Matt Dillon and Patricia Arquette Photo: Apple TV+‘High Desert” establishes itself right away as a feel-good series, because you feel so good that you aren’t Peggy Newman.
When we meet her, federal drug agents are raiding her Thanksgiving, traumatizing the family party as her husband ( Matt Dillon ) tries to jam the evidence down the drains à la Lorraine Bracco in “Goodfellas.” A long 10 years later, Peggy is still kicking around Southern California, still trying to kick drugs, and working as an actress/re-enactor in an Old West theme park called Pioneer Town.
Her mother, Rosalyn (Bernadette Peters), is dead.
And she gets her way mostly because people want her to go away.