This was a really fun one. David and Michael are hilarious together as they with the fallout from the last episode, and we also get a great Rosencrantz and Guildenstern-esque detour with the ladies in the cast.
Michael and David fear they’re in hot water after their antics in the last episode, in which they carried out a bit of dubiously-competent sabotage against their would-be replacements in the American remake of Staged. They face their approaching meeting with head-honcho Mary like dead men walking. Meanwhile, Georgia and Anna (David and Michael’s partners) and Lucy (Simon’s sister) rehearse for a charity sketch together.
First of all, the Georgia/Anna/Lucy scene is a delight. I’ve always enjoyed the little bits on the show of Georgia and Anna catching up on their own as they commiserate over their needy, neurotic celebrity husbands, and it’s a lot of fun to get the three of them doing the same sort of talking about nothing that Michael and David often do – I laughed out loud when Georgia admits she can’t say for sure that she’d like Lucy as well face-to-face, since, for all she knows, Lucy might have an offputting head size that’s not apparent over video. I also love them rehearsing their sketch, groaning over Simon’s inability to write dialogue for women, and swapping stories over sexist bullshit they’ve dealt with as actresses. Lucy’s story about a stage direction involving her “startled buttocks” is fantastic.
And just everything with David and Michael is a hoot. Ben Schwartz makes another appearance, continuing his amusing schtick of being totally into everything David does and mildly confused and put off by Michael. For the sake of spoilers, I won’t mention who plays Mary, but if you’ve been watching along, you’ll of course remember her from earlier in the season.
That whole scene and the subsequent bollocking is great, but Michael and David’s frantic attempts to prepare for said bollocking are even better. Any alliance between them is always tenuous at best, and here, David is terrified that Michael is going to throw him under the bus with Mary. As such, when they both jump on the call a little early and David sees that Michael is wearing a collared shirt, he goes into panic mode. This sets off a chain reaction of wardrobe changes and set-dressing as both try and put their best foot forward, with David arranging his acting awards in the background and Michael debating whether or not Mary will be softened by the presence of his baby napping in her pram. There’s also a fantastic sequence of them trying to one-up each other over their name recognition, culminating in David leaning into the camera to shout, “I’m Doctor Who!” while Michael shoots back, “Not anymore, baby!”
A great episode for both David Tennant and Michael Sheen. I knows it’s repetitive at this point, but they’re both so good – absolutely hilarious and just stellar at playing off of each other.
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