While I was watching the first two episodes of The Good Place one of the biggest questions I had was how the show would handle Jianyu (Manny Jacinto) going forward. Blabbermouth Tahani having a silent monk as a soulmate was a funny concept but one that seemed like it was quickly going to go stale. The end of last week's episode however revealed that there was much more to Jianyu than had been let on and Jason Mendoza takes that revealing and runs with it, giving Jacinto an excellent showcase for his comedic chops and making "Jianyu" a much better and funnier character in the process.
Now that he can talk, we learn a ton of information about Jianyu this week. His name is Jason for starters, he's Filipino not Taiwanese like everyone thinks he is. ("Heaven is so racist", he bemoans), and he was an amateur EDM DJ from Jacksonville, along with being an amateur hip-hop back-up dancer and body spray inventor who made money selling fake drugs to college kids. He's also shallow, simple-minded and not that bright, only managing to avoid detection through dumb luck (The first thing Michael brings up when he arrives is the vow of silence the real Jianyu is under so he latches onto that). Now the "dumb guy" is a classic sitcom staple that Good Place creator Mike Schur is quite familiar with (and which he practically perfected on Parks and Rec with Andy Dwyer), and Jason with his perpetually stoned bro vibe, lazy pronunciation (there's much confusion when he shows Eleanor his "bud hole"), and low ambition (His dream was to DJ all around Florida) is a fresh variation on the archetype. Jason also gives The Good Place a purely comedic character they can lean on for quick, fast punchlines, something the show could definitely use more of in this early-going period. Sure enough, Jason Mendoza is probably the funniest episode of The Good Place so far, with lots of humour derived from the goofy dumbness of Jason and Jacinto's stellar delivery and mannerisms. It turns out last week's "I'm freaking out homie!" was just the beginning of Jason's charm. Jason Mendoza is also probably the most tension-filled episode of The Good Place so far, as Jason proves to be the biggest threat to Eleanor's secret yet.
See Jason is driven by desire and his key desire is to always be himself. Flashbacks (the first time the flashback aren't about Eleanor and hopefully not the last) take us back to Jason's DJ days where he gets a chance to fill in for DJ Acidcat, wearing a big helmet and pushing a button every night while the real deal is elsewhere. It's more recognition than he's probably ever gotten as Mr. Music, the DJ (best DJ name ever, by the way) but it's not good enough for him so he unmasks, plays one of his own beats and gets promptly booed and pelted with garbage. Sued for breach of contract, Jason decides never to pretend to be someone else again, lest it cost him his dreams in life and then blows up DJ Acidcat's speedboat in retaliation. Now though he finds himself forced to be someone he isn't once again, with his "bud hole" (described as 12-Year-Old Boy meets 13-Year-Old Boy by Eleanor) the only place he can be himself. This isn't sitting right with him though and coming clean to Eleanor has made him decide to stop pretending and be himself again. It doesn't matter how much danger this puts himself, Eleanor, and Chidi in or how it might affect Tahani (still sad about her inability to click with who she thinks is his soulmate). Jason just can't take being Jianyu for one more minute so at The grand opening of The Good Plates (a new restaurant where you're served your favourite dish in the world.) where Michael and Tahani are under the impression that Jianyu has gained the courage to start talking, he decides to start talking about his real favourite meal (Jianyu's is a block of tofu), the buffalo wings at Stupid Nick's Wing Dump. It's an act that's understandable and relatable. No one wants to be someone they're not after all, but it's also incredibly selfish and dangerous. So to protect herself, Eleanor does something equally understandable, but equally selfish and dangerous.
Destroying the cake the chef at The Good Plates has spent all week working on is the first time since arriving that Eleanor does a bad thing on purpose with the intention of creating havoc. It's something she has to do to protect her secret but it doesn't make it right and the consequences reflect that. Selfishness has only begat more selfishness and the sinkhole that results is the most destructive thing she's caused since the storm. She tells Jason she did it to save him from himself but really she did it to save her and she knows it. It hasn't fixed anything either. Jason still wants to be himself, even rejecting Chidi's gracious offer of a spot in his Ethics class. This is when The Good Place flips the traditional lesson of "Be true to yourself" on it's head. Jason wants to be himself, but "himself" sucks. "Himself" is a selfish person who puts his desires above everyone else. Sometimes you need to change and become a better version of yourself. Eleanor has been trying to better herself, but she hasn't been giving it as much effort as she should or given Chidi the appreciation he deserves. It's when she sees Jason reject Chidi's offer that she gains a new appreciation for what Chidi has been doing and is able to recognise that they both need to be better, even if it's not as easy as just being themselves. This allows her to give Jason the wake-up call he needs to accept Chidi's help and learn "ethnics" as he calls it. It's not going to be easy and Jason's "dumb guy" status makes him a much tougher student than Eleanor but it's worth a try to be someone better than himself.
It might be too-little too-late for Eleanor and Jason though as the damage their actions led to in the restaurant proves more significant than initially thought. Michael assures Tahani that the sinkhole should fix itself within a few days but the end of the episode shows it's still growing. Eleanor was able to clean up the garbage storm and make Tahani's plant go from on fire to blooming but this sinkhole won't be as easily fixed it seems. This is an interesting but welcome note for the episode to end on because although it's not a huge twist like the Jason reveal, it doesn't let us feel at ease with how things are. Just like the aftermath of a cruel act in life, the danger has subsided but the damage remains and it's not going to magically fix itself. It'll be interesting to see what it will take to fix it.
Memorable Moments
-Tahani and Michael spend the episode getting ready for the restaurant opening, dealing with Tahani's soulmate issues (Michael assures her that her problems are normal and most soulmates take a few months to click) and deciding to help keep the neighbourhood together. It doesn't do much beyond keep the story in motion but that's fine. Hopefully they'll have more to do next week though.
-William Jackson-Harper continues to delight as Chidi. His shock and "You broke Jianyu" reaction to seeing Jason in all his douchey glory has to be seen to be believed.
-The "bud hole" confusion was funnier the first time than the second. Hopefully that's a one-episode gag and not a recurring thing.
-Michael drops an interesting fact. "Any place or thing in the universe can be up to 104% perfect. That's how you got Beyoncé."
-If we don't see more of the restaurant, I at least hope we see more of Chef Patricia, a very intense woman who angrily yells positive statements and remarks ("Change the floor plan an hour before opening?! Of course! The more the merrier!").
-The other Eleanor's favourite meal was the hunger strike she went on to protest Bolivian sex trafficking so our Eleanor doesn't get a meal at The Good Plates.
-Michael reassures someone who fell in the sink hole. "Glenn, stay calm. We're gonna get you out of there. And we'll put your soup in the fridge so it won't go to waste. I know that may not be your number one concern right now, but-" "It was up there. It's real good soup."
-Jason has two questions about the ethics class. "When are football tryouts and does this school have a prom?" This won't be easy.
Friday, 30 September 2016
Superstore Makes An Impression Getting Back To Work
Someone tries to hide a major problem from their boss only to make the problem worse. Someone tries to teach their difficult co-worker how to get along better with others and fails. Someone tries to impress their boss by acting like someone they aren't or by trying to hard. An employee on leave comes to visit and gets sucked right back into working. All of these situations are classic sitcom tropes (with a couple bordering on being straight-up clichés.) and all of them were featured on Superstore tonight. This could've made "Back To Work" feel unoriginal and tired, a bit of a comedown from last weeks episode. Instead, "Back To Work" manages to be just as strong as "Strike" by rooting things in the strong setting and character work Superstore has been doing since it started and tying it to the fall-out of last week's strike, giving each story a specificity that either transcended the trope or made it funny enough to be irrelevant.
Like last week, much of the episode's action is spurred in response to Jeff (Michael Sutton), the mild-mannered district manager who Corporate sent in response to the strike. Jeff has decided to stick around for a day to observe and see what can be done better. Once again, Sutton plays Jeff perfectly as an ordinary guy trying to do his job in the face of the other character's shenanigans and watching him be perplexed and slightly frustrated about the craziness around him, while being a reasonable guy is a treat. The just trying to do his job part also remains key to the character's success. He's not a corporate monster but he does work for corporate and he represents their interests. He's willing to listen to the Cloud Nine employee's suggestions and concerns about how corporate could improve but he's also going to give them suggestions of his own because "everything is a two-way street". For Amy, this is enough to write him off entirely as someone who will listen to their complaints but not actually respond to them. This seems accurate, but we never get to find out if this is the case though because Amy winds up being too busy looking for a missing thumb to actually give Jeff her concerns and suggestions.
For the second week in a row, we see nothing spurs Amy into making rash decisions like the casual callousness of corporate. Only this time, instead of leading the employees to strike, Amy is hoping for a perfect day, like the fabled "March 14th" of a few months ago. What better way to prove Jeff and his "two-way street" remarks wrong than by giving the impression that there's no way for the employees to improve? Unfortunately days like "March 14th" can't be manufactured and when Amy tries to get Marcus, a less-than-bright employee to help her with a staff shortage in the deli, he promptly slices his thumb off in a shocking and hilarious sequence. Amy quickly springs into action, storing the thumb in a container of guacamole and trying to get Marcus to the hospital before Jeff can discover what happened. Unfortunately their efforts to conceal the incident lead to the container with the thumb getting lost in the store. Here, Amy's efforts to avoid confirming Jeff's suggestion that improvements could be made by them as well as corporate lead to the quick derailment of her big chance to get her concerns listened to, which was her original goal. It's funny watching her, Garrett and others scramble around the store in search of the thumb and blow off Jeff's efforts to listen to their concerns because this is a time-sensitive matter but it's poignant too. Trying to create perfection has only led to chaos and trying to hide the chaos only leads to a customer producing the thumb in front of Jeff, making this all an exercise in futility. Entertaining futility with lots of funny moments for Amy and Garrett, but futility all the same, and the irony was Jeff didn't wind up having suggestions for improvement. Had Amy not caused an incident trying to prove him wrong, she'd have proven him wrong.
It's a good character story for Amy, well played by Ferrara, and it's good to see Amy's growing resentment with corporate carrying over from the last episode. It also suggests an interesting lesson. Amy wants change but after the failed strike and the thumb fiasco, it's clear she doesn't know how to actually make this happen. Jeff's "two-way street" remark rubbed her the wrong way and rightfully so, but maybe if she took it to heart and worked to manage her frustrations with corporate, she might be able to cause the corporate change she so badly wants after all. It's an interesting implication (though never outright stated in the episode) and whatever direction Amy's story goes as the season progresses, I hope this will be further explored.
