happy, deeply-in-love newlywed who is excited to start having children with Tommy. But once the sex tape starts being distributed Pamela is subjected to an ever-increasing level of stress and public humiliation that throws her private life and her marriage into turmoil. On top of that her first starring role in a mainstream Hollywood film, Barb Wire, turns out to be a critical and commercial flop. By the end of the series she's willing to do anything just to end the sex tape scandal even if it jeopardizes her marriage, and the failure of Barb Wire has made it so nobody is willing to hire her for serious acting roles.
• Bring My Brown Pants: Rand wets himself after Tommy points a shotgun at him.
• Broken Ace: Tommy was a rock superstar in the 1980s, but after hair metal fell out of fashion in the early 1990s in favor of grunge, Tommy isn't nearly as famous as he used to be and is now viewed as something of a joke. It's clear that he's aware of this and is more than a little bitter about it.
• Broken Pedestal: In a flashback scene, Rand seems absolutely starstruck when he is introduced to Tommy Lee and Pamela Anderson for the first time, and all he can manage is a wide-eyed stare with his mouth hanging open in awe. Flash forward to the beginning of the series and Rand is becoming increasingly frustrated by Tommy's ever-changing demands regarding the renovations he wants done to his house.
• Can't Stop the Signal: Everyone realises way too late that they either are acting by reacting or things went completely out of their control
  • By the time Pam and Tommy figure out the tape is missing, Rand has already been shipping it out for weeks. There are already third-generation copies floating around the market before they even take any sort of action, and when they hire a PI to retrieve the original, Rand is barely controlling what's happening with the copies of "his" copy of the film.
  • Rand encounters a bootlegger early on and figures out there might be some more floating around. But then everyone on their own is just making a copy for a friend and he's powerless to prevent that. His booming business eventually just turns into measly 9 orders for a whole week, compared with previous dozens of orders per day, because while he's a "legit" source, there are cheaper and faster ways of get the video.
  • Once the news keep brewing for a while, Burt from L.A. Times has to reluctantly green-light article about the whole sex tape scandal, despite hating the concept on principle. Simply because everyone else is going to write about it anyway and he can either join the flow, or be sacked for ignoring "the big news".
• Cassandra Truth:
  • When Tommy has Pam meet with a team of lawyers to discuss suing Penthouse to prevent them from releasing the tape, Pam correctly worries that doing so would cause them to release the tape anyway out of spite and attract more press. The lawyers basically treat Pam and her concerns like air, but sure enough, once Penthouse gets sued, publisher Bob Guccione calls it a First Amendment issue and decides to release it in retaliation. Pam's publicist Gail Chwatsky is the only person who acknowledges that Pam was right.
  • The "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue states that Rand occasionally tells people that he was the one who stole and leaked the Lees' sex tape. Almost no one believes him.
• The Charmer: Tommy is extremely charismatic, as one would expect from a famous rock star, and wins people over easily before his flaws become more apparent. His charm is one of the biggest reasons why Pam, who had previously regarded him as a potential hook up and nothing more, marries him after only a few days.
• Comically Missing the Point: When the PI asks Tommy if he has anyone who might want revenge on him, he lists off a bunch of celebrities he had a beef with, which comes off more like bragging than anything else. When the PI learns about Rand and begins to find out what happened and how Tommy screwed him over, Tommy is completely oblivious to the fact that Rand could be responsible. Even Pamela clues in on how it could be Rand before Tommy does.
• "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot: Throughout the series, various characters come to realise they could have avoided all the problems and eventual fallout of releasing the tape, if they had made different decisions early on. The fact that those characters are oblivious to the consequences of their actions and realise their mistakes too late to fix anything contributes significantly to the Dramatic Irony for the audience.
• Decoy Protagonist: Rand starts the miniseries off and is the main focus of the first few episodes. The focus gradually shifts to Tommy and Pam to the point that, by episode five, Rand has left town (and the series) completely, leaving the fallout of the sex tape plot completely in the hands of Pam and Tommy. Though before too long he does come back into the show, but by that point it's clear the two titular characters are the true leads, even if he's still easily the next most prominent role.
• Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life: Tommy is bored out of his mind, given he has no real close friends, no significant day job with the band winding down, and spends most of his time tooling around his empty mansion. Part of the reason he's so invested in his romance with Pamela is that it gives him something to do.
• Destructive Romance: Tommy and Pamela get married despite barely knowing one another. It's to the point that Tommy is shocked that Pamela is a fan of The King and I and is a bit put off by her knowing all the words to "Getting to Know You" as he expected her to have tastes more in line with his own.
