If season
5 is the only one to feature an ongoing centric arc for Elijah, “The Bounce” is
the only episode in which Elijah takes the A-plot. This is an Elijah episode all the way, and it
is glorious, absolutely hilarious with nice dramatic flourishes here and
there. It’s an episode that proves
there’s no reason a character like Elijah couldn’t be a protagonist instead of
a supporting character (a few Elijah-related spoilers, including one from last
season.)
Elijah is
getting more serious about acting, and his anxious preparations for an open
call (for a workshop of White Men Can’t
Jump: The Musical, natch) are thrown
for a loop when Dill shows up unexpectedly at Elijah and Hannah’s
apartment. Elijah hasn’t seen Dill since
the tail-end of last season, and Dill now comes seeking a hideout in the middle
of a PR scandal. With Hannah back at the
apartment “watching” Dill, Elijah heads to his audition with thoughts of his ex
swirling in his head. Meanwhile, Marnie
gets a wakeup call as she tries to deal with some financial issues.
In the
last episode, Marnie was still very much in “everything wrong with me is
someone else’s fault” mode, and she starts out in a very similar place here,
but this episode takes her through a pretty humbling experience, and
refreshingly, she’s forced to reckon with the part she’s taken in her own
problems. (It also features an amusing
couple of burst bubbles from Marnie’s personal mythology.)
I enjoy
the scenes with Hannah and Dill at the apartment. She at least partially does her due diligence
as Elijah’s friend, showing loyalty to Elijah in her chilliness towards Dill
and texting Elijah his requested updates on all Dill does there. But this part of the plot also gets into
what’s going on with both Hannah and Dill, and the two end up weirdly
connecting over their respective woes.
But let’s
be real: this episode is all about
Elijah. It took over five-and-a-half
seasons, but this is the big one. Just
the audition stuff alone is a goldmine.
As Andrew Rannells has explained, Lena Dunham and co. mined his own past
auditioning experiences for the comic beats of this story, and it’s heavily
based on his trials and tribulations auditioning for the basketball-themed Lysistrata Jones. Elijah’s audition song is as phenomenal as it
is ridiculously thirsty (does it make sense for Elijah to sing that well? I don’t know, but I’m okay with it,) his
fumbly dancing is awesome, and everything that follows the introduction of
basketballs into the audition is full-on hilarious. In the midst of all this top-shelf comedy,
though, there are also a number of nice, subtle character beats, particularly
in Rannells’s wordless reactions to the indifferently-distracted casting
directors as Elijah sings, dances, and dribbles (well, tries to) for his life. Even though Elijah has talked for years about
wanting to “break into” Broadway, we see that this is why he hasn’t done much
of anything about it until now: because
it matters so much to him, and it’s hard for him to watch it matter so little
to the people who can decide his fate.
All that
on its own would be an embarrassment of riches for an Elijah A-plot, but then
you throw in Dill? The undercurrent
that’s been following Elijah through this season have been Dill’s words to him
when they broke up, that he needed someone less “aimless,” and now, when Elijah
is finally taking an active, tangible step to make something happen in his
life, who shows up at his door? It’s
Elijah’s feelings about Dill’s words to him, it’s his thoughts about how they
broke up, it’s his lingering feelings for Dill, and it’s his own fears of
putting himself out there professionally and not being good enough – all that
is what’s swirling in his head as he arrives at his audition, a
personal/romantic/career crisis all rolled into one.
The stuff
with Dill is the more dramatic part of Elijah’s plot here, but just as the
audition story mixes in some good drama, the Dill story includes some great
humor as well (I think this episode might have more genuine laugh-out-loud
moments for me than any other in the series.)
I love their exchange about Elijah’s “basketball outfit” for his
audition, and there’s this spectacular moment where Elijah drags Hannah out
into the hallway to whisper about Dill and he’s so worked up that he just sort
of flails himself against the closed door.
While I can’t say I’ve ever done that or have ever been in the
particular situation that causes Elijah to do it, I can pinpoint exactly what
that feeling is and what would make someone want
to do that. Rannells is unquestionably
fantastic, and this is an episode that recognizes that wholeheartedly.
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