Also an exercise in futility is Jonah's efforts to improve Dina's standing in the eyes of her co-workers, all of whom still resent her for not walking out with them. After a season where most of Jonah and Dina's interactions revolved around her one-sided feelings for him, it's refreshing to see them in a story that has nothing to do with that. Dina remains a female copy of Dwight Schrute (both the "gifts" she gives to her co-workers by breaking into their lockers and her attempt at reading the apology letter Jonah writes her are things I could easily see Dwight doing) and the show's broadest character, but the material here (her disdain of the motivating story Jonah tells her leading her to give him a book on how to tell better stories is one of the better jokes of the episode) is funny enough to work, and Ash's performance continues to be strong enough to avoid steering Dina into the caricature territory that most Dwight Schrute imitators are in. the story does serve to teach us something important about Dina though: she doesn't care if people likes her, she cares about doing what she thinks is right. When the store walked out, she stayed behind because she felt it was the right thing to do and when she sees Amy fretting to Glenn about possibly getting fired over the thumb incident, she blackmails Jeff into not submitting his incident report for the same reason. The "jerk actually cares" moment has been done to death in fiction to the point where I knew how Amy and Dina's story would resolve the moment Dina walked into frame, but it works here because it doesn't feel like the writers are showing us a secret, sensitive side of Dina. They're showing us the same Dina we know and tolerate doing something to help a co-worker and it feels honest. Dina's a jerk but she's not heartless. It also works because the show does a convincing job of making us think the story will end on Jonah contemplating his need to be liked so that when Dina does walk into frame in Amy's story, the dovetailing of the two plots is unexpected. Feldman also shines in this plot, not having much to do beyond react to Ash, but doing that reacting like a champ.
Glenn, Mateo, and a returning Cheyenne (Nichole Bloom) wind up in stories that are much slighter, but manage to add to the comedy and poignancy of the episode. Glenn's attempt to come off as a hardass boss isn't even a story as much as it is a running joke/excuse for Mark Mckinney to steal every scene he's in but it's a great joke because of how well we know Glenn at this point. Watching him get stuck in a chair he's knocked over or calling an employee's appendicitis "Argle Bargle" or trying to be mean to Garrett only highlights the sweetness of the character. Meanwhile Cheyenne makes her return to the show in a sad, short story where she stops in for a few minutes to see people and show them baby pictures, only to be blown off by a frantic Amy and winding up back on the cash register when she tries to ring herself in, while most of the employees are away meeting with Jeff, and reamed out by a customer for talking to her baby on the phone while at the register, a phone she then puts in the customers bag. It's a brief story but a nice reintroduction to Cheyenne and a good showcase for Bloom after sitting last week out. Finally Mateo's efforts to impress Jeff is basically his exact same story from last week (Though Jeff calling him Ma-Tah-to is quite funny), but it ends on an unexpected note that suggests much more promising things are to come. Jeff assuring Mateo he noticed him before putting his hand on his shoulder and saying he definitely noticed him is a welcome swerve because of how ambiguous it is. Is Jeff going to be a love interest in addition to his role as foil/slight antagonist? What does "I've definitely noticed you" mean anyways? It's hard to say but whether this leads to a story we've seen before a hundred times or something fresh and unexpected, if Superstore puts in the same kind of thought and effort as it did with Back To Work, it's bound to be a winner.
Memorable Moments
-Best Interstitial: A man and a woman grab the same tube of Hemorrhoid's Cream. Their eyes meet and they smile. The start of a beautiful love story.
-It's nice to see Superstore keep introducing new possible side characters instead of leaning on the ones they established and developed in season 1 week after week. Besides Marcus, the one that makes a big impression this week is Peter, who's annoyed by the Gay Guy mug Dina gets him but drinks from it anyways later in the episode.
-Garrett is relegated to the sidelines this week but he gets a lot of great moments, from undermining Glenn's attempt to pretend to be mean to him by acting oblivious and then hurt ("He's right. Actually I am kinda lazy", he eventually concedes to Jeff.) from casually rifling through customer's carts in search for the thumb ("Ooh beige. That's a crazy colour for a towel".).
-Marcus' refusal to confirm that that's his thumb lying on the ground leads to a great sequence scored to We Belong Together, one of the rare times muzak plays in a non interstitial scene.
-Mateo's efforts to get a customer to repeat her calling him a lifesaver in front of Jeff don't go so well. "Now tell him what you said to me." "You're hurting my arm".
-And following that: "In the future, I'd love you to not grab our customers. Okay, Ma-tah-to?" "It's Ma-tato. I mean Mateo."
-Dina's disgust at the apology speech Jonah has written is a familiar scene, but a funny one. "Mahatma Gandhi once said, "Forgiveness is an attribute of the strong"? Ugh, starting with a quote. It's like a middle-school book report."
Like last week, much of the episode's action is spurred in response to Jeff (Michael Sutton), the mild-mannered district manager who Corporate sent in response to the strike. Jeff has decided to stick around for a day to observe and see what can be done better. Once again, Sutton plays Jeff perfectly as an ordinary guy trying to do his job in the face of the other character's shenanigans and watching him be perplexed and slightly frustrated about the craziness around him, while being a reasonable guy is a treat. The just trying to do his job part also remains key to the character's success. He's not a corporate monster but he does work for corporate and he represents their interests. He's willing to listen to the Cloud Nine employee's suggestions and concerns about how corporate could improve but he's also going to give them suggestions of his own because "everything is a two-way street". For Amy, this is enough to write him off entirely as someone who will listen to their complaints but not actually respond to them. This seems accurate, but we never get to find out if this is the case though because Amy winds up being too busy looking for a missing thumb to actually give Jeff her concerns and suggestions.
For the second week in a row, we see nothing spurs Amy into making rash decisions like the casual callousness of corporate. Only this time, instead of leading the employees to strike, Amy is hoping for a perfect day, like the fabled "March 14th" of a few months ago. What better way to prove Jeff and his "two-way street" remarks wrong than by giving the impression that there's no way for the employees to improve? Unfortunately days like "March 14th" can't be manufactured and when Amy tries to get Marcus, a less-than-bright employee to help her with a staff shortage in the deli, he promptly slices his thumb off in a shocking and hilarious sequence. Amy quickly springs into action, storing the thumb in a container of guacamole and trying to get Marcus to the hospital before Jeff can discover what happened. Unfortunately their efforts to conceal the incident lead to the container with the thumb getting lost in the store. Here, Amy's efforts to avoid confirming Jeff's suggestion that improvements could be made by them as well as corporate lead to the quick derailment of her big chance to get her concerns listened to, which was her original goal. It's funny watching her, Garrett and others scramble around the store in search of the thumb and blow off Jeff's efforts to listen to their concerns because this is a time-sensitive matter but it's poignant too. Trying to create perfection has only led to chaos and trying to hide the chaos only leads to a customer producing the thumb in front of Jeff, making this all an exercise in futility. Entertaining futility with lots of funny moments for Amy and Garrett, but futility all the same, and the irony was Jeff didn't wind up having suggestions for improvement. Had Amy not caused an incident trying to prove him wrong, she'd have proven him wrong.
It's a good character story for Amy, well played by Ferrara, and it's good to see Amy's growing resentment with corporate carrying over from the last episode. It also suggests an interesting lesson. Amy wants change but after the failed strike and the thumb fiasco, it's clear she doesn't know how to actually make this happen. Jeff's "two-way street" remark rubbed her the wrong way and rightfully so, but maybe if she took it to heart and worked to manage her frustrations with corporate, she might be able to cause the corporate change she so badly wants after all. It's an interesting implication (though never outright stated in the episode) and whatever direction Amy's story goes as the season progresses, I hope this will be further explored.
Also an exercise in futility is Jonah's efforts to improve Dina's standing in the eyes of her co-workers, all of whom still resent her for not walking out with them. After a season where most of Jonah and Dina's interactions revolved around her one-sided feelings for him, it's refreshing to see them in a story that has nothing to do with that. Dina remains a female copy of Dwight Schrute (both the "gifts" she gives to her co-workers by breaking into their lockers and her attempt at reading the apology letter Jonah writes her are things I could easily see Dwight doing) and the show's broadest character, but the material here (her disdain of the motivating story Jonah tells her leading her to give him a book on how to tell better stories is one of the better jokes of the episode) is funny enough to work, and Ash's performance continues to be strong enough to avoid steering Dina into the caricature territory that most Dwight Schrute imitators are in. the story does serve to teach us something important about Dina though: she doesn't care if people likes her, she cares about doing what she thinks is right. When the store walked out, she stayed behind because she felt it was the right thing to do and when she sees Amy fretting to Glenn about possibly getting fired over the thumb incident, she blackmails Jeff into not submitting his incident report for the same reason. The "jerk actually cares" moment has been done to death in fiction to the point where I knew how Amy and Dina's story would resolve the moment Dina walked into frame, but it works here because it doesn't feel like the writers are showing us a secret, sensitive side of Dina. They're showing us the same Dina we know and tolerate doing something to help a co-worker and it feels honest. Dina's a jerk but she's not heartless. It also works because the show does a convincing job of making us think the story will end on Jonah contemplating his need to be liked so that when Dina does walk into frame in Amy's story, the dovetailing of the two plots is unexpected. Feldman also shines in this plot, not having much to do beyond react to Ash, but doing that reacting like a champ.
Glenn, Mateo, and a returning Cheyenne (Nichole Bloom) wind up in stories that are much slighter, but manage to add to the comedy and poignancy of the episode. Glenn's attempt to come off as a hardass boss isn't even a story as much as it is a running joke/excuse for Mark Mckinney to steal every scene he's in but it's a great joke because of how well we know Glenn at this point. Watching him get stuck in a chair he's knocked over or calling an employee's appendicitis "Argle Bargle" or trying to be mean to Garrett only highlights the sweetness of the character. Meanwhile Cheyenne makes her return to the show in a sad, short story where she stops in for a few minutes to see people and show them baby pictures, only to be blown off by a frantic Amy and winding up back on the cash register when she tries to ring herself in, while most of the employees are away meeting with Jeff, and reamed out by a customer for talking to her baby on the phone while at the register, a phone she then puts in the customers bag. It's a brief story but a nice reintroduction to Cheyenne and a good showcase for Bloom after sitting last week out. Finally Mateo's efforts to impress Jeff is basically his exact same story from last week (Though Jeff calling him Ma-Tah-to is quite funny), but it ends on an unexpected note that suggests much more promising things are to come. Jeff assuring Mateo he noticed him before putting his hand on his shoulder and saying he definitely noticed him is a welcome swerve because of how ambiguous it is. Is Jeff going to be a love interest in addition to his role as foil/slight antagonist? What does "I've definitely noticed you" mean anyways? It's hard to say but whether this leads to a story we've seen before a hundred times or something fresh and unexpected, if Superstore puts in the same kind of thought and effort as it did with Back To Work, it's bound to be a winner.
