Wednesday, August 30, 2023

The Book of Rannells: Duncanville: Season 3, Episode 3 – “(Work) Marriage Story” (2022)

Okay, before I get started, can I just say: Our Flag Means Death trailer out today!!! I have been hyperfixating hard ever since the first look images came out, and I’ve really been waiting for this. New season October 5!

I’m holding off on Marvelous Wednesdays until tomorrow, since I already had this post in the can and I’ve had too long a day to write something new. I’d never heard of this animated family sitcom before seeing it on Andrew Rannells’ filmography, but apparently it ran for three seasons on Fox, and as recently as last year! Shows what I know.

Since I’m dropping into this episode with zero knowledge of the series, here’s what’s going on in this episode. In the central family, dad Jack has just learned about mom Annie’s “work husband” and is freaking out about it, while daughters Kimberly and Jing watch the ensuing trainwreck. Son Duncan thinks he and his friends have it made when their favorite chill teacher is promoted to vice principal.

For a show I’d never heard of, I caught a lot of familiar voices in the cast. Ty Burrell voices Jack, while Amy Poehler plays both Annie and Duncan (she’s also a co-creator of the series.) Rikki Lindhome voices Kimberly, and Duncan’s friend group includes Rashida Jones, Yassir Lester from Black Monday, and Zach Cherry from Severance. Plus, this episode features Bowen Yang as Annie’s work husband Garrett.

We’ll start with the school story, since Rannells isn’t in that one. Some good bits with the teacher’s excitement at the increased salary and perks that come with being vice principal. “Dang!” he exclaims. “With that kind of money, I wouldn’t have to run out of class to deliver Postmates.” And there’s an amusing sight gag involving the administrators’ parking spots being valeted by deer (it makes sense in context.)

The setup for the “work husband” story is that of a million tired family sitcom plots, with Jack reacting entirely out of proportion to the innocent “scandal” of Annie’s closeness with Garrett. The main wrinkle here is that Garrett is gay. Even though Jack is quick to understand that, never worrying that they’d have an affair, he still feels threatened by their emotional intimacy and throws himself into, say, proving he can give backrubs as well as Garrett or flips out over the discovery that they’re “raising a fern together” at the office.

Rannells plays Garrett’s husband Bryce, who Jack tries to rope into a mutual freakout over their spouses’ relationship, but Bryce isn’t having it. “Who wants a needy, suffocating husband who gets all his validation from his spouse?” he remarks to Jack (with maximum irony, of course.) However, rather than purely being a bland side-character husband or an obliging rational voice to Jack’s unreasonable flailing, he gets in on the action in an entertaining way.

I liked that this is a gay character who plays against Rannells’ usual type. Bryce likes wrestling and Guns N’ Roses, and he has a very adamant story about that time he saw a UFO. Even better, none of these things are presented as implausible interests for him to have. On the whole, Rannells is a fun addition to the episode.

He appears one more time on Duncanville, but here are my quick first impressions:

Recommend?

In General – A cautious maybe. It didn’t quite grab me, since a lot of the plot beats are pretty tropey, but there are some good one-liners here.

Andrew Rannells – I probably would. This role isn’t really anything special, but Rannells does well with it and blends nicely into the overall vibe of the show.

Warnings

Drug use, a little gross-out humor, language, and suggestive content.

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