Chris and Spencer are back for more Difficult People! In "Cindarestylox," Marilyn asks Julie to freeze her eggs, Julie indulges in some Botox (to fit on a golden toilet seat, naturally), and Billy teaches an acting class for adolescents.
CHRIS: The Ramble has been transformed into an outdoor yoga studio?! Is nothing sacred anymore!
SPENCER: And yet that Leather Queen who climbs out of the tree still wages the war against the women! Love that whole bit where people are telling our pal Julie to smile. Now that is real.
;)
C: So Billy starts teaching acting classes to help pay for his Madonna standup tickets. Strangely, Madonna as a standup comic was a joke that didn't work for me - watch any interview with her and she's an excellent shadestress! She'd make a decent insult comic.
S: Do you remember that one short clip where a fan brought her flowers and she mocked him for it? I mean… the shade is insurmountable, but it is equally hilarious...
C: Also Billy's opportunism to outshine his students is so real to some of the acting coaches I'd had in the past.
S: You took acting classes? I need to know more.
;)
C: Jane Krakowski Alert!! I'd wager that she's one of the few performers that can keep playing literally the same schtick without it getting old. She's just the best at playing self-consumed.
S: Her "Hi-yeeeeee" (ala RuPaul's Alaska) had me in stitches.
C: Cindarestylox gives Klausner some of her best physical comedy opportunity in the show's run. I love when she gets to show she's got comic chops beyond the quips.
S: This is some of her finest work since "Patches" last season.
;)
C: Julie considers freezing her eggs at Marilyn's request. First the Quizno's Clinic and now Frovo, so chain store jokes are becoming one of the season's fascinations.
S: But really, what does it say about us that I would totally go to these stores?
C: The evolution of consumer fads: A Frovo that used to have froyo. I bet it was a vape store before that.
S: I predict it will actually come after Frovo. Vaping is the way of the future, after all.
In "Bernie and Blythe," Julie and Arthur role-play as Bernie Sanders and Blythe Danner to spice up their sex lives, Marilyn relives her sexual past, and Billy becomes John Cho's Stepford Wife.
C: First off: I can't believe it took this long for a musical interlude! For one fleeting moment, Difficult People made me like Annie.
S: Let's commission a revival of Annie where Julie plays a very perverse, crassy Annie. Don't say you can't picture it.
;)
C: I'm getting so worried about where the show might be headed with all these stories about Julie and Arthur's relationship woes. However, this episode it gave us a new coping mechanism of them: role-playing as Blythe Danner and Bernie Sanders.
S: But then again, the series really does play itself out like a sitcom. And we all know how much sitcoms love complacency.
;)
C: John Cho is back, and Billy gets to play actual relationship struggles finally: at Todd's coworker gatherings Billy gets stuck in the heteronormative role of wife and stuck at the Stepfordesque spouse table.
S: And as great as John Cho is, I love the function of his role even more, because this is the first glimpse we get into "relationship Billy." We see him be vulnerable, but always still funny. That said, "Gay Get Out" had me cackling. And in a way, weren’t we all expecting Nicole Kidman and Faith Hill to pop up at some point? We can all dream.
;)
C: Marilyn reveals she was once one of the photographed models in the Joy of Sex. For context, had you ever seen those photos? [Kate McKinnon voice] The human body is a mysterious and extraordinary beast.
S: In the kindest way imaginable, I have to say that that revelation was wholly unsurprising.
C: I totally believed this as a beloved chapter in Marilyn's past, but Andrea Martin was both hilarious and sweet in playing sexual nostalgia. John Turturro's cameo as her former page-partner has to be one of my favorite guest star scenarios yet.
S: Let’s all just say at the same time: 1…2… 3… Emmy snubbed.