If some people were
irked by the immense waiting game one has to play for the final seasons of Game of Thrones, one can picture the
irritation I've had to go through waiting more than two fricking years for the fifth and final season of Showtime's
brilliant meta-comedy Episodes. Hell,
Matt LeBlanc has had time to do two completely different series in the
interval. But, as one always finds out with this series, it's worth the wait.
This 'Matt LeBlanc'
has managed to move on to his next new project, a practically unfathomable game
show The Box whose massive success
seems to have shocked even him. Not satisfied with being typecast as a game
show host, he is now trying to get a new series. Even worse, he finds himself
working in concert with his arch nemesis Merc (Jon Pankow) who seems equally
determined to ruin him. In last night's episode, he was caught doing something
truly sexually disgusting with one of the contestants. Merc filmed it, and had
it posted on the Internet. Once Matt was caught 'masturbating in front of America '
as the head of programming put it, things proceeded in typical Episodes fashion. Rather than try to
apologize and admit wrong, Matt talked to the head of the network. He admitted
doing something far worse when he was a young man, Matt apologized, and then
got fired because what Matt did 'wasn't family friendly'. They broadcast his
final episode.. and it got their highest ratings 'since 9-11'. Matt was rehired,
and was able to renegotiate for a new comedy series. The sad part is, none of
this sounds the least bit implausible.
Sean (Stephen Magnan) and Beverly (Tasmin Gregg),
in the meantime, are now seeing their second
classic British TV comedy being destroyed from the inside out. Tom, a truly
inept and talentless drudge, who got hired to head in an act revenge last
season, now seems determined to take all the comedy out of the series, edit the
pilot word-for-word, and is willing to cast a man in a wheelchair for one of
the more active roles. It doesn't take much imagination to see why Beverly
dreamed of suffocating her husband, just so she could never work with this
bastard again. And things are, if anything, worse for former programming head
Carol (Kathleen Rose Perkins) who ever since she has been fired seems to spend
her days getting stoned before breakfast and 'looking like she would if she
never left Michigan'. But because this is Hollywood ,
she's determined to hold on to her niceties like her maid, even though she
hasn't paid her in a month.
I realize that so
often, after a series has been on the air for several season and almost none of
the leads have bothered to change, I traditionally complain about the laziness
of the writers. But for Episodes, I
continue to make an exception because it involves Hollywood
and broadcast television in particular, which does its damnedest to avoid
making any changes at all. So sure, 'Matt LeBlanc' is still the same slovenly
douche he's been since Season 1, but you don't expect him to change, cause ,
why should he? The series remains dirty and filthy (the jokes I've listed are
about the cleanest I can print), but it also is one of the funniest comedies
cable has ever done. It's hard to imagine what will happen in the final act of
this series. I just hope that Sean and Beverly aren't tricked into writing Man With A Plan.
My score: 4.5 stars.
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