• Didn't Think This Through:
  • All of Rand's plans have obvious holes in them: He first tries to sell the tape to legitimate porn dealers, not realizing they obviously won't touch a stolen sex tape and open themselves up to litigation. Then, when he hits upon the better idea of selling it on the Internet, he doesn't worry about Pam or Tommy tracing it back to him, even though he has a known grudge against Tommy, installed their security system, and personally pitched the tape to every major porn company in L.A. He also doesn't realize that the tape he stole and is illegally selling can be stolen from him and sold too.
  • The private detective hired by Tommy to recover the tape from Rand makes a lot much noise and commotion when he shows up at Rand's apartment to threaten Rand. Given that Rand lives in a very low-end apartment, his neighbor easily overhears and calls the police, so the detective has to flee without getting the tape.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Called out by Tommy in episode 7. Basically, despite all that Tommy did to Rand which he admits was wrong, Pam did nothing to him and didn't deserve the humiliation that has come from the release of the sex tape.
• The Dog Bites Back: After Tommy forces Rand to leave his tools at Tommy's place at gunpoint, he decides to rob his former employer for the hell he put him through.
• Double Standard: When the sex tape gets out, Tommy Lee is hailed as a hero. However, Pam faces greater scrutiny in the eyes of the media and the studio putting out her movie, and is the only one called to testify in the deposition regarding the lawsuit against Penthouse.
• Dramatic Irony: Rand comes up with the idea to distribute the tape on the World Wide Web, because this way, no one will ever find that he and Milton were behind it. Since we are watching a TV series about the scheme, we know that he is completely wrong. However, their method of distribution isn't really the cause for the robbery being traced back to them, but the fact that Rand was a very likely suspect based on his history with Tommy and that he and Milton blabbed about it to every porn producer in L.A.
• Dramatically Missing the Point: Tommy is so used to being the defendant in court cases that he initially thinks that the judge throwing the lawsuit against Penthouse out is a good thing for them and his lawyer has to explain to him what it really means. This is contrasted with Pam's reaction who clearly expected the verdict to go against them and is devastated when her fear is confirmed. It also confirms Pam's earlier fear that Tommy did not treat the case as seriously as she did.
• Drugs Are Bad: Pam rehearses a corny stereotypical monologue on Baywatch that fits this trope to a T.
• Entertainingly Wrong: In one scene, Pamela worries that Barb Wire will be a box office failure, and one of her friends assures her that the film will be a success. In reality, Barb Wire bombed so hard at the box office that not only did it end Pam's dream of becoming a mainstream film star, but even the comic book the film was based upon was quickly canceled.
• Establishing Character Moment: Tommy Lee is introduced having loud sex with Pamela in the next room while Rand tries to finish his renovation, only to come in and make a last-minute, spur-of-the-moment change, showing his callousness and impulsiveness.
• "Eureka!" Moment: Frustrated after getting stonewalled by all the porn producers refusing to produce the sex tape, Rand springs upon the idea to distribute it via the fledgling Internet after using it to look up an obscure part for an old toilet, and then paying for it over the phone.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • Rand's girlfriend, a porn actress, has firm standards on what she considers acceptable when it comes to the porn business. She draws a clear line at releasing sex tapes without the permission of the participants and when she finds out what Rand did, she throws him out of her home.
  • The stenographers from the deposition. It's her job to record those thing and remain dispassionate about it, but she's visibly uncomfortable with the whole thing and eventually is the only person in the room that comes to console Pamela.
  • Played with when Rand and Milton go office-to-office to sell the tape to less and less reputable porn companies. They are denied each and every time simply because those people are aware of the legal shebang they would bring on themselves for releasing the tape, rather than any sort of moral standards, but even the most crummy of them still adhere to the law.
• Evil Is Petty: "Evil" is a strong word, but Tommy forcing Rand to give up his tools at gunpoint crosses the line. That's plain theft.
• Fanservice: Lots of shots of a nearly naked Pam and a very naked Tommy Lee.
• Fanservice Pack: In-Universe, Pam undergoes breast enhancement surgery in order to help her career.
• Foot-Dragging Divorcee: Rand and Erica are still legally married, officially because they can't afford the costs of filing for divorce, but it's clear that Rand also isn't over her.
