“The West Coast Delay”
I have some serious mixed feeling about this episode. In it we have a plagiarised joke that turns out not to be and childishness from Harriet and Matt but mostly Matt.
The episode opens in the writers room with all bar Matt trying to come up with something for the 90 seconds Matt has given them in a 90 minute show. I get why they’re pissed, but the problem that Matt has with Rick and Ron has been addressed, and Danny also explains that because Matt didn’t start in TV he has a hard time writing as a group. The joke though, I knew that this would be what caused the problem and that his would be where the titular west coast delay would stem from, but I was completely wrong about why. The joke is not funny, like at all. It basically says that dyslexia isn’t a thing and that kids diagnosed with it are just stupid. Maybe I misunderstood, maybe it was supposed to be ironic, but I don’t think so. It’s just not funny. I was so sure that the issue would be immediate backlash after the show ended that they would have to change it for the west coast that I was actually a little disappointed that it wasn’t. Though in hindsight of course it wouldn’t be, they’ve already shown that they aren’t really all that worried about offending people.
The issue it turns out, is that the joke was used by another comedian a year ago, and I really liked this whole thing with them having to break in live to the west coast feed to apologies and give a different sketch. To do this though, they have to try and get their head around when they need to break in, do they add or subtract seven seconds, which I don’t understand either, but I have the excuse of not working in TV, they should all know this. They have to find a sports game that’s currently on so they can prove it’s live, they end up with a cricket match in Bangalore! And they need to find and pay people in the street to come and be their audience for a 90 second break in! They do it, and they’re successful. At least until they get the comedian on the phone…and he reveals that he stole the joke. So they break in again. And apologise again. Then they find out that they owned the copyright for the joke all along. I liked it. That was funny. But guys the joke wasn’t! It was just mean.
Danny though! He was actually surprisingly absent for a big chunk of the beginning of this episode, and I found myself questioning where he was, and whether I’d missed something. He is over shadowed in this episode by everything going on with Matt, as is Jordan, but we do get a lovely moment where he confronts Rick and Ron and throws Ron into the wall, I was reminded a lot of a similar scene in The West Wing when Josh does the same to a lawyer, maybe not a lawyer, I can’t remember now, coming after Leo. Oh my Leo. He demands that they tell them who put the joke forward, and god forbid if it was done to intentionally hurt Matt. My heart guys, my heart. To Rick and Ron’s credit they don’t give up the name, and they offer to resign, and I really don’t like them at all, but at least they too are defending their colleagues, they just happen to have different allegiances.
Matt and Harriet. Wow this is getting childish. Harriet gives Matt a baseball bat that’s signed with the player’s phone number, she said she didn’t know it was a phone number, he says she clearly did and she just wanted to make him jealous, and there’s just a hell of a lot of sniping for two adults. Matt then decides it’ll be a good idea to go and get a dancers boot signed in retaliation, but thankfully he realises the insanity of this. They’re clearly still in love with each other, and he’s going to go and tell her but instead walks in on her kissing said baseball player. The whole thing is just one big mess, and I’m actually finding it frustrating to watch them behave like two idiot teenagers.
Overall I liked this episode less than the previous ones, but the parts I liked I really did like.
Samantha Gray 