Difficult People S3 E1-2: Woody Allen, Depression Shadows, and Protest Rats
Sunday, August 20, 2017 at 1:00PM Difficult People is back and Chris and Spencer will be chatting about this season!
Julie and Billy begin the season doing community service for wrecking a live televised musical. Billy lands a gig as the audience warmup for a new Larry Wilmore talkshow, while Julie tries to score some new antidepressants to get through Passover dinner.
CHRIS: That opening live musical joke was a great capsule of the show's humor: a blend of mass entertainment and niche references with a huge serving of outrage. I'd have an even harsher revolt to Bazinga in the Park with George however.
SPENCER: But if anything, it gives us that brief gag where they’re picking up trash along the Nathan Lane Roadway Memorial. It’s such a great way of keeping that world-building alive and comical.
C: So I get so happy whenever Billy or Julie go on another audition, because that means we get to see Christina Gausas as Tracy Wass, the prompter at every audition.
C: I'm glad the premiere featured the bit players and restaurant family unit, because I feel this ensemble never get credit past the headliners. Cole Escola and Gabby Sidibe are my favorite codependency on television.
S: Shameless plug: Cole Escola is hilarious on Twitter.
C: And YouTube. Gabby is also a social media queen! But this episode was really all about Julie's hilarious Passover quest for medicated serenity for me. At first I thought Radshadovan was a real ad on my Hulu - that's how flat out bizarre pharmaceutical ads have become.
S: Nothing beats Julie trying to be a student at her free clinic, though. Her sporting a flower headband, telling girls she will see them at the quad later? But like any trip to the doctor, we can now go to Quizno’s Clinic to get either a sandwich or medical attention. Lucky for Julie, she has enough Toasty Points to see a doctor for free. That’s the kind of insurance I need.
C: Shoutout to Annie Golden as a drugdealer / Julie's depression shadow. Who would play your personified depression to follow you around?
S: Julie Bowen. In fact, I think she follows me enough as it is.
C: I’d have Annie Golden also play my depression shadow. Best of luck to other sitcoms to try to get a better joke than a Danny Aiello meditation app that also robs you and bitches about Scorsese.
S: But does it make you wonder what Lynch’s app would have been like? It makes sense, I guess that Julie didn’t use his — he apparently still owes her “ten bucks for Inland Empire” — which I naturally take as a personal attack.
C: Passover dinner brings Stockard Channing as Andrea Martin's coke addicted sister. But they gotta bring her back because she really owned the show's casually absurd humor.
S: Totally, she is not in the episode enough at all.
In Episode Two, Julie lands an acting gig for Woody Allen while Billy and Marilyn participate in a government-funded gay conversion scam for money and free parking.
C: This episode really went there with Woody Allen, but what was surprising and so much funnier is that it went for him creatively and not just the obvious icky low hanging fruit. Also, I completely forgot he even had that Amazon show until this episode reminded me!
S: Honestly, the only reason I would have remembered his show is because Miley Cyrus is on it… maybe I should watch it now.
C: “Woody still thinks that cigarette girls exist and black people don’t.” I mean, where is the lie?
BEST SIGHT GAG - Mozart in the Jungle is literally Mozart in a jungle
C: Just like Christina Gausas, I love seeing Shannon DeVido as Andrea Mumford so much. Her spoken word poetry bit is still one of the best jokes of the first season for me.
S: And what is so great about her appearance in this episode is that she is unafraid to make Andrea so vicious and so unlikeable. She is such a savage to Julie. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t make a similar call as she makes about Woody’s downward quality after seeing To Rome With Love. Such a misfire, I want old Woody back.
C: I’ll forever be quoting “I’m a mental imbecile. But you, you’re operating on a sexual energy. I must be your muse.” But of course the show gets shut down.
S: The pig call for Woody is etched in my mind forever. Real question: Would you see Maggie Gyllenhaal's Hostel sequel Cliterectomy: Third Time's the Harm?
C: ... I refuse to acknowledge Eli Roth since he swayed Cate Blanchett to work with him.
S: Another question: Did you know what a strike rat was before this episode? I sure didn't and now I want one of my very own.
C: Yeah I can use it to strike against that Eli Roth / Cate Blanchett movie.
S: Let’s take a second to talk about the relationship between Billy and Julie’s mom. The fact that she even refers to Julie as the third wheel is uproarious, but
C: Agreed, and like him and Julie, their shared outrage is the sweetest part of their bond.
S: What is especially great about them together is the fact that Billy seems to let his guard down a bit more and he becomes more human. We catch some really sweet glimpses of him in this moments.
C: I think too much attention is paid to the show just for its guest stars, but Vanessa Williams as the balloon-poppiing fetishist ex-wife is just go-for-broke strange. I love that it's someone wholesome like Vanessa Williams that gets to do it.
S: Such a welcome surprise to have her back. And I’ll be forever quoting “Serve me up some hot wings, fire up Better Call Saul, and please ask me how I feel about women who don't wear makeup. I have an opinion whether they're beautiful with or without it.”
C: And everyone loses this episode. No acting gig, no free parking, no cash, and most importantly: no more protest rat.
Reader Comments (5)
That Woody Allen takedown was thorough, but I also enjoyed the tangential riff on burlesque/cabaret. The pacing this season is ridiculous, too. I can never decide if this show has an extra 20 minutes of cut scenes per episode, or they really are booking NYC local celebs who can only film for 10 minutes total. Like, the restaurant set is functional and Maury Povich only had as long as it took for his order to come up.
Emmy for Stockard Channing please!
I loved that Barbara Harris joke. Would anyone else in the world get that name drop?
I LOVE THIS SHOW!
Even more acerbic than Veep and so outrageously funny.
Julie and Billy are underrated geniuses.
LOVE LOVE LOVE this show and I'm so excited you guys are gonna be covering it! I, too, laughed loud and long at the "Nathan Lane Memorial" sign, and I adore how absurd this show is. Totally unafraid to GO THERE, and the "there" is never quite where you expect.
Andrea Martin is a national treasure, and I love the idea of her and Stockard Channing as sisters SO MUCH. Almost as much as I love the idea of her and Vicki Lawrence as best friends on the hilarious Great News.
Depressed people have a rather difficult time in society. From time to time they should see a psychologist. Once I also attended such sessions, it was online therapy on the platform instagram Calmerry therapy, which is very convenient. I didn't have to travel anywhere. And I could openly share my problems with the specialist while staying on my own turf.