• Foregone Conclusion: Anyone around during this time or even has a cursory knowledge of the era knows that the tape will eventually be released on the internet and that Barb Wire will be a box office bomb, even though there is a lot of dramatic build-up concerning these situations. Pam and Tommy's marriage will end in divorce in 1998.
• Fourth-Date Marriage: Tommy and Pam get married within days of meeting one another. Tommy doesn't even know what movies Pam likes, Pam isn't aware that Tommy's real name is Thomas Lee Bass, and the pair haven't even figured out where they were going to live after they get back from Cancun, to say little of how they only started learning each other's likes and dislikes while on the plane ride home.
• Freudian Excuse: It's implied that Rand's resentment of Pam and Tommy's glamourous lives is partially fueled by mistreatment from his playboy swinger father (himself a successful actor).
• From Bad to Worse: Once the sex tape gets out it starts to spread everywhere, and there is little anyone can do to stop it, especially when it gets on the internet. Episode 5 shows the situation growing significantly worse once Penthouse gets a copy of the tape and decides to release parts of it when Tommy and Pam sue. This gets the attention of the press, spreading the news to mainstream outlets that previously decided it wasn't news.
• Glory Days: Tommy Lee catches a bit of a Behind the Music episode about himself, reminding him that his best days are behind him.
• Good Girl Gone Bad: Despite her sex symbol image, Pamela is a small town Canadian girl who loves romantic movies and dreams of having a stable life with a husband and children. In one scene she even insists to Tommy that she's a good girl and she doesn't do drugs (although that still doesn't stop her from taking ecstacy with him).
• Grey-and-Gray Morality: One one side there's Tommy Lee, a colossally Jerkass and Manchild with an It's All About Me attitude, who sees nothing wrong with ripping people off and either intimidating them with his wealth, or pushing them around and threatening them with firearms. One the other is Rand and Milton and their connections in the porn industry, who have no issue with exploiting people for their own end and only concern themselves with the legalities of an issue in order not to get sued or face serious repercussions and Rand. who had already made back the money Tommy Lee refused to pay him with the other stolen goods, releasing the tape out of a combination of greed and spite. Pamela Anderson, presented as a relatively decent person, is caught in the middle of the clashing egos.
• Green-Eyed Monster: Rand is envious of Tommy Lee's wealth, fame and success, and not only feels like he doesn't deserve any of it, but that he is more deserving of such riches.
• Gun Nut: Tommy Lee has a massive collection of these, and doesn't just love to show them off, but uses them to intimidate others.
• Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Pam is blonde, albeit naturally brunette in real life, and is shown throughout as a sweet-natured person who is nice to almost everyone she meets.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: By series' end, Tommy's hothead nature has taken a serious toll on Pam's mental health. Tommy erupting at a hotel worker for disturbing them to deliver champagne is just about the final straw for her.
• Has a Type: Pamela is aware that she has a habit of getting involved with bad boys who inevitably end up hurting her, and she's trying to correct this flaw. But despite being aware of her weakness for bad boys, she still ends up marrying Tommy just days after meeting him.
• Hate at First Sight: Rand and Tommy immediately get off on the wrong foot during their first meeting. Rand believes strongly in spirituality, so when he sees one of Tommy's tattoos, he immediately goes on an unprompted lecture about the tattoo's meaning. Tommy admits he just got it because it looked cool, clearly annoyed by Rand's comments.
• Heel Realization:
  • Tommy acknowledges he was awful to Rand and deserved the humiliation when the two meet again, only being upset that Pam was caught in the middle.
  • Rand himself goes through his own heel realization in the final couple of episodes. His plan to get revenge has not only thrown his own life into chaos, but Tommy and Pam's lives as well. He feels especially haunted by the humiliation and turmoil he caused to Pamela, considering that she was an innocent bystander who had nothing to do with Tommy ripping off Rand. Rand is unable to personally apologize to Pamela due to the fact that she's surrounded by security at all times, so instead he apologizes to a celebrity impersonator playing Pamela Anderson whom he meets on the Sunset Strip (an act that leaves the celebrity impersonator quite confused).
• Hidden Depths:
  • Tommy and Pamela's entire relationship is this to one another, given that they barely knew one another before they got married. Tommy is surprised to find out that Pam loves musicals, naming The King and I as one of her favorites and knowing all the words to "Getting to Know You". Pam learns that Tommy is very close with his sister and her children and is an excellent chef, particularly of Greek food.
  • Rand is an early adopter of the Internet and its resources, which is how he gets the idea to distribute Pam and Tommy's sex tape.
