In Blockbuster, Netflix’s new sitcom set in a fictionalized version of the last Blockbuster Video store in the world, characters have little love lost for Netflix. In the real world, it was bad management that drove the world’s largest video store chain into the ground, and Netflix was part of the equation, but not nearly as much so as you might be led to believe. But in the world of Blockbuster, just like on the internet, that story is at least partially flattneed out, its edges rounded off, and becomes a simple story: streaming killed the video store.
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No surprise, then, that the sitcom takes a few swipes at its corporate overlords and at corporate culture in general. It is, admittedly, slightly more surprising that a much-discussed moment from the Netflix documentary The Vow gets singled out for parody in one episode.
You can see the scene in question below.
That line about the cult with “the creepy volleyball guy” and “Chloe from Smallville” is NXIVM. Keith Raniere, who ran the cult, recruited beautiful, wealthy young women, who in turn could help him recruit others like them. The most notorious of his members was Allison Mack (Chloe from Smallville), who is currently serving a three-year prison sentence for her role in the cult. The Vow, a documentary about the cult which was distributed on Netflix, revealed that Raniere (currently serving a 120-year sentence for sex trafficking, forced labor conspiracy and racketeering charges) had a proclivity for volleyball. He and other cult members were seen playing it enough in the documentary that it became the subject of viral internet content and a number of news stories.
The joke that Netflix is a big corporation pushing Blockbuster around is not lost on Eliza (Melissa Fumero), who notes the irony that Blockbuster, once a massive corporation that sold out to an even more massive corporation (Blockbuster was owned by Viacom during much of its heyday), is now “the little guy.” Timmy (Randall Park) doesn’t appreciate her candor, especially since the location in the movie is a franchise, cut loose by a failing corporate structure.
Eliza’s critique carries even less weight in the real world, where the final remaining Blockbuster began its life as a mom-and-pop video store, and fell victim to predatory practices that Blockbuster used to engage in. As seen in the documentary The Last Blockbuster, the Blockbuster store in Bend, OR did not start its life as a Blockbuster franchise, but took on that branding in order to survive. Blockbuster essentially gave the owners an ultimatum: either convert their store to a Blockbuster franchise, or they would move a corporate Blockbuster store into the neighborhood and force the smaller store out of business.
You can see the first season of Blockbuster on Netflix now.
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