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Episodes’ Season Finale
Jaimie Lapidus
It’s been an intense season of Episodes full of issues that manifested themselves in painful yet hilarious ways. On Sunday’s season finale, all those issues came to a head. The issues are starting to repair themselves in a way that’s very ungraceful, yet very funny. It worked quite well. The episode opened with another one of Beverly and Carole’s exercise running sessions. This time, it wasn’t quite as repetitive, but the dynamic still isn’t very interesting. Nonetheless, it did move the story forward. As Carole is venting about her job offer from Elliot Salad, she starts to realize she could never betray Merc, which doesn’t seem to make much sense considering he does very little to contribute to their relationship and has been a terrible boss.
Over the course of the entire season, Merc wanted to get away with immoral behavior. Carole watched it happen because she loved him. Carole especially laments the fact that he is still married to Jamie, who Carole considers to be a “saint.” Beverly seems hesitant to concur that Jamie is a saint, but then admits that she knows about Jamie’s affair with Matt. The exercise session is a little more interesting than usual at this point. Instead of going over the same issues with Sean and Beverly as they do on every run, the focus shifts to gossip about Jamie and Matt. Now, the viewers have a reason to pay attention. Carole insists that she has to tell Merc about the affair, but Beverly begs her not to for fear of losing her job and Sean. Carole finally agrees to keep quiet after Beverly threatens to tell Merc about Carole’s meeting with Elliot. There was probably a better way to reveal the details of Matt’s affair to Carole. The scene was sloppily written with too much dialogue.
Episodes: Matt Gains Weight And Beverly Tries To Move On
Episodes doesn’t have to have a complicated story in order to be funny. Sometimes the most innocuous issue exaggerated to the point where the story works extremely well. This was the case on Sunday night. The episode opens with Sean and Beverly in a meeting with Merc and Carole. Merc and Carole are their usual passive-aggressive selves and try to act as pleasantly as they can toward the Lincolns. Of course, Sean and Beverly know something is wrong. Carole asks them how they think the show is going even though they clearly don’t care about Sean and Beverly’s perspective. Beverly is smart enough to know that Merc and Carole are only asking so they can say what they think about the show.
Merc and Carole finally reveal that they are concerned that Matt has gained weight. Beverly seems hesitant to respond at first and then says that he might have put on a couple of pounds. This might simply be to appease the network, but it is unclear. Sean more obviously disagrees. He says that he doesn’t see any change in Matt’s weight. Beverly says playfully that Sean doesn’t notice those types of things. This behavior between Sean and Beverly is very curious. After Sean halted their sexual encounter at the end of last week’s show, it’s surprising they are able to so fluidly act like a couple and playfully chide each other. Commenting on personal flaws is not common for a professional relationship, especially in a joking matter. It is hard to believe that they are so good at putting personal feelings aside. For some reason, they prefer to deny that they want to give their marriage another try. Of course, Sean is terrible at suppressing his pain and Beverly does not even try to hide it. The Lincolns’ dynamic proves that sometimes things are not better left unsaid.
Episodes Laughs At Death
Episodes premiered its third show of the season last night. The show continues to provide laughs, even in the most uncomfortable way. The father of network president Merc Lapidus has died and the episode dealt with the awkward ways the Pucks! staff would provide condolences. It was clear how completely inappropriate everyone’s behavior was, which is exaclty what makes it hilarious. There were parts of the show where viewers should not laugh, but they laugh anyway because Episodes runs on cringe comedy. It is a challenge to find humor in the fact that no one cares about someone’s death, yet the show makes it work.
When Lapidus’ father died, everyone’s main concern was appeasing the president of a network and not Lapidus as a person. Everyone in the show is acting selfish and morally questionable. Even so, it never fails to be funny. Their biggest concern is not to make sure Lapidus is happy, but what would be an appropriate thing to send as a condolence. An ongoing joke centers around Matt insisting that a muffin basket is not a big enough gift. He insists on a huge catered dinner, which Sean rejects. Still, there’s a stubbornness to appease Lapidus, or rather conform to “funeral” behavior.
Wait! What's A Dial? 