  • Pam is regularly shown to be unhappy with being seen as a sex symbol and nothing more and wants to be seen as a legitimate actress as well as wanting a stable life with a husband and kids. She is also repeatedly shown as being fully aware of how she is regarded by men and is deeply uncomfortable and resentful of it and is smart enough to recognize that filing a lawsuit about the tape will only bring more attention to it and make the situation much worse.
• How We Got Here:
  • The very first scene of the series involves Pam being interviewed by Jay Leno who starts asking about the sex tape. The camera focuses on her but cuts away before she gives a response to show the events leading up to that point. Her response is later seen in episode seven.
  • The second episode flashes back in time to show us how Tommy and Pam first met, how Tommy obsessively courted Pam and how they then got married.
• Home Porn Movie: Pamela and Tommy filmed themselves while having sex, and Rand Gauthier acquires the tape.
• Humiliation Conga: Episode 7 is one for both Rand and Pam.
  • For Rand, he's stuck living with his ex Erica and her girlfriend, and is in the process of being kicked out. He is found by the Butchie loan shark once they discover that the sex tape has gotten out and is forced to pay back the money he is owned. Rand tries to extort it out of Tommy Lee, but Tommy gives him an epic The Reason You Suck speech before burning the money in front of him. He's completely abandoned by Miltie who is living it up in Amsterdam. Unable to pay back the money, Butchie forces him to work for him and collect money from other derelict clients. Rand reveals his role in stealing the sex tape to Erica, who promptly throws him and and condemns him for violating Pam and Tommy's rights. It ends with Rand beating up the derelict client, and admitting he deserves all the crappy stuff that has happened to him.
  • For Pamela, she loses the court case and acknowledges it's because no one respects her due to her past. Her press tour for Barb Wire is dominated by lewd questions about the sex tape, to which she is forced to play along despite feeling incredibly violated by the act. After the premier of Barb Wire, she overhears people at a party saying it sucks. Pam and Tommy then attend a screening of the film in secret, only to find the audience laughing at Pam's performance.
• Hypocritical Humor: Rand finds a roadside vendor selling bootlegs of the Pam & Tommy tape and reams him out for stealing his stolen video.
• I Need to Go Iron My Dog: When the whole operation starts to crumble, Miltie finds the flimsiest of excuse to quite literally walk on Rand. Including his reason to get the hell out all the way to Amsterdam.
• Idle Rich: Tommy Lee is this. He's ridiculously wealthy, but the glory days of Motley Crue are behind him, and he's left with little to do most of the day.
• The Immodest Orgasm: Pamela and Tommy have sex loudly and often, and anybody who happens to be in the house will hear everything.
• Implausible Deniability: Rand denies to Erica that he's the one who's been racking up calls to the Netherlands on her phone bill, even though it obviously couldn't be anyone else.
• Instant Humiliation: Just Add YouTube!: Or the World Wide Web in this case, as hundreds of VHS copies of the Lees' honeymoon sex tape circulate. After a camgirl website releases the video for free to boost their own rankings, millions of people have seen it, making it completely impossible to contain.
• Irony:
  • In one of Pamela's first scenes she announces that she's tired of dating bad boys and vows to find herself a nice, stable man who will treat her well. Then she meets Tommy, and before the night is over she has fallen head-over-heels for him. A few days later they get married.
  • In his quest for vengeance against Tommy, Rand caused more harm to his own life as well as Pamela, who was entirely innocent, than to Tommy who actually saw a surge in popularity.
  • Pam's publicist warns her that Tommy's bad behavior is hurting her chances of becoming a movie star, noting that you don't see Sandra Bullock's boyfriend in the tabloids. In the 2000s, Sandra Bullock did wind up marrying a bad boy entertainer, Jesse James, who repeatedly embarrassed her.
• It Will Never Catch On:
  • Butchie confidently declares that, because of the problems of legal liability, no celebrity sex tape will ever make money.
  • Rand doesn't believe that the Internet will be a good medium for porn, saying the image quality will be too poor even with future tech advancements, and will mostly be useful for distributing physical media.
  • A reporter fights with her boss at the LA Times to run a story about the sex tape, and the writers on The Tonight Show try to pitch jokes about it to Jay Leno. Both groups are turned down because their superiors think it's not a big enough news story.
  • Butchie is handed a coffee from Starbucks later in the miniseries. He has to ask the name of the company and where it is from twice before he hands it back in disgust and decides to stick with Italian coffee. Fast forward a decade and Starbucks is a worldwide company.
