*A few relationship spoilers.*
Here’s a penultimate episode that definitely feels penultimate, at least where the main plot is concerned. In other words, everything’s coming to a head and getting about as bad as it can possibly get before the resolution.
The Birches take a winter vacation to a ski resort, with Andrew in tow. But while Andrew’s luck might finally be turning around—he meets a girl whose weirdness vibes with his!—Nick is thoroughly entrenched in his Hate Worm’s influence, unable to enjoy anything and taking everyone else’s happiness as a personal insult. Back home, Matthew comes upon a dejected Jay after a hard encounter with Lola.
The Hate Worms are still used really well. In addition to crowding out the Hormone Monsters, like I’ve said, the show captures the way that those sorts of toxic feelings can poison everything good. Nick is absolutely miserable right now, but it’s like he doesn’t even want to feel better. He just wants to stew in his anger and hatred, secure in his belief that everything in the world sucks and/or is out to screw him.
That all gets pretty dark, but luckily there’s some good humor in this plot too. Andrew’s prospective girlfriend, who’s awesomely named Bernie Sanders, is played by Kristen Schaal, which is always fun, and we get to meet Connie’s sister Bonnie, who serves as the Hormone Monster for Nick’s older sister Leah. Nick’s dad continues to be fantastic—when he inadvertently upsets his wife, he exclaims, “No! If you go to bed angry, I won’t be able to sleep. And then I won’t have the energy to cherish you tomorrow!” And Connie has a fantastic line in, “This is not the Jonah Hill I will die on!”
Over in the B-plot, with two characters as chaotic as Jay and Lola, it’s always a coin flip as to whether they’re going to profess their undying love or destroy each other, and in this case, Lola sticks it to Jay in a way that’s unintentionally devastating for him. When she realizes the consequences of her actions, she intones, “Alas, like the war on drugs, I might have won, but like, at what cost?”
Enter Matthew, who’s been nursing an attraction to Jay most of the season. (Side note: this makes three major characters on the show who’ve had a romantic interest in Jay. How did that happen?) Fortunately, Matthew knows better than to take advantage of Jay’s rock-bottom situation. “Do I look like a Republican congressman at an airport bathroom?” he drawls.
But he does try to help Jay at his lowest, which fosters a deeper connection between the two boys. I’ve said before that it’s pretty impressive how much Matthew really has changed since the second season in terms of trying to be a nicer person. He still has some bite to him, but he makes overtures that I never could’ve imagined from him at the start of the show. Andrew Rannells does a nice job balancing these sides of the character, while still bringing the funny, naturally! I also love Rannells’s delivery in this exchange between Jay and Matthew: “No offense, Matthew, but I’m not worthy of a gay makeover montage.” “No offense taken, Jay, because I’m just gonna hose you down in my driveway.” I still can’t really figure out what Matthew would find all that appealing about Jay, but I’ll confess to being super curious about how they’d be as a couple.
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