Memorable Moments
-Best Interstitial: A man and a woman grab the same tube of Hemorrhoid's Cream. Their eyes meet and they smile. The start of a beautiful love story.
-It's nice to see Superstore keep introducing new possible side characters instead of leaning on the ones they established and developed in season 1 week after week. Besides Marcus, the one that makes a big impression this week is Peter, who's annoyed by the Gay Guy mug Dina gets him but drinks from it anyways later in the episode.
-Garrett is relegated to the sidelines this week but he gets a lot of great moments, from undermining Glenn's attempt to pretend to be mean to him by acting oblivious and then hurt ("He's right. Actually I am kinda lazy", he eventually concedes to Jeff.) from casually rifling through customer's carts in search for the thumb ("Ooh beige. That's a crazy colour for a towel".).
-Marcus' refusal to confirm that that's his thumb lying on the ground leads to a great sequence scored to We Belong Together, one of the rare times muzak plays in a non interstitial scene.
-Mateo's efforts to get a customer to repeat her calling him a lifesaver in front of Jeff don't go so well. "Now tell him what you said to me." "You're hurting my arm".
-And following that: "In the future, I'd love you to not grab our customers. Okay, Ma-tah-to?" "It's Ma-tato. I mean Mateo."
-Dina's disgust at the apology speech Jonah has written is a familiar scene, but a funny one. "Mahatma Gandhi once said, "Forgiveness is an attribute of the strong"? Ugh, starting with a quote. It's like a middle-school book report."
Friday, 23 September 2016
Superstore Fights The Power On Strike
Superstore ended a first season that started out good and kept getting better as it went along with a powerful sequence that was the culmination of where the season has taken these characters. Amy (America Ferrara) and Jonah (Ben Feldman) leading a walk-out to protest the firing of Glenn (Mark McKinney) for giving Cheyenne (Nichole Bloom) paid maternity leave, only for Dina (Lauren Ash) to fire them and declare the store would be fine without them was a strong ending that raised plenty of questions of where the show would pick up when it returned and where the characters would go from there. As it turns out the characters also have plenty of questions about where they go from there and Strike picks up immediately where we left off with everyone unsure what they're doing or if they're even on strike (Amy says they aren't, but Jonah disagrees, which becomes a running gag throughout the episode). It then proceeds to write itself out of the corner Labour left Superstore in in a way that's funny and disheartening and true to the world of the show, while promising interesting things to come in Superstore's second season.
Helping things out is Jeff (guest star Michael Bunin), the district manager Cloud Nine Corporate has sent to diffuse the situation. Bunin is sent to recur throughout the season, which is good because Jeff provides an excellent foil for the rest of the cast. He's not some soulless corporate monster, he's a regular guy who just wants to resolve the situation peacefully and calmly so he can get out of the motel he's been put in. At the same time, he represents corporate interests and certainly isn't going to cede the moral high ground to the employees. He offers to rehire Glenn and give everyone else their jobs back if they sign an apology letter and that's it. He's perfectly willing to bring in scabs and cut out the employees if they won't sign the letter but he would prefer not to have to. It makes him a complex antagonist and it should be interesting to see how he plays off of everyone else in future episodes with the status quo restored
The most interesting journey of the episode as usual belongs to Amy. She starts off the episode adamant that the workers are not on strike and that all they want is Glenn's job back. When Jeff brings up the apology letter though, that's when she snaps and decides to go on (or continue on if you ask Jonah) strike because she can't stand the way Cloud Nine stomps on the rights of their workers and her pride is hurt when Jeff suggests they're in over their heads. Making real change is a lot harder than her and Jonah anticipated though, and once the strike becomes a reality things start OK quickly deteriorate. The episode's best scene has Amy go on local news to talk about the strike, only for that to be hijacked when other protesters (who have shown up thanks to a vague #protestcloudnine tweet from Jonah) announce they're there to protest Transgender Bathroom rights. It's excellent commentary on how protests can grow out of hand and become about things they were never meant to be about, while getting solid comedy about a contentious subject. Amy soon leads the striking employees into the store to try and drive customers away but is only able to convince one person to stop shopping and leave through her argument and not the other's disruptive ploys. As Jeff brings in employees from Kirkland scabs and gives an end-of-day ultimatum for signing the letter, interest in the strike quickly fades. It's poignant watching everyone slowly cave in, even with great jokes like Amy and Dina fighting over Sandra like a dog having to pick between owners. Eventually we're down to Amy and Jonah who finally give up the 1-day (2 if you ask Jonah) strike and let corporate win but resolve this was the only beginning. Hopefully they mean that because there is a lot to mine from Amy and Jonah trying to fight for worker's rights through other means. In the meantime it's a slightly downer beat to end on and a great choice for the show.
The other characters are mostly relegated to the background in Strike, but they're all given something funny to do in the background. Most substantially, Garrett (Colton Dunn) meets Nikki, a protester who's perfect for him, at least until he realises she's also against Trans rights. It's a slight, but funny storyline and it has a good pay-off when Garrett decides to sleep with her anyways even though she's a bigot. It's a funny beat that feels true to Garrett's character. Mateo (Nico Santos) gets an even slighter storyline where he keeps sneaking away from the strike to work and try to impress Jeff. It's more of a running gag than a story and there's basically no pay-off or ending beyond Amy thinking he was one of the strong ones when he wasn't, but it highlights Mateo's ambitiousness and hopefully is setting up things for down the line. The only story that didn't really work for me was Dina's efforts to break the strike and regain her old job. It had funny moments (Dina accidentally breaking all the windows on Glenn's car with the power washer chief among them) but kept Dina overly broad without the subtle characterization that Ash brought last season. Also restoring Dina to her old position this early is a bit disappointing, seeing as the show had only begun to explore the idea of Amy as assistant manager last season. Hopefully there's better things ahead for Dina as the season goes on that allow her to feel more human.
Overall there, Strike is a strong return for Superstore, serving as a great re-introduction to the characters and resolving last season's cliffhanger in a way that was entertaining and didn't feel like too much of a cop-out. Superstore has a lot of potential to be one of the best comedies on TV and hopefully this is the start of it realising that potential.
Memorable Moments
-The show continues fleshing out their side characters by introducing Dougie, who seems like a loveable wreck.
-Mertle has some reasonable demands. "I want Cloud Nine to be closer to my house".
-Jonah and Amy raid Cloud Nine's business wear before their meeting with Jeff, leading to a great sight gag of Amy in a pink suit and Jonah with a dumb fedora he won't take off.
-Jeff is not that happy with the motel he's been put in. "It says continental breakfast but it's like cereal and toast, and I'm like I can make that at home".
-Jonah's efforts to quote Dr. Martin Luther King are quickly and rightfully shut down by Garrett.
-"I just want you to know that not all Christians are bigots, OK? Well that one is. That's Maggie. She goes to my church. She thinks she's sooo great because she has a karaoke machine". Mark McKinney's delivery can make anything funny.
-"We are down to only one raccoon in the store. Unfortunately that raccoon has grown powerful beyond our wildest fears".
-Jonah tries to dumb himself down for the shoppers. "I don't know about youze guys but this broad's making some good sense, huh".
-Jeff mistakenly assumes Brett is Glenn, because "he just has an air of authority about him".
-Amy tries to rally the troops. "What are they gonna do? Find someone who stocks go-backs like Mateo or who works the cash register like Elias?" "Yes. Those are both very easy things to do".
-"This is what Martin Luther King would do"- Garrett on his plan to sleep with Nikki a time or six and then withhold sex until she takes a look at who she is as a person and make some serious changes.
-Best Interstitial: A boy with his head caught in a chair quietly struggles as everyone ignores him.
Everyone's A Bit Insecure on The Good Place, Even Tahani Al-Jamil
The first two episodes of The Good Place seem straightforward enough. Eleanor Shellstrop (Kristen Bell) is a selfish person who mysteriously wound up in paradise and needs to learn how to be good before she's discovered. It's a solid premise but also the kind of premise that seems like it could grow tiresome or unsustainable pretty quick. Having Eleanor be the one thing wrong in paradise can only go so many directions. Luckily, Tahani Al-Jamil reveals that there's a lot going on here then meets the eye, which is very welcome news indeed.
As the title suggests, perfect neighbour Tahani (Jameela Jamil) is the focus of Tahani Al-Jamil, as Eleanor gets to know her neighbour as an excuse to find out if she's the one who left her the "You don't belong here" note at the end of the last episode. It also gives us an excuse to get to know Tahani, who didn't have much to do in the first two episodes beyond serve as a symbol of irritating perfection to contrast Eleanor with and try to connect with her soulmate Jianyu (Manny Jacinto). So what do we learn about Tahani? Well it turns out the reason she seems so perfect and friendly is because she just really is that perfect and friendly. She raised over 60 billion dollars for charity in her lifetime, while dabbling in things like modelling, museum curating, and being Baz Luhrmann's muse. She may come across as a bit conceited and condescending but it's nothing intentional on her part. The key thing we learn though is under that perfection, she's as insecure and desperate to feel like she belongs as Eleanor is. Her inability to connect with silent Jianyu, which was played for laughs in Flying gets some actual pathos here as we find out just how depressed she is by the fact that he won't break his vow of silence for anyone, even his soulmate. It's what really breaks through to Eleanor and gets her to reluctantly embrace Tahani ("Ugh, of course your hugs are amazing", she grumbles).
Really though Tahani's main purpose in the episode is still to teach us something about Eleanor. Throughout the episode Eleanor is determined to prove that Tahani is not who she seems to be and is someone sinister and evil underneath her shiny surface. All the while a housewarming plant Tahani gave her withers and dies as Eleanor keeps trying in vain to prove Tahani wrote the note that's been giving her so much stress. Meanwhile flashbacks show how she broke up with a boyfriend because she saw his efforts to do the right thing by boycotting a coffee place where the owner sexually harasses people as him lording over how much better than her he was. Eventually after Chidi (William Jackson-Harper) suggests that the note was written by her own guilty conscious manifesting itself through the good place, Eleanor is able to admit that perfect people make her insecure and that when she sees someone she feels is better than her she has to try and drag them down to her level. It's a realisation that puts Eleanor in a new light, showing how insecure she's always been about the kind of person she was. The note hit her so hard because she just wants to belong to and once she has admitted this, she's able to help Tahani feel better about herself and cause the plant to bloom.
