WiC Watches: Avenue 5

Image: Avenue 5/HBO

Episode 6: “Was It Your Ears?”

Hey, Avenue 5 had a pretty good episode! And thank god, cause I was starting to think the entire season was going to be unbearably mediocre.

“Was It Your Ears” did a lot of things I’ve been hoping the show would do for a while now, starting with making full use of the cast. What’s the point of having like Doug and Mia and Matt and Spike around if they’re just going to iterate on the same tired jokes?

Well, this time, Spike’s stupidity pays off. When a mysterious beep starts going off at regular intervals, he tells Billie and Captain Clark that it’s because there’s an oxygen leak on the ship. When Billie can’t find a better answer (at first), everyone does what they’re best at and jumps into panic mode. Soon Karen is suggesting people “try to keep lang at an abs min,” passengers are legally required to talk in whispers, and everyone is fighting fatigue as the damned beeping keeps them up all night…or whatever passes for night when you’re in outer space.

This is easily the most relatable bit of comedy on the show thus far. Is there anything more annoying than a smoke alarm you can’t shut off? I have been Captain Clark, tying a pillow around his head and screaming when it doesn’t help. Fuck that beep.

That said, it does make for great comedy because of people’s different reactions to it. Doug screams “Fuck you!” whenever it happens, Matt anticipates it, and Iris can’t help but laugh, which is the best one. It might be because the show is filling out the edges of their personalities, it might be Stockholm syndrome, but these characters are starting to grow on me.

Anyway, back on Earth, Rav secures federal funding to help with the Avenue 5 rescue, although the money comes with a request from “the other president” — who’s basically an advanced Amazon Echo — to try and get rid of 500 non-essential personnel, presumably to keep costs down. The idea of human life being treated like it’s worthless is in keeping with the show’s satire, although I’m not sure what they’re trying to get at by making the president a robot operating out of Buffalo, New York. It seems more like randomness for randomness’ sake than anything else.

In any case, Doug overhears the team talking about this request — he has to use Frank’s bathroom because Mia has forbid him from using theirs — and later blurts it out to the crew at large, inspiring one of those mini-riots that seem to happen all the time on this ship. “I don’t even care about names, I just want blood!” says one passenger.

Implications of that aside, I love that the show is making use of Doug and Mia. Sure, They’re still making tired we’re-married-but-hate-each-other jokes, but I feel freer to laugh at those jokes now because the characters don’t feel so superfluous. I even smiled at a couple tonight. (“I would like a new cabin away from my broken prophylactic of a husband.”)

The exception is Matt, who’s still too weird and off-putting for me to believe he has any place in a show ostensibly about real human beings. Even Judd finds him too bizarre to hang out with, and Judd is so incompetent that most of his staff are brain-storming ways to sedate him so they can work in peace. Karen is even pushing for his murder!

That said, Judd’s plan to light up the shit surrounding the ship with lasers pacifies the passengers after they learn about the plan to jettison 500 of them, putting off the inevitable for another couple weeks. As ridiculous as he is, I can see how an egomaniac like Judd, who’s so infantile he fights for Iris’ attention with a newborn baby, can exist. Matt, like some of the jokes about Our New Earth, seems weird just for the sake of it.

But hey, at least there are improvements being made. Here’s to the best episode of Avenue 5 so far.

Grade: B

Bullet Points…In Space!

• Future update: Pennsylvania was apparently ravaged by fires at some point.
• “Not that it’s a competition — Judd vs baby — but if it were, I’d destroy that baby, physically, emotionally and endurance-wise.”
• “You keep greeting people in triplicate, we’ll be dead by Tuesday.”
• They run out of air in nine months, “so don’t get pregnant, it would be a huge waste of time.”
• I don’t think I’ve given Rebecca Front enough credit for how effortlessly she sells Karen, who says awful things in hilariously matter-of-fact ways, like when she tells Frank what’ll happen when the oxygen runs out: “From what I understand, it will be like drowning, with dirt in your mouth and a tractor on your chest.”
• Matt’s room is covered with pictures of passengers. At least I hope they’re passengers.
• “I’m so tired that my hair hurts me.”
• “There is enough air for maybe some of you to thank me.”
• “It is beautiful…until you really think about it.”
• “The nightmare is over; this part of the nightmare is over.”