Warning: this article contains spoilers for the eighth episode of Disney’s Pam & Tommy.
Throughout most of Disney’s Pam & Tommy miniseries, we’ve watched Pamela Anderson endure a relentless stream of misogyny and exploitation with an unbelievable amount of grace. From observing her camera crew on the set of Baywatch watch her private sex tape and being bombarded with offensive questions during a brutal deposition against Penthouse magazine to becoming a punchline on a national chat show, Pam’s pained smile – with a couple of rare exceptions – has been the only thing belying the anguish bubbling beneath.
But everyone has a breaking point. And Pam, who has followed every social edict to be nice, docile, ladylike and self-sacrificing her whole entire life, has finally had enough in the finale of Pam & Tommy.
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We begin in June 1996, where a heavily pregnant Pam is auditioning for a role in a new film. After just one take, though, she’s dismissed, and when she returns home, she despondently muses to her agent about whether Barb Wire has killed her career. It’s not that film, of course, that’s the problem.
Pam’s agent tries to persuade her to go back to Baywatch. He tells her that he can negotiate a great deal, but Pam wants to stretch her wings, even if it’s just in a James Bond spoof. Soon after she gets the rejection for the part she so desperately wanted and learns that the Bond spoof has gone to Elizabeth Hurley. Sitting outside by the pool, Pam hurls her phone into the water in a fit of rage.
Later on, Pam despairingly tells Tommy that she’s losing all her opportunities because of the tape. Tommy utters fatefully that it “has to die down soon” because of its ubiquity. He couldn’t be more wrong, and in the middle of the night, he gets a call from his Mötley Crüe bandmate Nikki urging him to turn on his computer. Tommy and Pam then discover that the tape is now available to watch on the internet completely free of charge.
The mastermind behind the move to allow people to stream it for free, we soon find out, is Seth Warshavsky, the young porn entrepreneur that sneered at Rand Gauthier’s proposition to put porn on the internet. Warshavsky owns a company called Internet Entertainment based in Seattle, and according to Pam and Tommy’s lawyer, the tape is now set to become a “plague”.
Meanwhile, at Internet Entertainment, the tape is bringing in record numbers of views for a delighted Warshavsky. He’s positively ecstatic, though, when he receives a fax announcing that Pam and Tommy will sue him for putting the tape online for free.
Yet again Pam and Tommy’s legal efforts amount to nothing. The couple are soon informed by their lawyer that they’re being denied an injunction against Internet Entertainment because the tape is considered “media”, and so long as nobody is being charged to watch it, it’s considered commentary and protected by the first amendment.
Pam and Tommy are then summoned by their lawyer for a spontaneous meeting with Warshavsky, who smugly presents them with an offer. He asks to buy the rights to the tape, reasoning that if they don’t sell them, the tape will soon spread all over the web. But if they sell the online rights, he explains, and enable him to start charging people to watch the tape, it would then be illegal for anyone else to stream it, free or otherwise. Crucially, it would also grant him the right to take down the unauthorised copies.
Sell the rights of their private sex tape so a porn producer can profit or do nothing while it spreads like wildfire on the internet: it’s hardly an attractive proposition. But while an enraged Tommy tells Warshavsky to “go fuck yourself”, Pam then comes up with her own solution. She announces to Tommy and her lawyer that she’d rather give Warshavsky the rights free of charge because he doesn’t get to “buy her”. Tommy is appalled and tells Pam incredulously that he’s on the tape just like she is. “Not like me,” she says in a fatalistic voice.
Pam’s next act of liberation comes when she tells Tommy that she needs some time away from him and wants to return home to recuperate from the stress. In the middle of packing her bags, however, he manages to persuade her to go on an impromptu roadtrip, just like old times. Pam reluctantly agrees, and the pair set off in happy spirits.
After making an overnight pitstop at a hotel in Vegas, however, things quickly turn sour. After being pursued by a crowd in the hotel lobby, Tommy continues to frustrate Pam with antagonistic behaviour. Things come to a head in the middle of the night, when Pam wakes to find Tommy is missing. When she goes downstairs to the hotel bar in her dressing gown, she finds him drinking at the bar and bragging about his penis. With a horrified look, she ups and leaves.
After borrowing a stranger’s motorbike to pursue Pam back to Malibu, Tommy arrives back at the couple’s mansion to find a pensive Pam watching TV on the sofa. He tells her wearily that he resolves to “do better” in future, upon which she hands him the contract from Internet Entertainment instructing him to sign over the rights to the tape.
Tommy protests once more about signing the papers, and asks Pam what she will do if he refuses to do so. She sits in silence despite Tommy’s demands for an answer. Suddenly, he flies into a violent rage, screaming in her face and trashing the living room. Pam then coolly delivers a two-word response: “It’s over.”
In the final scenes of the episode, we see Pam give birth to the couple’s baby boy at their mansion alongside Tommy, who films the momentous occasion on a video camera. It’s not a reunion, though. As Tommy gets dressed one morning, we see Pam’s half of the closet is empty. Sometime after, we find Pam in a tattoo parlour with her infant in the pram beside her. She sits as Tommy’s name on her ring finger is altered to read “Mommy”. When it’s done, she spots a photo on the wall of Tommy and smiles.
A postscript then explains that in February 1998, Pamela Anderson filed for divorce from Tommy Lee. “The filing came two months after Lee’s arrest stemming from a physical fight in the couple’s kitchen,” it continues. “Lee pleaded no contest to felony spousal battery and was sentenced to six months in jail.”
We also learn that Seth Warshavsky subsequently sold the DVD rights of the sex tape to Vivid Entertainment for $15 million and that the tape is estimated to have generated $77 million.
It’s a stinging note to end on, and the collateral damage resulting from the fallout of the sex tape can’t purely be measured in dollars. And although Pam was unable to do anything about the spread of the tape, it is encouraging to see her reclaim her power and step away from the abuse within her relationship. After withstanding more than the average person should have to withstand, it is those two little words that enable Pam to start a new chapter and find mental peace.
Images: Disney+
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