Eleanor's realisation also allows her to help Chidi who's been feeling insecure himself about his life's work and his place here. Tahani Al-Jamil wisely lets us get to know Chidi as a person outside of Eleanor by pairing him up with Michael (Ted Danson) and Janet (D'Arcy Carden) for a story in which Michael tries to find Chidi a hobby. It turns out Chidi has been obsessed with ethics all his life, spending 18 years working on a manuscript about his findings and Michael wants him to have new adventures while he's here. It's a great chance for Jackson-Harper to show off how funny he is and Chidi's inherent nervousness plays well off of Danson's trying-to-help Michael. His efforts reveal new things about Chidi as we learn cartography won't work because exploring makes him nervous (he has what doctors diagnosed as "directional madness"), and journalism is a no-go because he doesn't like deadlines. Ultimately though, we learn that Michael is just trying to find him a hobby because Chidi's 3600 page manuscript is so convoluted and muddled, it took Michael (who can read all the world's literature in a hour) two weeks to get through it. This raises a lot of questions (like if the book was so bad, how did Chidi's knowledge of ethics qualify him for the good place) and causes Chidi to doubt himself and his purpose, before committing himself to starting over and writing the book again with Michael's help. Chidi wants new experiences but he truly does love ethics and he owes himself to be true to that. Even Janet gets the chance to be insecure through a comic runner where Michael tries to help her personality as she tries to be his assistant. This is mainly an excuse to watch Carden string together a bunch of colloquialisms, toss off increasingly ridiculous fun facts, be overtly sexual, and then cold and cruel but she's great at every iteration of Janet before she eventually reverts back to her original self. It also opens the door for Eleanor to be Michael's new assistant, which along with him taking on the role of Chidi's advisor opens the door for Danson to be much more involved with our leads, which should complicate their attempts to keep Eleanor's secret from him.
All of this makes Tahani Al-Jamil a perfectly enjoyable episode of television. The kind of third episode you'd expect from a show figuring out it's rhythm. Until the last two minutes upend everything we thought we knew so far. Confronted with another anonymous note telling her to meet the sender at town square, Eleanor learns she wasn't the note sender after all. Jianyu was AND he can talk. It's a good twist, but also a fairly predictable one. Why have Jianyu in the main cast if his only function is to be silent and perfect? What really takes Tahani Al-Jamil to the next level there is the episode isn't content to stop on that reveal. Jianyu doesn't belong in The Good Place either and he doesn't know how or why he got there. And suddenly the question of how Eleanor got to the good place becomes significantly more interesting. Who else isn't supposed to be in The Good Place? How perfect is the system for figuring out who gets in the afterlife? Who is Jianyu really? It's a big reveal and the impressive thing is it comes in the third episode instead of the 7th or the 9th. It shows Michael Schur has bigger plans in mind for this show and he's not going to string us along very long before giving us a look at them. It makes me that much more excited for next weeks episode and to see what will happen next and what else isn't what it seems. One thing's for sure: the characters on this show might be insecure, but The Good Place certainly isn't. And it's not afraid to show it.
Memorable Moments
-As a symbol, the housewarming plant a bit too cutesy and on-the-nose, but it does lead to a great bit where it literally bursts into flames after Eleanor steals Tahani's diary.
-"Who died and left Aristotle in charge of ethics?" "Plato".
-"So now I’m supposed to be nice and make friends and treat her with mutual respect?" "Yeah." "That’s exactly what she wants me to do Chidi. Wake up!" "That’s what everyone wants everybody to do".
-The reveal that Tahani translates to "Congratulations" and Al-Jamil translates to "Beautiful" is a terrific joke.
-In her fun fact phase, we learn from Janet that Columbus is in The Bad Place on account of the raping and slave-trading and genocide, as is every deceased member of the Portland Trailblazers. Her best fun fact though? "Fun fact: Janet is me."
-Chidi really likes taking his time on things. "You never even named your dog, did you. When it ran away you posted signs saying 'responds to long pauses'".
-Malala Yousafzai and Kylie Minogue wrote forwards for Tahani's diary. Of course.
-"First of all, throwing sand is an excellent way to put out vodka fires". "Why would you even know that?!"
-"I don't know how I got here, I don't know what's going on, and I am freaking out homie!" Jianyu frantic delivery of the word "homie" turns a major twist into the biggest laugh of the night.
As the title suggests, perfect neighbour Tahani (Jameela Jamil) is the focus of Tahani Al-Jamil, as Eleanor gets to know her neighbour as an excuse to find out if she's the one who left her the "You don't belong here" note at the end of the last episode. It also gives us an excuse to get to know Tahani, who didn't have much to do in the first two episodes beyond serve as a symbol of irritating perfection to contrast Eleanor with and try to connect with her soulmate Jianyu (Manny Jacinto). So what do we learn about Tahani? Well it turns out the reason she seems so perfect and friendly is because she just really is that perfect and friendly. She raised over 60 billion dollars for charity in her lifetime, while dabbling in things like modelling, museum curating, and being Baz Luhrmann's muse. She may come across as a bit conceited and condescending but it's nothing intentional on her part. The key thing we learn though is under that perfection, she's as insecure and desperate to feel like she belongs as Eleanor is. Her inability to connect with silent Jianyu, which was played for laughs in Flying gets some actual pathos here as we find out just how depressed she is by the fact that he won't break his vow of silence for anyone, even his soulmate. It's what really breaks through to Eleanor and gets her to reluctantly embrace Tahani ("Ugh, of course your hugs are amazing", she grumbles).
Really though Tahani's main purpose in the episode is still to teach us something about Eleanor. Throughout the episode Eleanor is determined to prove that Tahani is not who she seems to be and is someone sinister and evil underneath her shiny surface. All the while a housewarming plant Tahani gave her withers and dies as Eleanor keeps trying in vain to prove Tahani wrote the note that's been giving her so much stress. Meanwhile flashbacks show how she broke up with a boyfriend because she saw his efforts to do the right thing by boycotting a coffee place where the owner sexually harasses people as him lording over how much better than her he was. Eventually after Chidi (William Jackson-Harper) suggests that the note was written by her own guilty conscious manifesting itself through the good place, Eleanor is able to admit that perfect people make her insecure and that when she sees someone she feels is better than her she has to try and drag them down to her level. It's a realisation that puts Eleanor in a new light, showing how insecure she's always been about the kind of person she was. The note hit her so hard because she just wants to belong to and once she has admitted this, she's able to help Tahani feel better about herself and cause the plant to bloom.
Eleanor's realisation also allows her to help Chidi who's been feeling insecure himself about his life's work and his place here. Tahani Al-Jamil wisely lets us get to know Chidi as a person outside of Eleanor by pairing him up with Michael (Ted Danson) and Janet (D'Arcy Carden) for a story in which Michael tries to find Chidi a hobby. It turns out Chidi has been obsessed with ethics all his life, spending 18 years working on a manuscript about his findings and Michael wants him to have new adventures while he's here. It's a great chance for Jackson-Harper to show off how funny he is and Chidi's inherent nervousness plays well off of Danson's trying-to-help Michael. His efforts reveal new things about Chidi as we learn cartography won't work because exploring makes him nervous (he has what doctors diagnosed as "directional madness"), and journalism is a no-go because he doesn't like deadlines. Ultimately though, we learn that Michael is just trying to find him a hobby because Chidi's 3600 page manuscript is so convoluted and muddled, it took Michael (who can read all the world's literature in a hour) two weeks to get through it. This raises a lot of questions (like if the book was so bad, how did Chidi's knowledge of ethics qualify him for the good place) and causes Chidi to doubt himself and his purpose, before committing himself to starting over and writing the book again with Michael's help. Chidi wants new experiences but he truly does love ethics and he owes himself to be true to that. Even Janet gets the chance to be insecure through a comic runner where Michael tries to help her personality as she tries to be his assistant. This is mainly an excuse to watch Carden string together a bunch of colloquialisms, toss off increasingly ridiculous fun facts, be overtly sexual, and then cold and cruel but she's great at every iteration of Janet before she eventually reverts back to her original self. It also opens the door for Eleanor to be Michael's new assistant, which along with him taking on the role of Chidi's advisor opens the door for Danson to be much more involved with our leads, which should complicate their attempts to keep Eleanor's secret from him.
All of this makes Tahani Al-Jamil a perfectly enjoyable episode of television. The kind of third episode you'd expect from a show figuring out it's rhythm. Until the last two minutes upend everything we thought we knew so far. Confronted with another anonymous note telling her to meet the sender at town square, Eleanor learns she wasn't the note sender after all. Jianyu was AND he can talk. It's a good twist, but also a fairly predictable one. Why have Jianyu in the main cast if his only function is to be silent and perfect? What really takes Tahani Al-Jamil to the next level there is the episode isn't content to stop on that reveal. Jianyu doesn't belong in The Good Place either and he doesn't know how or why he got there. And suddenly the question of how Eleanor got to the good place becomes significantly more interesting. Who else isn't supposed to be in The Good Place? How perfect is the system for figuring out who gets in the afterlife? Who is Jianyu really? It's a big reveal and the impressive thing is it comes in the third episode instead of the 7th or the 9th. It shows Michael Schur has bigger plans in mind for this show and he's not going to string us along very long before giving us a look at them. It makes me that much more excited for next weeks episode and to see what will happen next and what else isn't what it seems. One thing's for sure: the characters on this show might be insecure, but The Good Place certainly isn't. And it's not afraid to show it.
Memorable Moments
-As a symbol, the housewarming plant a bit too cutesy and on-the-nose, but it does lead to a great bit where it literally bursts into flames after Eleanor steals Tahani's diary.
-"Who died and left Aristotle in charge of ethics?" "Plato".
-"So now I’m supposed to be nice and make friends and treat her with mutual respect?" "Yeah." "That’s exactly what she wants me to do Chidi. Wake up!" "That’s what everyone wants everybody to do".
-The reveal that Tahani translates to "Congratulations" and Al-Jamil translates to "Beautiful" is a terrific joke.
-In her fun fact phase, we learn from Janet that Columbus is in The Bad Place on account of the raping and slave-trading and genocide, as is every deceased member of the Portland Trailblazers. Her best fun fact though? "Fun fact: Janet is me."
-Chidi really likes taking his time on things. "You never even named your dog, did you. When it ran away you posted signs saying 'responds to long pauses'".
-Malala Yousafzai and Kylie Minogue wrote forwards for Tahani's diary. Of course.
-"First of all, throwing sand is an excellent way to put out vodka fires". "Why would you even know that?!"
-"I don't know how I got here, I don't know what's going on, and I am freaking out homie!" Jianyu frantic delivery of the word "homie" turns a major twist into the biggest laugh of the night.
