Just for the Cameras

Quinn (Til Summer Do Us Part) launches the Bay Area Players series with this raucous sports romance. Brooding Graydon St. John, the defensive end for the failing San Francisco Foghorns, has a reputation for playing poorly with others. To improve the team’s PR, however, he and his teammates must volunteer at the San Francisco Zoo, meaning he’ll have to put up with a partnership with sunny zookeeper Mapel Baker. Mapel is passionate about her work and determined to save her beloved flamingo lagoon from being turned into a gift shop by the zoo’s greedy owner. She finds Graydon dismissive and borderline menacing, but hopes to use his fame to draw attention to her cause. As the pair post videos on social media in which Mapel teaches Graydon about flamingos and he shows her how to play football, their followers become convinced they’re a couple. Foghorn’s PR team encourages them to go along with it, and the more they pretend to be in love, the more they fall for each other for real. Quinn manages to infuse their slow-burning connection with all the raunchiness she’s known for as well as her trademark over-the-top humor (Mapel and Graydon get off on the wrong foot after she hears him calling flamingos “pink-feathered dipshits on stilts”). Fans will not be disappointed. (Feb.)