This review contains spoilers.
After the somewhat superfluous third episode, it’s nice to see Episodes get back on track and stick to its basic premise. With the ratings for “Pucks!” plummeting both rapidly and significantly, the network decides to retool the show, pushing Matt and Morning’s characters into the background, much to their chagrin.
This episode’s pretty standard fare, continuing the decline of “Pucks!” and the further bastardisation it undergoes as a result. A brilliant illustration of this is a scene where executive meddling changes the plot of an episode so much that the only remaining element of the initial idea is that there is a truck involved. But the best parts of this episode are the ones that lean towards drama more than comedy. One of the best of these is Beverly begging Matt not to leave the show as it will signal the end of both it and her marriage to Sean.
It’s something of a disappointment that the altered character dynamic of the first episode has pretty much disappeared and character relationships are more or less as they were in series one but it seems to work, and the character traits and personalities we know still hold up well. Merc and Carol continue to be a reliable comedic double act, while Sean and Beverly are still the straight men dealing with the insanity of Hollywood. Matt manages to gain the audience’s sympathy to some extent as both he and the audience realise how low on the pecking order he is. To the series' credit, this episode gives him some pretty significant character development as he decides not to resign purely to keep the show going and give Beverly more time to patch things up with Sean. It’s a far cry from the Matt we saw at the start of series two and it’s nice to see him move away from the selfish immoral character we initially knew, even if his affair with Jamie conflicts with this.
Once again, the episode’s standout moment is one of light emotional drama rather than comedy as Sean teaches Beverly to ice skate. I know that my nutshell description doesn’t make it sound particularly fantastic but the imagery and the instrumental score that underpins it makes for a wonderfully poignant scene that ends the episode on a high note. Interestingly, it seems to be the ending scenes of series 2 that are its real strength which is no bad thing as a well-constructed ending can be key to keeping an audience’s interest. Another strong episode. Let’s hope this trend continues.
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