Wednesday, 21 September 2016
Speechless Is A Smart, Funny Look Into The World of Special Needs
Maya DiMeo (Minnie Driver) races to the family van with a coupon for 50% off breakfast that expires in 3 minutes. Her husband Jimmy (John Ross Bowie) and daughter Dylan (Kyla Kennedy) buckle up. Her son Ray (Mason Cook) objects, pointing out that the restaurant is 10 minutes away and there's no way they can get there in time. Maya takes this as a challenge and the van speeds off. Jimmy hands his wife coffee and navigates as she calmly and confidently avoids construction by barrelling down a one-way alley, and goes off-road when a broken down car causes a traffic jam, only stopping so Dylan can yell at the annoyed driver for not putting oil in the car before getting on the road. She speeds past a cop car that wisely declines to go after her ("Life's too short", advises the older cop to his young partner) and makes it to the restaurant, snagging the last handicap spot. An older lady objects to their lack of handicap placard, but the DiMeo's are too busy unloading their secret weapon, J.J. (Micah Fowler), their wheel-chair bound teenage son with severe cerebral palsy. The older woman drives off as two bystanders smirk and laugh. Maya calls them out and J.J. flips them off to the best of his abilities. "Work in progress", Maya explains. Cue title card.
That opening scene is Speechless in a nutshell and perfectly introduces Maya as someone who won't let anything or anyone get in the way of what her family (J.J. in particular) deserves with the rest of the DiMeo's along for the ride whether they like it or not. Created by Scott Silveri (who grew up with a brother with cerebral palsy), Speechless (which debuts tonight on ABC, where it'll air every Wednesday after The Goldbergs) is a smart, gutsy comedy that like other family comedies that have debuted on ABC in recent years (black-ish and Fresh Off The Boat chief among them) showcases a family that doesn't get portrayed on TV that often: a family with a special needs child. More importantly, it showcases them in a way that allows them to be complicated and flawed and funny, wisely avoiding the urge to go overly saccharine with the show or put J.J. on a pedestal to be admired as an inspiration (as J.J's new classmates are ready to do in the pilot).
That treatment of J.J. is essential to the success of the pilot. Brought to life by Micah Fowler, an actor who has cerebral palsy (though not as severe as J.J., who is nonverbal strapped to his ear and needs a laser pointer and keyboard to communicate.), J.J. comes across as a normal teenage boy who just wants to talk to girls and be cool. He gets annoyed when his mother makes a fuss over him or when his new classmates want to elect him student council president before they've even met him. He knows how to take advantage of his condition to get his way. He's a bit of a jerk, picking on Ray and running off his initial aide because her voice isn't cool enough for his liking, but he does love his family and will do what it takes to help them out. All of this is expertly portrayed by Fowler who brings a lot of personality to everything J.J. does and making his limited range of motion an asset. It makes you confident that J.J. won't be treated as a prop or conduit for other character's stories, but as a compelling character in his own right.
In the first episode Fowler makes a strong impression, but the biggest and strongest impression by far belongs to Minnie Driver. As Maya, the mother who has moved her family six times in the past two years in search of the perfect situation for J.J. and who has fought tooth and nail to ensure he gets something close to a normal life, Driver is perfect, bringing an intense ferocity to everything Maya does, but also a bit of underlying weariness. You get the sense that that this woman is always fighting because that's what she's had to do for J.J's entire life. Maya's intensity could grow quickly exhausting in lesser hands, but Driver brings enough warmth and understanding to the role to keep her likeable, even with her flaws.
It's an impressive performance and one that could dominate the show, but luckily it's surrounded by strong performances across the board. The pilot is wisely told largely from the perspective of Ray (Mason Cook). Cook does excellent as a kid who loves his family, but is tired of all the moving around and a bit resentful that Maya puts J.J.'s needs ahead of everyone else. He comes across as a sensible voice while still being a kid who's prone to making mistakes like kids do. As Jimmy, John Ross Bowie isn't given a ton to do yet beyond play sarcastic, yet supportive, but he brings a lot to those notes to make Jimmy a funny, interesting character who gets a lot of the pilots bigger laughs (His tour of "the worst house in the best neighbourhood" has the family has moved to is an episode highlight). Kyla Kenedy also doesn't get a lot to do yet, but Dylan's ultra competitiveness in a school environment that tries to celebrate everyone should lead to comic dividends down the line. The character who needs the most fleshing out going forward is Kenneth (Cedric Yarbrough), the school groundskeeper who butts heads with Maya immediately but seems set to be J.J.'s new full-time aide by the end of the pilot. Yarbrough's dry delivery is terrific and he and Driver have good rapport, but hopefully Kenneth will get more dimension than just simply "the cool guy".
Beyond casting, what Speechless really has going for it in the pilot is a sense of perspective. Having a child with special needs can be a challenge and a strain to a family and the show isn't afraid to highlight that. When Ray and Maya fight because he's tired of her putting J.J over everyone else, he isn't presented as being in the wrong. There's real pain there and it will be interesting to watch the show explore that going forward. Of course having a child with special needs isn't a total burden either and the show gets that too. It's unafraid to mine the situation for comedy, from the terrible house the DiMeo family has to move to so J.J can go to his latest school, to the school itself, which is desperate to come across as inclusive and progressive (they recently changed their mascot from the Vikings to the Sea Slug, which has both male and female genitalia) to a late-episode quip from Jimmy about which child would be best to run after Maya and which would be best to wait in the van (This earns him the finger from J.J, which he admits is fair). It makes Speechless warm and welcoming, but also clever and biting and fearless. All in all Speechless is off to a strong start and if you're into comedies with a strong perspective, it definitely looks to be well worth your time.
That opening scene is Speechless in a nutshell and perfectly introduces Maya as someone who won't let anything or anyone get in the way of what her family (J.J. in particular) deserves with the rest of the DiMeo's along for the ride whether they like it or not. Created by Scott Silveri (who grew up with a brother with cerebral palsy), Speechless (which debuts tonight on ABC, where it'll air every Wednesday after The Goldbergs) is a smart, gutsy comedy that like other family comedies that have debuted on ABC in recent years (black-ish and Fresh Off The Boat chief among them) showcases a family that doesn't get portrayed on TV that often: a family with a special needs child. More importantly, it showcases them in a way that allows them to be complicated and flawed and funny, wisely avoiding the urge to go overly saccharine with the show or put J.J. on a pedestal to be admired as an inspiration (as J.J's new classmates are ready to do in the pilot).
That treatment of J.J. is essential to the success of the pilot. Brought to life by Micah Fowler, an actor who has cerebral palsy (though not as severe as J.J., who is nonverbal strapped to his ear and needs a laser pointer and keyboard to communicate.), J.J. comes across as a normal teenage boy who just wants to talk to girls and be cool. He gets annoyed when his mother makes a fuss over him or when his new classmates want to elect him student council president before they've even met him. He knows how to take advantage of his condition to get his way. He's a bit of a jerk, picking on Ray and running off his initial aide because her voice isn't cool enough for his liking, but he does love his family and will do what it takes to help them out. All of this is expertly portrayed by Fowler who brings a lot of personality to everything J.J. does and making his limited range of motion an asset. It makes you confident that J.J. won't be treated as a prop or conduit for other character's stories, but as a compelling character in his own right.
In the first episode Fowler makes a strong impression, but the biggest and strongest impression by far belongs to Minnie Driver. As Maya, the mother who has moved her family six times in the past two years in search of the perfect situation for J.J. and who has fought tooth and nail to ensure he gets something close to a normal life, Driver is perfect, bringing an intense ferocity to everything Maya does, but also a bit of underlying weariness. You get the sense that that this woman is always fighting because that's what she's had to do for J.J's entire life. Maya's intensity could grow quickly exhausting in lesser hands, but Driver brings enough warmth and understanding to the role to keep her likeable, even with her flaws.
It's an impressive performance and one that could dominate the show, but luckily it's surrounded by strong performances across the board. The pilot is wisely told largely from the perspective of Ray (Mason Cook). Cook does excellent as a kid who loves his family, but is tired of all the moving around and a bit resentful that Maya puts J.J.'s needs ahead of everyone else. He comes across as a sensible voice while still being a kid who's prone to making mistakes like kids do. As Jimmy, John Ross Bowie isn't given a ton to do yet beyond play sarcastic, yet supportive, but he brings a lot to those notes to make Jimmy a funny, interesting character who gets a lot of the pilots bigger laughs (His tour of "the worst house in the best neighbourhood" has the family has moved to is an episode highlight). Kyla Kenedy also doesn't get a lot to do yet, but Dylan's ultra competitiveness in a school environment that tries to celebrate everyone should lead to comic dividends down the line. The character who needs the most fleshing out going forward is Kenneth (Cedric Yarbrough), the school groundskeeper who butts heads with Maya immediately but seems set to be J.J.'s new full-time aide by the end of the pilot. Yarbrough's dry delivery is terrific and he and Driver have good rapport, but hopefully Kenneth will get more dimension than just simply "the cool guy".
Beyond casting, what Speechless really has going for it in the pilot is a sense of perspective. Having a child with special needs can be a challenge and a strain to a family and the show isn't afraid to highlight that. When Ray and Maya fight because he's tired of her putting J.J over everyone else, he isn't presented as being in the wrong. There's real pain there and it will be interesting to watch the show explore that going forward. Of course having a child with special needs isn't a total burden either and the show gets that too. It's unafraid to mine the situation for comedy, from the terrible house the DiMeo family has to move to so J.J can go to his latest school, to the school itself, which is desperate to come across as inclusive and progressive (they recently changed their mascot from the Vikings to the Sea Slug, which has both male and female genitalia) to a late-episode quip from Jimmy about which child would be best to run after Maya and which would be best to wait in the van (This earns him the finger from J.J, which he admits is fair). It makes Speechless warm and welcoming, but also clever and biting and fearless. All in all Speechless is off to a strong start and if you're into comedies with a strong perspective, it definitely looks to be well worth your time.
Monday, 19 September 2016
The Good Place Gets Off To A Good Start
What does it mean to be a "good person" or a "bad person"? Can bad people learn to be better? Is there life after death? These are fairly heavy, often quite debated questions that come up in the course of a lifetime and while we all probably have our own answers to these questions, they're not the kind of questions that can be definitively answered. That won't stop NBC's new afterlife comedy The Good Place from trying though, and those questions are at the heart of Michael Schur's (Co-Creator of Parks and Recreation and Brooklyn Nine-Nine) provocative new show which debuted Monday night with a 2-part premiere, before it moves to it's regular timeslot on Thursdays.
