Two for the Road

I like Zach, Eugene, Eva, Richard and Kumail.

But it wore a bit thin if I'm honest. The show is a delight from its natural absurdity, it doesn't need to force it.

Actors playing themselves generally always amuse me, and this wasn't an exception, but I still think it distracted from the story. Where one of our characters lost a close friend and was tried to be murdered.... I don't think we need the slapstick that accompanied it.

Still a lot to like about this episode, and I am looking forward to the rest of the story and the conclusion of the mystery.

So a six out of ten for me for this one.

You could say that it is three for the road. Eugene Levy, Zach Galifianakis and Eva Longoria show up in the Arconia.

They are there to study Charles, Oliver and Mabel. Well Zach does not care much to shadow Oliver.

Whereas Eugene jumps at the chance to investigate the latest murder with Charles. While Eva seems to drink too much.

Detective Williams tells the trio that the FBI are now involved because Jan might be involved with Sazz's murder. She also tells them that M Dudinoff owns the apartment where the bullet might be fired from.

The fun in this episode was the interaction with the three celebrities. Especially Zach's aloofness, although that riff from the opening title from an old 1980s sitcom did turn out to be an important clue.

It was also good that Charles and Eugene teamed up for comedic effect. To see just how bad Vince's eye injury is.

This episode almost feels like a reunion episode or final episode of Saturday Night Live when they try to cram as many celebrities into it as possible. It's not terribly funny. It seems like they try to do the Hollywood satire thing and it doesn't work the last 10 minutes of the episode comes together nicely once you have the actual cast doing their thing which is what makes the show so great. I feel like having these Hollywood actors come into shadow the trio is not a good turn for the series and is just going to be a repetitive season of the same jokes. I don't know why they decided to do that because the writing on this series is so good and it is such a well cast show. Richard kind is an excellent addition to this season.

You would think with as many prolific actors as this, this episode would be so much stronger but it fails to remember what makes this show so good, the chemistry of their leading trio.

In terms of plot, I understand this writing choice. Explain and explore three different plot routes without having to over dedicate time to each. But separating the trio and pairing them up with other completely unknown, in the context of OMITB characters anyway, actors.

Unfortunately, I think this is the weakest episodes of OMITB to date. The most compelling part of the episode is the final five minutes where we get our leading trio in a scene together without any other people. A show can't run by solely relying on the core trio, but when your other characters clash so badly with them, it just doesn't make an enjoyable episode for your audience.

I thought this episode was a joy. Particular loved Da'vines' crack about ZG and the "Perfect Strangers" homage. And the super tense ending. I can't find any fault with this season so far, but then, I've only had minor quibbles in the past.

It's amazing how well all the guest players fit this time around-you can tell that the actors are having a blast. This must be the happiest set ever. So refreshing.

It's been particularly great to see how many SCTV people have passed through OMitB. Maybe it's time to bring some Monty Python in, too-John Cleese would be perfect.

I also keep going back to what Charle's onetime "daughter" said to him about the building in Season 2, that there was a lot of bad stuff going on and he needed to be tougher. I wonder if this is a callback to that.