• It's All About Me: Tommy Lee is spectacularly self absorbed, and lives his life like he's in his own rock music video.
• Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique: When Anthony Pellicano shows up at Rand's apartment, he resorts to beating him savagely while interrogating him about the tape. However, he is forced to retreat when Rand's neighbor overhears the noise and threatens to call the police. The next time Pellicano shows up, Rand has already packed up and moved.
• Jerkass: While he can be very charming and has some moments of kindness, Tommy Lee is portrayed throughout as an incredibly immature, hedonistic, self-absorbed, entitled, abrasive, ignorant and overall awful person whose flaws Pam becomes more and more aware of as the initial whirlwind romance gives way to an actual relationship.
• Jerkass Has a Point:
  • Tommy is absolutely correct in that Bob Guccione of Penthouse was willing to release the sex tape in order to get back at Hugh Hefner. However, he didn't realize that suing him would only escalate things rather than shut them down. Unfortunately, threatening him with a lawsuit turns it into a free speech issue from Guccione's perspective, and the judge sides with Penthouse.
  • The lawyer for Penthouse in episode 6 may seem harsh for going after Pam Anderson, trying to create a narrative where Tommy and her willingly created a sex tape that they would sell to Hugh Hefner and Playboy, and that they aren't trying to protect their privacy, using Pamela's history with Playboy against her. While harsh and sexist, it's also the lawyer's job to do this to protect his client's interest.
  • When Tommy meets up with Rand in episode 7, he admits that he may be a jerk and may have deserved some punishment for what he's done, but he's absolutely right that Pam did nothing to Rand and didn't deserve to be humiliated the way she did.
• Karma Houdini: While Rand has to deal with the consequences of his criminal actions, his partner-in-crime Miltie steals their money and escapes any retribution or commeuppance by moving to Amsterdam, spending the next several years on an uninterrupted, very literal Hookers and Blow binge.
• Kick the Dog:
  • Tommy didn't need to force Rand to leave his tools, but doing so while pointing a shotgun at his face and scaring him enough to make Rand wet himself was especially loathsome.
  • When Pamela is breaking down in front of him due to their sex tape leaking out all over the internet, she tells Tommy that while he will be celebrated for it, she'll face harsher treatment due to the fact that she's a woman. Tommy brushes her off, telling her that the tape didn't expose anything she hasn't already shown on television. His reaction causes Pam to tell him to get out.
• Leno Device: Leno himself becomes a minor character in the show, turning down jokes from his writers about the tape. The night he does start reading Pam jokes is the sign that the story has reached critical mass.
• Laser-Guided Karma: When karma catches up with Rand, he consults a tarot reader to find out why he is being punished by the universe, figuring that Tommy Lee was such a Jerkass to him that he deserved to be humiliated. The reader tells him that he hurt a nubile woman associated with water. This makes it pretty clear that Rand is being punished for the collateral damage he did to Pamela.
• Loan Shark: Rand is ecstatic about finally finding someone willing to fund the distribution of the sex tape but Milton explains that the guy is a loan shark who expects to be paid back or else bad things will happen to them. Sure enough, when Milton runs off with the money, Rand has to work off his debts by shaking down other debtors for him.
• Long List: The private investigator asks Tommy Lee if anyone has a grudge against him, and he comes up with a long list of nearly everyone in the music industry and for some reason John Stamos.
• Love at First Sight: The moment Tommy first met Pamela he knew he had to have her, and he didn't stop aggressively pursuing her until they were married a few days later.
• Lust Object: Tommy and Pamela are this to one another.
• Malaproper: Rand says a lot of wrong phrases like "compentory damages" and "mood point."
• Manchild: Tommy Lee is selfish, self-absorbed, immature, and has zero impulse control.
• Mean Boss: Well, mean employer. Tommy doesn't pay the guys who are working on his house, expecting them to pay for the building material out of their own pockets. When Rand goes back to get his toolkit after being fired, Tommy forces him off the property at gunpoint.
• Mirror Character: Ironically, Rand and Pamela, as they both have spiritual (albeit shallow) beliefs. They both "Pray" to the universe to give them what they feel they deserve- righteous comeuppance and a massive payday for Rand, and a child and a respectable career for Pamela.
• Mirroring Factions: The Porn Industry and "Mainstream" Hollywood, in that they both treat their actors—particularly in the form of Pamela—as pieces of meat to be leered at and don't even seem to acknowledge her as a human being.