In The Good Place, there is an afterlife but it's not like anything you've been taught about. All major religions got maybe 5% of it right (Except for Doug Forcett, a stoner who lived in Calgary who guessed 92% of it while on mushrooms one night). Essentially every action you do in life from eating a sandwich to poisoning a river is given a positive or negative point value based on how much good or bad it sends through the universe. This is all monitored and once you die your score is added up. Those with the highest of high scores go to The Good Place, everyone else goes to "The Bad Place" (though what this means is left unexplained beyond a terrifying audio recording of roars and screams.). The Good Place is a series of neighbourhoods, perfectly designed for the 322 people that live in each one by an architect who oversees the neighbourhood. The neighbourhood The Good Place is set in is a pleasant suburban setting with a frozen yogurt shop on every corner (something all neighbourhoods have in common) and stores with names like "Everything Fits" or "All The Books". Each resident lives in a house perfectly designed to their tastes and meets their soulmate who is their universe-ordained perfect match. A walking database of knowledge named Janet (D'Arcy Carden) pops up in an instant to help with any question or request. All the words spoken are translated into the listeners preferred language. It's paradise. A very exclusive paradise (Mozart, Picasso, Elvis, basically all artists, every President except Lincoln, and Florence Nightingale all missed the cut) but paradise all the same.
Into paradise comes Eleanor Shellstrop (Kristen Bell), a woman who may have had an embarrassing death (A shopping cart mishap while trying to pick up "Lonely Girl's Margarita Mix For One" caused her to get swept into the street where she was hit by a mobile billboard truck for an Erectile Dysfunction product and the first paramedic on scene was an ex-boyfriend), but who's exemplary life as a lawyer who got innocent people off death row and who routinely went on humanitarian missions helping orphans has earned her a place in paradise, according to Neighbourhood Architect Michael (Ted Danson), along people like smug do-gooder Tahani Al-Jamil (Jameela Jamil), a monk who won't break his vow of silence even in death and Tahani's soulmate Jianyu (Mandy Jacinto), and Eleanor's soulmate Chidi (William Jackson Harper) who was a professor who taught Ethics and Moral Philosophu. The only problem is that there's been a mistake and she's not the person Michael thinks she is. She was the kind of person who sold fake medicine to seniors (and was salesperson of the year 5 years in a row), the kind of person who would drink before work drink night to get out of her turn being designated driver and the kind of person who deserves the bad place. Of course she would rather stay in The Good Place and so she turns to Chidi, who just might be willing to help teach her how to be a good person so she can fit in and avoid getting caught. It won't be easy (especially because Eleanor's negative actions cause catastrophic storms to affect the neighbourhood) but with paradise on the line, Eleanor has no choice but to try and pull it off.
Everything Is Fine/Flying, the 2-part opener of The Good Place, has a lot to get through in about 42 minutes of television. It has to introduce the characters, lay out the premise, set up an elaborate world and explain how it works, while telling a compelling story and scoring laughs along the way. For the most part it pulls it off. NBC made a smart choice in airing both parts of the episode together because Everything Is Fine would be a lot less satisfying (albeit pretty entertaining as any episode of television that ends with the chaotic sight of giant ladybugs and frogs, flying shrimp, and a herd of giraffes would have to be) without Flying right after to complete the story it's telling. Additionally Everything Is Fine has to take the burden of laying out the majority of the exposition of how The Good Place works so there's not time for much else. Luckily the exposition is laid out in a way that's entertaining and allows for plenty of jokes (I transcribed what I could of the elaborate point system that determines who gets in The Good Place below. This show is looking to be heaven for lovers of blink-and-you-miss-it gags like that) and Kristen Bell and Ted Danson are charming enough to keep the pilot from becoming dull or uninteresting. Flying is more set-up, but it gets to focus on the story of Eleanor trying to convince Chidi that there's a part of her worth saving so he'll help her try to keep her secret. It's a story that feels more complete than the story of Everything Is Fine, while also creating a compelling path for the series to move forward and now that we have that path, subsequent episodes should be a lot smoother. Also on the plus, the mystery of how and why Eleanor wound up here that the show subtly sets up over these first couple episodes is already compelling and offers a lot to hang on to going forward as well.
If there's one thing about The Good Place that seems perfect off the bat though, it's the casting. Eleanor is a deeply flawed person who we really shouldn't be rooting for, but Kristen Bell makes her feel likeable and human, even at her most selfish. Her desire to stay in this place no matter the consequences to the deserving people around her is greedy sure, but can anyone really blame her? Meanwhile, as Michael, who has finally gotten a chance to design his own neighbourhood after a 200-year-long apprenticeship and is devastated that there's a flaw in his perfect system, Ted Danson steals the show. Michael is clearly not used to having an earthly body or dealing with earthly emotions and it comes through in Danson's impeccable line-readings and acting. His desire to have everything be perfect on his first big opportunity is very understandable and can only lead to great things for the show going forward. William Jackson-Harper is no slouch either, playing Chidi with exasperation (who wouldn't be exasperated going to paradise only to find themselves confronted with a selfish mess of a soulmate) and nervousness, but also kindness and empathy. His interactions with Bell were the best parts of the first two episodes and their relationship should prove to be very compelling going forward. As for the supporting players, Tahani, Jianyu and Janet haven't made much of an impression yet (though Jamil nails Tahani's condescending perfectness and D'Arcy scores a few laughs with Janet's matter-of-fact delivery), but given Schur's track record for developing deep ensembles, I'm sure they'll get there in time.
The Good Place has not set an easy bar for itself to clear. It's ambitious and bold and I can imagine it's premise and environment being quite weird and alienating for viewers who prefer their comedies simpler (which is fair, I guess). It doesn't seem like the kind of show that's long for this world. I hope it lasts a couple seasons at least though, because it has the potential to become a show that's truly unique and special on the TV landscape. Everything Is Fine/Flying have introduced us to the world and gotten all the heavy lifting out of the way. Now it's time to watch this show soar.
Memorable Moments
-As mentioned above, I went through the Orientation Video and got all of the positive and negative actions (and most of the point values listed so you don't have to (unless you wanted to). Voila:
Eat a Sandwich +1.04
Buy a Trashy Magazine -.75
Hug Sad Friend +3.67
Plant Baobob Tree in Madagascar +5.25
Stiff a Waitress -3.21
Use "Facebook" as a verb. -5.55
Use the Term "Bro Code" -8.20
Poison A River -4010.55
Disturb Coral Reef with Flipper -55.02
Fix Broken Tricycle For Child Indifferent to Tricyles +1.12
Fix Broken Tricycle For Child Who Loves Tricycles +6.60
Rev a Motorcycle -
-Root For New York Yankees -
Save A Child From Drowning +890.04
Remain Loyal to the Cleveland Browns +53.83
Blow Nose By Pressing Down Nostril and Exhaling -7.14
Tall a Woman to "Smile" -53.83
Remember Sister's Birthday +15.02
Be Commissioner of National Football League (American) -824.55
Purify Water (Village) Pop: >250 +294.26
Ruin Opera With Boorish Behaviour -90.90
Pet A Lamb +3.89
Scratch Elbow +1.10
Step Carefully Over Flower Bed +2.09
Stealing Copper Wire From Decommissioned Military Base -16.00
Maintain Composure in Water Park Line in Houston +60.98
Fail to Disclose Camel Illness When Selling Camel -22.22
Harassment (Sexual) -731.26
Overstate Person Connection to Tragedy That Has Nothing To Do With You -40.77
End Slavery +814292.09
Commit Genocide About -433401.86 (exact value not given)
-As for all the positive actions from the life of the person in the orientation video, I opted not to list them all but these are the highlights
Ate Vegan
Never Discussed Veganism Unprompted
Gave Out Full-Size Candy Bars At Halloween
Self-Monitored Potentially Nauseating Mouth Sounds While Chewing
Began to Compose Social Media Post About David Bowie Dying And Then Thought The World Doesn't Need To Hear My Thoughts on David Bowie
Researched West Indies Test Cricket Tournament Results to Facilitate Conversation with Father-In Law
-As someone who lives in Calgary, the story of Doug Forcett was my favourite joke of the episode (I'm very biased).
-"The bear has two mouths!"- overheard on the Bad Place audio.
-Example of how good everyone else in The Good Place is. "So then he said 'You can't give me both your kidneys. You'll die.' And I said 'but you will live, and I know we just met on this bus 10 minutes ago but you seem nice'".
-"We don't know what it is, how long it'll last or what caused it. What do we know Janet?" "We know where it happened: here".
-Eleanor's favourite "book" is Kendall Jenner's Instagram feed.
-"I have to say this neighbourhood you've built is tuly a masterpiece, the likes of which I've never seen, and I've been to Johnny Depp's private bird sanctuary".
-Some people think of their wedding day or favourite vacation spot to get the joy needed to fly. Eleanor thinks of people puking on roller coasters.
-"We could've literally been flying and all you wanted to do is talk about morals. You're like the worst parts of Superman!"
-Not a memorable moment but just a note that I'm planning to recap The Good Place throughout the season. Will I follow through on this? Hopefully.
In The Good Place, there is an afterlife but it's not like anything you've been taught about. All major religions got maybe 5% of it right (Except for Doug Forcett, a stoner who lived in Calgary who guessed 92% of it while on mushrooms one night). Essentially every action you do in life from eating a sandwich to poisoning a river is given a positive or negative point value based on how much good or bad it sends through the universe. This is all monitored and once you die your score is added up. Those with the highest of high scores go to The Good Place, everyone else goes to "The Bad Place" (though what this means is left unexplained beyond a terrifying audio recording of roars and screams.). The Good Place is a series of neighbourhoods, perfectly designed for the 322 people that live in each one by an architect who oversees the neighbourhood. The neighbourhood The Good Place is set in is a pleasant suburban setting with a frozen yogurt shop on every corner (something all neighbourhoods have in common) and stores with names like "Everything Fits" or "All The Books". Each resident lives in a house perfectly designed to their tastes and meets their soulmate who is their universe-ordained perfect match. A walking database of knowledge named Janet (D'Arcy Carden) pops up in an instant to help with any question or request. All the words spoken are translated into the listeners preferred language. It's paradise. A very exclusive paradise (Mozart, Picasso, Elvis, basically all artists, every President except Lincoln, and Florence Nightingale all missed the cut) but paradise all the same.
