This time around, we have both Peter Capaldi and Andrew Rannells, but Rannells is not playing Matthew. It’s a fun episode, a Mamma Mia! sendup with a nice plot for Lola.
When Lola wins a big settlement after getting burned by a Hot Pocket, she meets the members of the old boy band Bros4Life, who knew her mom back in their heyday. They tell her that one of them is her father, and Lola goes full Mamma Mia!, thrilled at the prospect of having three dads. Over at the Birches, Elliot enlists the boys to help clean out Seamus’s house, planning to sell it and move Seamus into an assisted living home. Unsurprisingly, Seamus is not interested in that.
Given Lola’s grating voice, she’s not an ideal character to center a musical around, but it’s an entertaining, funny, and heartwarming plot. All the Bros4Life stuff is fun, and it’s sad to watch Lola buy their claims hook, line, and sinker, so desperate to have someone who cares about her. Of course, this means another appearance from her mom’s parole officer Rodney, who’d obviously jump at the chance to be the parental figure she craves. I love how Lola describes her mom “Hoobastanking ‘round the country,” and we later get the delightful line, “Wait, I’ve been taking you for Hugh Granted!”
Her storyline culminates in the Daddy-Daughter Dance being thrown at Elijah’s church, where Missy is also in attendance with her intellectual, New Agey dad. It’s interesting to see her dad’s worries about Elijah’s influence, especially given the paternalistic nature of the Daddy-Daughter Dance.
In this episode, Rannells is again playing Leander, one of the “Archers” who are the personification of Lola’s pubic hair. In previous episodes, the Archers have mostly dealt in stories related to anatomy/sexuality, but here, they offer a sounding board for Lola with her whole dad situation. Leander urges her not to discount Rodney, declaring, “Though his leather jacket is fake, his heart is true!”
The Archers are also around for the inciting Hot Pocket accident, which means they provide backup as Lola sings a bouncy ode to Hot Pockets. This is actually how I first realized Rannells was voicing one of the Archers—I didn’t recognize him in the dialogue scenes, I suppose because I wasn’t expecting him to play anyone other than Matthew, but I’d know his singing voice anywhere.
Over in the Birch plotline, Seamus is being his usual disgusting self. He mocks Nick for eating pancakes for breakfast—“They’re round and soft, just like you, you doughy little short-stack fuck!”—and when it’s mentioned that he bit the mailman, he mutters, “He knows what he did.” I certainly don’t like the character, but I can’t deny that Peter Capaldi is playing him very effectively. It’s unsettling to see him continually needle at Elliot and Nick. In this episode in particular, things come to a head between him and Elliot in a major way.
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