• Misplaced Retribution: Tommy calls Rand out on this when they meet again, acknowledging that while he was a colossal jerk to Rand and deserved his comeuppance, Pam was never malicious to him or anyone else and yet she suffered far more from the sex tape being released and didn't deserve any of it.
• Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: Tommy's poor treatment of Rand is what inspires Rand to rip him off.
• Money to Burn: When Rand demands the money he's owed, Tommy brings it to him only to make him watch as he sets it on fire.
• Mood Whiplash: A montage of the Pam and Tommy sex tape going out and people beginning to pleasure themselves opens the fourth episode. The episode then cuts to Pam and Tommy at their first sonogram appointment.
• Mr. Fanservice: Tommy Lee spends a lot of the first two episodes walking around with little to nothing on.
• Ms. Fanservice: Pamela being lusted over by practically everyone drives much of the plot.
• Name and Name: The Pam & Tommy title, as shown in the teaser, is for its two leads Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee.
• Nice Girl: Pam is portrayed throughout as a kind, friendly and good-hearted person who didn't deserve what happened to her.
• Nice to the Waiter:
  • Tommy fails to follow this trope and is a complete prima donna to the workmen building his new bedroom. He keeps changing his mind and blames the workmen for it. As the costs of the job balloon, he keeps telling them that "Money is no object" but has them pay for the extra materials out of their own pocket. He then fires them without paying what he owes them. This prompts a broke Rand to rob Tommy in order to recover what he was owed.
  • Pam plays this straight as she is extremely polite to the workers and is not even very upset when Rand accidentally walks in on her wearing just a shirt and is clearly taken aback when she finds out that Tommy didn't pay Rand and threatened him with a gun. After a brutal deposition, a traumatized Pam still has the presence of mind to apologize to the cleaning lady because the deposition room is such a mess. None of the trash in the room is actually Pam's.
• No Honor Among Thieves: Once it looks like the tape business will blow up in their faces, Milton takes the profits and goes for an extended trip to Amsterdam, leaving Rand to face the music. Rand has to explain to the mobster they borrowed money from that he is not getting his money back, which is not a pleasant experience.
• Noodle Incident: Among the many people Tommy lists who may have a grudge against him, he mentions John Stamos to Pam's surprise and Tommy doesn't elaborate, only calling Stamos a "fucking asshole".
• No Such Thing as Bad Publicity: In-universe. A camgirl website based out of Seattle gets a copy of the sex tape and decides to release it for free to increase their online traffic. When Pamela and Tommy file suit against that company, their young CEO is ecstatic because this will mean even more publicity.
• Only Sane Man: Pam is the only one to really realize how disastrous the sex tape will be as well as how the strategy of suing people for distributing it will only make things worse. Tommy brushes the impact off, and Rand and Milton are too caught up in their greed to realize the damage they are doing.
• Oh, Crap!: Pamela and Tommy have such a reaction when they see that their sex tape has been uploaded on The Internet.
  Pam: What... what the hell is this?!
• Open-Minded Parent: Pam's mom is very understanding of her career ambitions, being okay with her posing in Playboy as well as wanting to undergo breast enhancement surgery.
• Open Secret: Since Rand and Milton tried to sell the tape to most of the porn producers in L.A., a lot of people know who has the tape. Tommy's PI only has to make a few phone calls to find out who is involved.
• Out of Focus: Despite the first scene centering around her, Pamela is noticeably barely in the rest of the first episode.
• Parallel Porn Titles: The names of a few of these can be seen on the posters in the offices of the various porn distributors that Rand visits. Edward Penishands, for example. Note: Edward Penishands is VERY real.
• Police Are Useless: After being told by the LAPD officers that burglaries usually go unsolved, Tommy and Pamela hire a private investigator to recover the contents of their stolen safe. It doesn't take the private investigator very long to figure out that Rand is the culprit after asking Tommy if anybody would want revenge against him.
• Pragmatic Villainy: The porn executives Rand and Milton approach are greedy scum but they know that if they try to publish a stolen sex tape, they will be sued into oblivion so they pass.
• Punch a Wall: Rand punches the wall in frustration with his bills that he can't pay and again when he can't find a buyer for the tape.
• Rage Breaking Point: After being fired by Tommy who refuses to pay the thousands of dollars he owes, Rand initially considers suing Tommy until he's told that the legal fees would likely end up being more than the money he lost. Instead, Rand decides to trust that karma will intervene and punish Tommy Lee for his terrible behavior. But when Tommy points a gun at Rand and refuses to let him recover his tools he left at the job site, Rand decides to take matters into his own hands.