Into paradise comes Eleanor Shellstrop (Kristen Bell), a woman who may have had an embarrassing death (A shopping cart mishap while trying to pick up "Lonely Girl's Margarita Mix For One" caused her to get swept into the street where she was hit by a mobile billboard truck for an Erectile Dysfunction product and the first paramedic on scene was an ex-boyfriend), but who's exemplary life as a lawyer who got innocent people off death row and who routinely went on humanitarian missions helping orphans has earned her a place in paradise, according to Neighbourhood Architect Michael (Ted Danson), along people like smug do-gooder Tahani Al-Jamil (Jameela Jamil), a monk who won't break his vow of silence even in death and Tahani's soulmate Jianyu (Mandy Jacinto), and Eleanor's soulmate Chidi (William Jackson Harper) who was a professor who taught Ethics and Moral Philosophu. The only problem is that there's been a mistake and she's not the person Michael thinks she is. She was the kind of person who sold fake medicine to seniors (and was salesperson of the year 5 years in a row), the kind of person who would drink before work drink night to get out of her turn being designated driver and the kind of person who deserves the bad place. Of course she would rather stay in The Good Place and so she turns to Chidi, who just might be willing to help teach her how to be a good person so she can fit in and avoid getting caught. It won't be easy (especially because Eleanor's negative actions cause catastrophic storms to affect the neighbourhood) but with paradise on the line, Eleanor has no choice but to try and pull it off.
Everything Is Fine/Flying, the 2-part opener of The Good Place, has a lot to get through in about 42 minutes of television. It has to introduce the characters, lay out the premise, set up an elaborate world and explain how it works, while telling a compelling story and scoring laughs along the way. For the most part it pulls it off. NBC made a smart choice in airing both parts of the episode together because Everything Is Fine would be a lot less satisfying (albeit pretty entertaining as any episode of television that ends with the chaotic sight of giant ladybugs and frogs, flying shrimp, and a herd of giraffes would have to be) without Flying right after to complete the story it's telling. Additionally Everything Is Fine has to take the burden of laying out the majority of the exposition of how The Good Place works so there's not time for much else. Luckily the exposition is laid out in a way that's entertaining and allows for plenty of jokes (I transcribed what I could of the elaborate point system that determines who gets in The Good Place below. This show is looking to be heaven for lovers of blink-and-you-miss-it gags like that) and Kristen Bell and Ted Danson are charming enough to keep the pilot from becoming dull or uninteresting. Flying is more set-up, but it gets to focus on the story of Eleanor trying to convince Chidi that there's a part of her worth saving so he'll help her try to keep her secret. It's a story that feels more complete than the story of Everything Is Fine, while also creating a compelling path for the series to move forward and now that we have that path, subsequent episodes should be a lot smoother. Also on the plus, the mystery of how and why Eleanor wound up here that the show subtly sets up over these first couple episodes is already compelling and offers a lot to hang on to going forward as well.
If there's one thing about The Good Place that seems perfect off the bat though, it's the casting. Eleanor is a deeply flawed person who we really shouldn't be rooting for, but Kristen Bell makes her feel likeable and human, even at her most selfish. Her desire to stay in this place no matter the consequences to the deserving people around her is greedy sure, but can anyone really blame her? Meanwhile, as Michael, who has finally gotten a chance to design his own neighbourhood after a 200-year-long apprenticeship and is devastated that there's a flaw in his perfect system, Ted Danson steals the show. Michael is clearly not used to having an earthly body or dealing with earthly emotions and it comes through in Danson's impeccable line-readings and acting. His desire to have everything be perfect on his first big opportunity is very understandable and can only lead to great things for the show going forward. William Jackson-Harper is no slouch either, playing Chidi with exasperation (who wouldn't be exasperated going to paradise only to find themselves confronted with a selfish mess of a soulmate) and nervousness, but also kindness and empathy. His interactions with Bell were the best parts of the first two episodes and their relationship should prove to be very compelling going forward. As for the supporting players, Tahani, Jianyu and Janet haven't made much of an impression yet (though Jamil nails Tahani's condescending perfectness and D'Arcy scores a few laughs with Janet's matter-of-fact delivery), but given Schur's track record for developing deep ensembles, I'm sure they'll get there in time.
The Good Place has not set an easy bar for itself to clear. It's ambitious and bold and I can imagine it's premise and environment being quite weird and alienating for viewers who prefer their comedies simpler (which is fair, I guess). It doesn't seem like the kind of show that's long for this world. I hope it lasts a couple seasons at least though, because it has the potential to become a show that's truly unique and special on the TV landscape. Everything Is Fine/Flying have introduced us to the world and gotten all the heavy lifting out of the way. Now it's time to watch this show soar.
Memorable Moments
-As mentioned above, I went through the Orientation Video and got all of the positive and negative actions (and most of the point values listed so you don't have to (unless you wanted to). Voila:
Eat a Sandwich +1.04
Buy a Trashy Magazine -.75
Hug Sad Friend +3.67
Plant Baobob Tree in Madagascar +5.25
Stiff a Waitress -3.21
Use "Facebook" as a verb. -5.55
Use the Term "Bro Code" -8.20
Poison A River -4010.55
Disturb Coral Reef with Flipper -55.02
Fix Broken Tricycle For Child Indifferent to Tricyles +1.12
Fix Broken Tricycle For Child Who Loves Tricycles +6.60
Rev a Motorcycle -
-Root For New York Yankees -
Save A Child From Drowning +890.04
Remain Loyal to the Cleveland Browns +53.83
Blow Nose By Pressing Down Nostril and Exhaling -7.14
Tall a Woman to "Smile" -53.83
Remember Sister's Birthday +15.02
Be Commissioner of National Football League (American) -824.55
Purify Water (Village) Pop: >250 +294.26
Ruin Opera With Boorish Behaviour -90.90
Pet A Lamb +3.89
Scratch Elbow +1.10
Step Carefully Over Flower Bed +2.09
Stealing Copper Wire From Decommissioned Military Base -16.00
Maintain Composure in Water Park Line in Houston +60.98
Fail to Disclose Camel Illness When Selling Camel -22.22
Harassment (Sexual) -731.26
Overstate Person Connection to Tragedy That Has Nothing To Do With You -40.77
End Slavery +814292.09
Commit Genocide About -433401.86 (exact value not given)
-As for all the positive actions from the life of the person in the orientation video, I opted not to list them all but these are the highlights
Ate Vegan
Never Discussed Veganism Unprompted
Gave Out Full-Size Candy Bars At Halloween
Self-Monitored Potentially Nauseating Mouth Sounds While Chewing
Began to Compose Social Media Post About David Bowie Dying And Then Thought The World Doesn't Need To Hear My Thoughts on David Bowie
Researched West Indies Test Cricket Tournament Results to Facilitate Conversation with Father-In Law
-As someone who lives in Calgary, the story of Doug Forcett was my favourite joke of the episode (I'm very biased).
-"The bear has two mouths!"- overheard on the Bad Place audio.
-Example of how good everyone else in The Good Place is. "So then he said 'You can't give me both your kidneys. You'll die.' And I said 'but you will live, and I know we just met on this bus 10 minutes ago but you seem nice'".
-"We don't know what it is, how long it'll last or what caused it. What do we know Janet?" "We know where it happened: here".
-Eleanor's favourite "book" is Kendall Jenner's Instagram feed.
-"I have to say this neighbourhood you've built is tuly a masterpiece, the likes of which I've never seen, and I've been to Johnny Depp's private bird sanctuary".
-Some people think of their wedding day or favourite vacation spot to get the joy needed to fly. Eleanor thinks of people puking on roller coasters.
-"We could've literally been flying and all you wanted to do is talk about morals. You're like the worst parts of Superman!"
-Not a memorable moment but just a note that I'm planning to recap The Good Place throughout the season. Will I follow through on this? Hopefully.
Friday, 16 September 2016
Superstore Just Might Be The Office Successor We've Been Waiting For
My favourite TV show of all time is the American version of The Office. I've seen every episode multiple times, can rattle quotes and trivia off the top of my head and can talk about it for hours. Sure it may not be the best or the funniest or the most consistent show ever made, but it's my favourite, the show to which I judge all other shows, (or at least all other comedies) and I've missed it since it went off the air in 2013. Sure, there's been plenty of great comedies on TV since then but none of them (Except for Jane The Virgin, which is a lot more than just a straight-up comedy and Parks and Recreation, which was well into it's run when The Office ended so can't really be considered a successor) have made me feel the level of joy The Office gave me week in and week out. Over the course of it's first season though, new NBC comedy Superstore (which returns for it's second season Thursday Sept. 22nd) came incredibly close.
Superstore (created by Justin Spitzer who was a longtime writer for The Office) has a lot of similarities to The Office. It's a workplace comedy about a group of people trying to pass the time at their boring, monotonous job while their hopes and dreams go mostly unfulfilled. There's a well-meaning but ineffectual manager and an over-bearing zealous assistant manager who's essentially a female Dwight Schrute. At the heart of the show is a pair of people trying to make the best at a job they're wasting their talents on, while developing a friendship with a definite "Will They/Won't They" spark to it. There's also a varied, diverse group of supporting players rounding out the ensemble and an ever-expanding group of minor characters who can pop in for a quick laugh and pop out again. All this and more makes Superstore feel familiar, but the show feels avoids feeling like a tired retread thanks to good writing, some very well-drawn characters and excellent use of the show's setting.
The show's setting is vital to it's success. Cloud Nine, a Walmart-esque big box store where the show is set isn't the kind of place you see on TV very often but is a place ripe with storytelling and comedic possibilities, as Superstore demonstrates each and every episode. Secret shoppers, hapless customers, flu vaccines, wedding sales, shoplifters, corporate magazines eager to highlight diversity, pointless grunt work and more come up throughout the first season. Small interstitial vignettes of life throughout the store (such as children tearing up the make-up aisle or customers sleeping on the display couch or quickly groping a mannequin) help transition between scenes and bring the world of the show to life in hilarious detail, while adding to the idea that anything can happen here. The fact that this is a minimum wage job and Cloud Nine corporate is more concerned with the bottom line and appearing to care and listen to employee needs than actually caring or listening to employee needs is also ever present (a late season scene where a simple request call to employee services escalates dramatically with an off-hand mention of the word union is both hilarious and chilling), giving a dark edge to the bright surface of the show that pays off dividends as the season goes on. Few of the employees actually want to be at this dead-end retail job, but they don't have a better option, which is something the show understands and highlights.
