*A few relationship spoilers—this is shaping up to be a very relationship-heavy season, so in order to talk about anything, I have to get into who’s into who and whatnot.*
Another excellent episode, taking the idea of the Lovebugs and bringing it to some different places. Also, there are just plenty of laughs and a great twist on a classic scenario featuring a neat guest star.
After Nick bared his heart to Jessi, he wound up falling on his face, but his Lovebug Walter is convinced that they can salvage it. Jessi’s own Lovebug Sonya has finally lit up, and Jessi’s feelings are a deep best-friend love for Ali, which is great—until she starts wanting to monopolize Ali’s time from her girlfriend. Matthew’s crush on Jay takes a turn when he sees an opportunity to score an underhanded win. Meanwhile, Andrew falls hard for the cool substitute teacher, who puts jealousy on all the kids’ minds with his lesson on Othello.
I’m of two minds about Jessi’s Lovebug being platonic. On the one hand, it pulls its punches on Jessi exploring a crush on a girl, but on the other, I can’t be mad about a celebration of platonic love. When Sonya lights up over Jessi’s feelings for Ali, Connie is immediately ready to go all in on tongues and boobies, but Sonya interjects, “Ladies, I’m not talking about sex. I’m talking about love.” And come on, middle-school friendships can be intense.
The substitute teacher Andrew is obsessed with? Played by Adam Scott, who’s on my forever-adore list after playing Ben on Parks and Rec. (I thought I recognized the voice, and his character is even drawn to look kind of like him, but even if I hadn’t IMDb’d it, the shoutouts would’ve given it away eventually—the animation includes a poster of the same Letters to Cleo album cover that’s on a T-shirt Ben wears, along with what were definitely a few Cones of Dunshine!) The sub, Mr. Keating, is every trope of the super-cool teacher. He swears! (Says Andrew: “This guy is premium-cable cool!”) He uses hip slang! He stands on the desk! He tells the kids to throw their books away! One of the biggest laughs of the episode comes when Andrew exclaims, “What? There’s reading? I thought ‘fuck books!’—I threw away all the books I own.”
It’s only a matter of time before everyone’s affection turns sour. Even before the green-eyed monsters (literally) start kicking in, Walter urges Nick, “Love doesn’t back down, it doubles down!”, a trope from a zillion rom-coms that the show rightly recognizes for how toxic it is. Before long, we have Jessi fantasizing about Hulking out on Ali’s girlfriend and Andrew going full Fatal Attraction on Mr. Keating.
Matthew gets in on this jealousy-induced spiraling too. At Maury’s encouragement, he starts to think Jay might like him back, only to realize that Jay is asking him for romantic advice about someone else. Maury urges Matthew to give the kind of advice that’s likely to benefit him, not Jay. It’s a testament to Matthew’s evolution as a character that he’s at all conflicted about this. Crush or not, season 1 Matthew would’ve tried to sabotage Jay just for the fun of it. Here, he’s not sure what to do.
It’s the shortest of the four main plots, but as usual, Andrew Rannells plays it for all he’s worth. There are some good laughs in here. I love this impeccably-timed back-and-forth with Jay: “Do you have a second to talk gay shit with me?” “Like how Glenn Close was robbed?” “What?” “Never mind.” And when Maury, at a low moment, tries to offer, “It… gets better?”, I adore Rannells’s ice-cold delivery of, “Don’t you fucking dare.”
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