• Reasonable Authority Figure:
  • Hugh Hefner is presented as this in the fifth episode. Hugh treats Pam with respect, gives her decent advice, and tells her she has the potential to be a big star.
  • Burt, the editor-in-chief of L.A. Times. He is running a respectable newspaper and keeps throwing down time and again what he considers to be a gossip column trash that his young and ambitious editor Alicia wants to write about the tape. He's probably one of the few people in the story who truly see the implications of the whole thing and where chasing after such sensations can lead in the long run. And he's not happy when the whole thing blows up and his newspaper has to write about it, because everyone else will anyway.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Tommy gives an epic one to Rand in episode 7, calling him out for the fact that while Tommy may have ripped him off and acted like a jerk and probably deserved some payback for what he's done, the fact is that Pamela did nothing to Rand and didn't deserve any of the humiliation she's received from the whole affair.
• Reckless Gun Usage: Tommy is very guilty of this. When showing off his gun collection to his friends they all show a complete disregard for gun safety, not to mention Tommy pointing a (presumably loaded) shotgun at Rand when he comes back to the house to get his tools after being fired.
• Rejected Apology: Rand appears amongst a crowd of paparazzi to Pam's house trying to apologize. Tommy recognizes him and drives away before he can say anything.
• Revenge Before Reason: Both Rand and Tommy run into this. Rand makes very good money on the stolen goods from Tommy but feels he needs to release the sex tape to truly hurt him without even thinking to use it as blackmail and make much more money. Tommy meanwhile fucks up every effort to keep it on the downlow through his efforts to strongarm Rand and sue whoever releases it as it only draws further attention.
• Right Through the Wall: Rand has to listen to Pam and Tommy loudly having sex while he's renovating their house.
• Run for the Border: Miltie decides to "pop on over to Amsterdam" to escape the heat over the sex tape. Rand acknowledges his decision as being smart.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here:
  • After finding out that Tommy has sent people after them, Milton decides to take a trip to Amsterdam and leaves Rand to face the immediate (and likely quite violent) consequences.
  • After the first violent interaction with Pellicano, Rand takes the hint as well. The next time Pellicano visits, Rand and all his belongings are gone.
• Sexy Discretion Shot: In the trailer, Gauthier and Miltie watch the sex tape of Pamela and Tommy, with only immodest orgasms being heard.
• Shut Up, Kirk!: In episode seven, Rand confronts Tommy in person, letting him know exactly why he stole the tape and calling him a bad person. While Tommy admits he probably is a bad person and deserved Rand's wrath, he mentions that Pamela was ultimately the one hurt in all of this and asks Rand what she did to him to deserve it. He has no answer.
• Slow-Loading Internet Image: This being the mid-'90s, we see Rand's website loading agonizingly slowly each time.
• Slut-Shaming: Pam predicts this is what will happen to her once news of the tape gets out. Tommy practically proves her correct when he tries to downplay the issue by saying that no one is seeing anything that they haven't seen before from Pam. Once they lose their suit against Penthouse, Pam is proven right.
• So Beautiful, It's a Curse: Blatantly clear that no one regards Pamela as a human being, and more of a sex object to be leered at.
• Soundtrack Dissonance:
  • The amount of bubblegum Eighties and Nineties pop when one of the subjects is a world famous hard rock artist.
  • Billy Ward and the Dominoes' doo-wop version of "Stardust" playing as Pam and Tommy assault a paparazzo who followed them out of the hospital.
• Streisand Effect: In-Universe, Tommy's attempts to sue Penthouse before they can publish the tape only turns the tape into a national news story.
• Stupid Crooks:
  • Rand definitely doesn't seem to be the brightest bulb on the tree, even though some of his crimes are successful. He does ample preparation for the robbery, but succeeds partly through dumb luck (his partner bails on him but he still goes through with it, the guards barely missed him on the security cameras and a driver might have seen him). The contents of Tommy's safe are enough reward for a simple caper, but he gets too greedy when he then tries to profit off the stolen sex tape. His attempts to sell the tape to legitimate dealers completely fail for legal reasons that should have been obvious, he doesn't realize that his stolen tape can be stolen from him, and it takes him forever to realize that Miltie has ripped him off. Butchie, the Loan Shark he and Miltie went to to fund their bootlegging operation, has to point this out to Rand, in the middle of torturing him. His first attempt at being an enforcer for Butchie fails when he fumbles his bat onto the ground and his confused victim just gets on his bus and rides away.