The show is also expertly cast, with the actors bringing to life characters that in lesser hands could feels like simple stock types and together, sharing an easy-going chemistry that almost makes you want to work at a Cloud Nine, just so you could hang out with these people. Heading up the ensemble is Amy (America Ferrara), a long-time employee and shift manager who loves her family but regrets getting pregnant at 19 and having to put her dreams on hold to support them and Jonah (Ben Feldman), a fresh employee and business school drop-out who applied for the job on a whim and whose more privileged upbringing often sticks out among the other employees. The two develop a friendship/rivalry that feels lived-in and natural and while there's definite chemistry, Amy being married with an 11-year-old helps offset the relationship causing a natural slow-burn on the possibility of romance between the two. Amy and Jonah may be at the show's centre, but they don't overwhelm it, being surrounded by a group of characters who can just as easily take the lead when needed. Store manager Glenn (Mark McKinney) is an evangelical Christian (which is played for laughs while still treated seriously as a part of his character) who's clueless but kind-hearted, and who turns out to be much more frustrated with Cloud Nine and the way they treat their employees than he lets on under his cheery exterior. He's counterbalanced by Dina (Lauren Ash) who's rule-obsessed and strives for excellence, but also has a softer side which comes out in her love for the many birds she owns and her affection for Jonah. She's the broadest character, but Ash is great at finding the humanity behind her need for order and love of authority that keeps her from being a total caricature. Garrett (Colton Dunn), an easy-going, wheelchair-bound agent of chaos always looking for ways to avoid work, Mateo (Nico Santos), an ambitious, competitive employee hoping to rise to the top, and Cheyenne (Nichole Bloom) a pregnant teen trying to get money to support her baby round out the cast, with all of the actors doing great work to bring dimension to their characters. There's also plenty of supporting players like Bo (Johnny Pemberton), Cheyenne's ridiculous but devoted rapper wannabe fiancé, elderly employee Mertle (Linda Porter) or creepy employee Sal (Sean Whalen) and an endless supply of customers to further flesh out Cloud Nine and make it feel like a real place.
Superstore is also a very funny, confident show and it uses both setting and character to create plenty of great, specific moments. When the store is forced to stay late to change the signs to a new colour, the new colour turns out to be essentially the same as the previous one ("The old signs were a pale, outdated colour called "Glossy Dolphin". The new signs are a bold, exciting colour called "Glossy Dolphin-B". Jonah's classically handsome looks and pretentious manner are routinely mocked ("He looks like the villain on the CW"). When an elderly customer dies on a display couch, Cheyenne and Nico compete for the right to take home the couch. When openly gay Mateo compliments Christian Glenn on how open minded he is, Glenn laments the view of Christians as intolerant then obliviously adds "you have no idea what it's liked to be stereotyped like that". Garrett has no problem taking full advantage of his wheelchair bound status to sell product during a sales contest with 100 dollars on the line ('"I wish I would've bought a Vitamix" was the first thing I said when I woke up from my coma'). The show's setting also allows for them to routinely have the kind of large-scale set-pieces The Office could only occasionally pull off (Their recent Olympic special features an Olympic tribute that quickly devolves into a chaos quite reminiscent of Dwight's fire drill from The Office's Superbowl episode). The previously mentioned interstitial scenes add to the comedy of the show and bring jokes to routine scene transitions. Of course, the comedy isn't perfect and plenty of the jokes are hit or miss but that's to be expected of a show in it's first season while it figures out what works. Superstore is figuring out what works pretty fast though and I expect it to soon be as good at bringing the comedy as it is at bringing the humanity.
Ultimately though, the humanity is the reason I've grown to love Superstore as fast as I have, just as it's the same reason I fell in love with The Office all those years ago. It's the reason I see Superstore as a promising successor to The Office, even if it still has a ways to go before even coming close to The Office in it's prime. See, as hilarious as The Office was, I loved it because it felt real. The characters felt real so it was easy to become invested in them, to root for them to succeed and to feel a little heartbroken when the world seemed to be against them. Superstore is the same way. After 12 episodes, I want to see these characters succeed and find a way so that they don't have to work at Cloud Nine anymore. Everyone feels real and that makes the emotional moments on the show all the more potent. The first season ends with almost the entire staff staging a walk-out in support of Glenn, who's been fired for defying corporate policy and finding a loophole to give Cheyenne a bit of paid maternity leave. It's a moment that feels earned and is as powerful as anything I've seen on TV this year. A moment that gets you both worried and excited to find out what's next for these characters.
Superstore's not a perfect show. It's not even really a great show yet, but it's a show that starts fine and keeps getting better, and if it can keep up it's momentum heading into the second season, it'll be a great show in no time. I strongly doubt it'll ever replace The Office as my favourite show of all time, but if it keeps carrying on it's spirit the way it does, it just might make me forget how much I miss it.
Superstore (created by Justin Spitzer who was a longtime writer for The Office) has a lot of similarities to The Office. It's a workplace comedy about a group of people trying to pass the time at their boring, monotonous job while their hopes and dreams go mostly unfulfilled. There's a well-meaning but ineffectual manager and an over-bearing zealous assistant manager who's essentially a female Dwight Schrute. At the heart of the show is a pair of people trying to make the best at a job they're wasting their talents on, while developing a friendship with a definite "Will They/Won't They" spark to it. There's also a varied, diverse group of supporting players rounding out the ensemble and an ever-expanding group of minor characters who can pop in for a quick laugh and pop out again. All this and more makes Superstore feel familiar, but the show feels avoids feeling like a tired retread thanks to good writing, some very well-drawn characters and excellent use of the show's setting.
The show's setting is vital to it's success. Cloud Nine, a Walmart-esque big box store where the show is set isn't the kind of place you see on TV very often but is a place ripe with storytelling and comedic possibilities, as Superstore demonstrates each and every episode. Secret shoppers, hapless customers, flu vaccines, wedding sales, shoplifters, corporate magazines eager to highlight diversity, pointless grunt work and more come up throughout the first season. Small interstitial vignettes of life throughout the store (such as children tearing up the make-up aisle or customers sleeping on the display couch or quickly groping a mannequin) help transition between scenes and bring the world of the show to life in hilarious detail, while adding to the idea that anything can happen here. The fact that this is a minimum wage job and Cloud Nine corporate is more concerned with the bottom line and appearing to care and listen to employee needs than actually caring or listening to employee needs is also ever present (a late season scene where a simple request call to employee services escalates dramatically with an off-hand mention of the word union is both hilarious and chilling), giving a dark edge to the bright surface of the show that pays off dividends as the season goes on. Few of the employees actually want to be at this dead-end retail job, but they don't have a better option, which is something the show understands and highlights.
The show is also expertly cast, with the actors bringing to life characters that in lesser hands could feels like simple stock types and together, sharing an easy-going chemistry that almost makes you want to work at a Cloud Nine, just so you could hang out with these people. Heading up the ensemble is Amy (America Ferrara), a long-time employee and shift manager who loves her family but regrets getting pregnant at 19 and having to put her dreams on hold to support them and Jonah (Ben Feldman), a fresh employee and business school drop-out who applied for the job on a whim and whose more privileged upbringing often sticks out among the other employees. The two develop a friendship/rivalry that feels lived-in and natural and while there's definite chemistry, Amy being married with an 11-year-old helps offset the relationship causing a natural slow-burn on the possibility of romance between the two. Amy and Jonah may be at the show's centre, but they don't overwhelm it, being surrounded by a group of characters who can just as easily take the lead when needed. Store manager Glenn (Mark McKinney) is an evangelical Christian (which is played for laughs while still treated seriously as a part of his character) who's clueless but kind-hearted, and who turns out to be much more frustrated with Cloud Nine and the way they treat their employees than he lets on under his cheery exterior. He's counterbalanced by Dina (Lauren Ash) who's rule-obsessed and strives for excellence, but also has a softer side which comes out in her love for the many birds she owns and her affection for Jonah. She's the broadest character, but Ash is great at finding the humanity behind her need for order and love of authority that keeps her from being a total caricature. Garrett (Colton Dunn), an easy-going, wheelchair-bound agent of chaos always looking for ways to avoid work, Mateo (Nico Santos), an ambitious, competitive employee hoping to rise to the top, and Cheyenne (Nichole Bloom) a pregnant teen trying to get money to support her baby round out the cast, with all of the actors doing great work to bring dimension to their characters. There's also plenty of supporting players like Bo (Johnny Pemberton), Cheyenne's ridiculous but devoted rapper wannabe fiancé, elderly employee Mertle (Linda Porter) or creepy employee Sal (Sean Whalen) and an endless supply of customers to further flesh out Cloud Nine and make it feel like a real place.
Superstore is also a very funny, confident show and it uses both setting and character to create plenty of great, specific moments. When the store is forced to stay late to change the signs to a new colour, the new colour turns out to be essentially the same as the previous one ("The old signs were a pale, outdated colour called "Glossy Dolphin". The new signs are a bold, exciting colour called "Glossy Dolphin-B". Jonah's classically handsome looks and pretentious manner are routinely mocked ("He looks like the villain on the CW"). When an elderly customer dies on a display couch, Cheyenne and Nico compete for the right to take home the couch. When openly gay Mateo compliments Christian Glenn on how open minded he is, Glenn laments the view of Christians as intolerant then obliviously adds "you have no idea what it's liked to be stereotyped like that". Garrett has no problem taking full advantage of his wheelchair bound status to sell product during a sales contest with 100 dollars on the line ('"I wish I would've bought a Vitamix" was the first thing I said when I woke up from my coma'). The show's setting also allows for them to routinely have the kind of large-scale set-pieces The Office could only occasionally pull off (Their recent Olympic special features an Olympic tribute that quickly devolves into a chaos quite reminiscent of Dwight's fire drill from The Office's Superbowl episode). The previously mentioned interstitial scenes add to the comedy of the show and bring jokes to routine scene transitions. Of course, the comedy isn't perfect and plenty of the jokes are hit or miss but that's to be expected of a show in it's first season while it figures out what works. Superstore is figuring out what works pretty fast though and I expect it to soon be as good at bringing the comedy as it is at bringing the humanity.
Ultimately though, the humanity is the reason I've grown to love Superstore as fast as I have, just as it's the same reason I fell in love with The Office all those years ago. It's the reason I see Superstore as a promising successor to The Office, even if it still has a ways to go before even coming close to The Office in it's prime. See, as hilarious as The Office was, I loved it because it felt real. The characters felt real so it was easy to become invested in them, to root for them to succeed and to feel a little heartbroken when the world seemed to be against them. Superstore is the same way. After 12 episodes, I want to see these characters succeed and find a way so that they don't have to work at Cloud Nine anymore. Everyone feels real and that makes the emotional moments on the show all the more potent. The first season ends with almost the entire staff staging a walk-out in support of Glenn, who's been fired for defying corporate policy and finding a loophole to give Cheyenne a bit of paid maternity leave. It's a moment that feels earned and is as powerful as anything I've seen on TV this year. A moment that gets you both worried and excited to find out what's next for these characters.
Superstore's not a perfect show. It's not even really a great show yet, but it's a show that starts fine and keeps getting better, and if it can keep up it's momentum heading into the second season, it'll be a great show in no time. I strongly doubt it'll ever replace The Office as my favourite show of all time, but if it keeps carrying on it's spirit the way it does, it just might make me forget how much I miss it.
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