House of Lies is an American comedy-drama television series created by Matthew Carnahan. The show, which premiered on Showtime on January 8, 2012, is based on the book, House of Lies: How Management Consultants Steal Your Watch and Then Tell You the Time, written by Martin Kihn, a former consultant at Booz Allen Hamilton. It follows a group of management consultants who stop at nothing to get business deals done.
The show focuses on the personal and business lives of Marty Kaan (Don Cheadle), a manipulative, immoral, driven and cold management consultant.
Originally, Marty was a highly successful partner at consultancy firm Galweather Stearn, where he headed up a pod consisting of engagement manager Jeannie van der Hooven (Kristen Bell) and associates Clyde Oberholdt (Ben Schwartz) and Doug Guggenheim (Josh Lawson). He later leaves this position to head up his own firm, Kaan & Associates.
In addition to the questionable business practices of Marty and his team, the series also focuses on Marty's personal life; he deals with his psychotic management consultant ex-wife Monica (Dawn Olivieri), his retired-psychiatrist father Jeremiah (Glynn Turman) and his confidently flamboyant son Roscoe (Donis Leonard, Jr). The main character Marty often breaks the fourth wall; he talks to the viewers in a freeze frame bit in which he alone moves and the others in the background 'freeze' but continue where they left off before the bit. Alternatively he talks to the audience while everyone moves but the others seem oblivious to the fact that he is on a monologue.