  • The bikers that Tommy sends after Rand attack the first person they see at the porn studio, and despite having a photo (an old porn video cover) where it is clear he looks nothing like Rand besides being white and male, still assume it's him.
• Take That!: A pointed one at Jay Leno. Jay's writers think about pitching him about making jokes about the sex tape and mocking the fact that he'd turn them down because "Uncle Jimmie and Aunt Susie in Duluth" wouldn't know about it, showing that Jay is less concerned with humor and more with mass appeal. Surely enough, when they pitch it to him in a staff meeting, Jay turns them down for that very reason, and only decides to bring it into the monologue once the story gets national attention.
• Teeny Weenie: Rand has one, at least compared to the average porn actor, which is part of what led to his brief stint as a porn star. The actresses did not want to do anal with the larger actors.
• Tempting Fate: Pam expresses the hope that, despite the story about the lawsuit ending up in Variety, it remains mostly ignored and dies down on it's own. Cue the story promptly blowing up and gaining much greater attention.
• This Is Going to Be Huge:
  • Pam, and her friends and management, all think Barb Wire is going to blow up and turn Pam into a superstar actress.
  • Rand believes the release of the porn tape will make him a big celebrity, even when the point is to keep his involvement a secret from not getting sued.
• This Is Going to Suck: Once she gets wind of the tape getting out, Pam is acutely aware of just how damaging it is going to be to her and her career.
• Took the Bad Film Seriously: In-Universe: Pam is seen rehearsing a cringe-worthy monologue about the dangers of using drugs, and thinks it's an opportunity for her to be seen as a legitimate actress. She also sees Barb Wire as her stepping stone to greater things.
• Traveling Salesman Montage: Milton and Rand shop the tape around to a collection of decreasingly reputable porn companies, and get shot down by all of them.
• Ungrateful Bastard: Tommy Lee constantly changes the plans for the renovation of his home at the last minute, jacking up the cost, all without paying any of the people working on the house. When asked about money, he brushes it off. When Rand accidentally walks in on Pam, Tommy comes up with a lame excuse about the work being shoddy - despite the contractors using the best materials and the delays being caused by Tommy's impulsive choices - and fires them all. When Rand breaks back in to simply get his tools, Tommy threatens Rand with a shotgun, saying that he's keeping the tools for payment for a poor job. Rand decides to rob Tommy to get back what he feels is owed.
• Unwanted Assistance: Pam feels this way more and more about Tommy as his well-intentioned, but reckless ways just end up causing more problems for her.
• Villain Has a Point: Butchie, the Loan Shark Rand and Miltie partner up with and who later tortures Rand for information. He is correct that Miltie ripped him off by fleeing the country with the money they made and points out to Rand what an idiot he is for not realizing this until he has it spelled out for him. He allows Rand to work off his debt by becoming an enforcer.
• "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: There is a brief epilogue at the end of the final episode explaining what became of the three main characters and the tape itself:
  • Pamela divorced Tommy in early 1998 two months after a physical altercation in their home, which resulted in Tommy going to jail for six months after pleading no contest to spousal battery charges. In 2008, ten years after their divorce, the two of them got back together but it did not last. Despite their often-turbulent relationship, the two of them have called each other "the love of their life."
  • Seth Warshavsky sold the DVD rights of the Pam and Tommy sex tape to an adult film studio for $15 million. It's estimated the tape generated $77 million in revenue.
  • In 2002, Rand moved to northern California and became a marijuana grower. Occasionally he will tell someone that he's the guy who stole the Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee sex tape, but almost nobody believes him.
• White-Dwarf Starlet: If Tommy isn't one yet, he's certainly headed in that direction and knows it; he's nowhere near as big as he was ten years ago and is now mostly regarded as representative of a style that's long since fallen out of fashion and become something of a punchline as a result. In many moments he's seen bitterly reflecting on his downward-trending career: getting insulted at an episode of Behind the Music about Motley Crue's decline, glaring at the plaques on his wall showing Crue's decreasing sales, getting bumped from the recording studio by their new label-mates Third Eye Blind, etc. One scene even has him starting a fight with two fans because they said his sex tape was the best thing he'd since "Girls, Girls, Girls," released nine years previously. Tommy is less enraged by them having seen a tape he made privately and which was taken without his consent and more that they think he hadn't released any noteworthy music since 1987. The final episode also has a flashback to Motley Crue's doomed attempt to reinvent itself as a more in line with Grunge to clear disinterest from both their own fans and Grunge fans.

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