Patricia Arquette is at home among Yucca Valley's fringe characters in 'High Desert'
LOS ANGELES — Bringing strong and complicated personalities to life on screen is Patricia Arquette's superpower, as evidenced in films such as "Boyhood" and TV dramas like "The Act" and "Severance." Now Arquette is turning her talents toward comedy with "High Desert," a quirky, character-driven series premiering May 17 on Apple TV+ that's set among the casinos and cactuses around Yucca Valley.
Arquette plays Peggy Newman, a former drug dealer who still partakes in the products she used to sell. Though she's happy enough with her job as a costumed cancan dancer in a Wild West theme park, necessity drives her toward a new career: private investigator. When her messy life and cases collide, the series brims with an array of colorful desert dwellers, from a former news anchor turned spiritual guru to the gambling ladies of drag bingo.
Newman is a hoot: She tools around town in a dune buggy, procures lunch by stealing other people's DoorDash orders and fakes IBS more than once to get out of a fix. But behind the wily blond hair and bluster, she's grappling with her
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