WiC Watches: Avenue 5

Image: Avenue 5/HBO

Episode 8: “This is Physically Hurting Me”

Well, it took until the end of the season, but Avenue 5 finally got somewhere interesting. Welcome to what is far and away the best episode so far.

All along, I’ve been saying the show is missing something. It has characters, but they’re not deep enough to carry the series. That would be fine if it was a scream, but the jokes simply aren’t funny enough, with this episode having its share of head-scratching punchlines. (“Billie’s only 30% flesh and blood,” Karen says at one point. “The rest is…I dunno, bone?” That’s phrased and delivered like a joke, but…what the hell does it even mean?)

And there are too many jokes that lean on the pop culture of today, or yesterday. Apparently Greta Gerwig is the subject of a true crime podcast in the future, we’re still making Beatles jokes in space, and there’s even time for a couple of cracks about Mary Tudor. All of these jokes basically end at, ‘Do you know what we’re referencing?’ and they’re weird references to make on a sci-fi series.

And then there’s the satire. If you look at the show’s premise, you’d think we’d be swimming in it: we’re decades into the future, and an out-of-touch trillionaire charges vast sums to money to take rich people on a galaxy-wide space cruise that takes a disastrous turn due to his own incompetence. There are lots of worthy targets here, and the show has taken aim at them a couple of times, but nothing has really hit home…until now.

The climax of the season to date comes about halfway through the episode, after Judd fires Captain Clark over the plot to sedate him a couple episodes back. Clark says, ‘F**k it’ and takes his place among the passengers, who are horrified to find that he’s British and bald(ing). After Spike is made captain, they also find out that the crew members on the bridge are actors, and suddenly they’re questioning the reality of everything that’s happened, helped along by Matt suggesting that the entire universe is a simulation.

So convinced, a pack of idiots charge the airlock, sure that if they get launched into “space,” they’ll actually be able to go home. One passenger — the father of a son whom he and his wife left at home in a coma — piles in, looks smugly at the crew, and…instantly freezes as he’s exposed to the impossible chill of space, and then floats lifelessly into the void.

Now THAT is funny. The show desperately needed some kind of jolt, and a helping of pitch-black humor will did the trick. And the best part is that it’s not over! Even after that, people still think it’s just a “special effect,” helped along by a moron who works in the movie industry and sounds very sure of herself. So more people pile in, including Judd’s business rival Harrison Ames. And then four more people take their chances, including Sarah, the daffy English “crew member” played by Daisy May Cooper. Seeing her frozen hand break off as it collides with the side of the door finally seems to convince the mob that they are not in a simulation, and by this point I am howling. Seeing Rav scream as the shuttle she’s in approaches the Avenue 5, weaving through bodies as it goes, is the icing on the cake.

Here we GO, people. Here’s a show that actually has something to say. All along, Avenue 5 has been teasing a descent into mob rule aboard the ship, a comedy version of Lord of the Flies. These people may be rich, but when they become desperate and adrift, they turn into lemmings like everyone else, willing to believe anything as long as it lets them feel how they wanna feel. Sure, their actions here are exaggerated, but it’s comedy, and no situation like this yet exists so who’s to say this isn’t how people would react if trapped on a disastrous space cruise where everyone in charge was a fraud?

And when confronted with proof that what they think is wrong, they dig in deeper, like the VFX woman. Because owning up to the mistake now, after there have been consequences, would make them look even more foolish. “We just saw a man become desiccated!” exclaims Captain Clark. But reason doesn’t work in a situation like this.

Image: Avenue 5/HBO

This also gives the journey some stakes. People can die! That’s great for tension; I’m definitely more intrigued to watch what happens. The show could have delivered this blow even more forcefully had it effectively developed its characters — both the living and the dead — beforehand, but better late than never. Far better.

And also it was just really damn funny. The special effect of seeing those people step into the airlock convinced they were going home, convinced they had figured it all out, only for their satisfied faces to freeze and die and float away. And then more people jumped in to have a go!

Oh, and then after both parents of the coma boy die, Judd gets notified that the child has woken up and is asking for his mom and dad. It’s so mean it’s almost not funny…almost. The show has been making those kind of bleak jabs all along, but they never worked because they weren’t earned. That one was. We have liftoff.

Grade: A-

Bullet Points…In Space!

• “He’d slash his nana’s throat for half an Advil.”
• Iris with a good threat: “I am fire. Literally fire. I will burn the jelly in your fat eyes and use your tongue to wipe surfaces with.”
• “Hey, don’t talk to rich people like that.”
• “These people are so dumb; I’m just hanging out with pigs and dolphins when I get back.”
• “I cannot believe you are making me save your simple little lives!”
• “It’s not fake, it’s just cheap.”
• This episode even deepened Matt, who I’ve thought was mostly dead weight up until now. He seemed pretty torn up over stirring the mob to mass suicide. Giving him layers will make whatever jokes he makes from now on more funny, not less.
• “The passenger is either you or Mr. Judd or both of you, if one has eaten the other.”