Like “Doljanchi” before it, Running Point‘s fifth episode “Beshert” loosely applies the cultural tradition in its title to the characters at the heart of its story – and like all four episodes preceding it, is a mixed bag of underwhelming character development, lukewarm jokes, and a tone that can never quite find the right rhythms between its performers. It’s certainly an improvement over the previous episode, but there’s still a lot to be desired in Running Point‘s attempts to find balance in its stories and resonance with its assemblage of personalities in the Gordon family, never allowing it to establish any kind of consistent identity – not exactly the most promising sign for a comedy already heading into the back half of its first season.
“Beshert” centers itself on two major stories; Isla’s seven-years-in-the-making engagement party, and Jackie’s attempts to start finding the Gordon within himself. In theory, these are a pair of great premises to unify themselves around the idea of beshert (Yiddish for ‘destiny’) – but the episode takes them in wildly different directions, betraying the show’s identity crisis with their dissonant tones, performances, and resolutions.
Quite frankly, Jackie’s is just bad; after reading his deceased father’s biography (titled Seize the Day By the Bells), Jackie is trying to find a way to impart his influence on the team, and start making a name for himself in the organization by shaking up the Waves’s disappointing halftime show. From the beginning, it’s clear nobody’s sure what to say about this story; Jackie talks to Sandy and Ness about how bad and lifeless the half time show is, right before we get a Step Up-esque sequence dramatically introducing the clearly-talented cheerleading squad as they practice their routine – begging the question of why he’d try to wholesale replace them with spinning plate performer Red Panda, if only to establish that Jackie’s quickly adopting the impulsive, self-serving mindset on full display with his newfound siblings.
At that, however, “Beshert” is not effective; Jackie’s journey to find his identity is couched only in ignorance, seen primarily in a weightless conflict introduced with the head cheerleader, who scolds a sheepish Jackie about bumping them on the night she had a special tribute planned for a cultural icon – though Running Point clearly is playing the story for a romantic subplot, as seen with Jackie’s ridiculously droopy, shit-eating grin the episode closes on (seconds after said cheerleader calls him a pinche culero, of course). It’s the triple whammy of ineffectiveness; hollow character work, thoroughly uninteresting conflicts – and most disappointingly, a thoroughly unfunny portrayal about someone being a naive shithead, which hardly makes for an exciting, endearing, and/or resonant plot.
On the flip side, Isla’s engagement party is a much busier – and generally, more effective – story; her engagement party slowly descends into chaos, thanks to the careless behavior of her siblings, and more interestingly, the growing anxiety she is clearly having about her impending nuptials. It’s here where Running Point seems to find a tiny bit of confidence in its storytelling, connecting Isla’s fears about being a bad wife with the more amusing anxieties she has about converting to Judaism for Lev – who, in this episode, establishes himself as a wonderful partner Isla so clearly doesn’t deserve.
For how thin and superficial Jackie’s story is, “Beshert” really crams a lot into the other half of the episode, as Isla’s party eventually gives way to the end of Sandy’s relationship (after his boyfriend discovers he’s been a hidden secret for the past year, a plot I don’t think anyone really cares about), everyone falling in the pool – and most affectingly, Lev telling Isla about the concept of beshert, and why he doesn’t need her to convert, or is worried about her father’s bad habits finding a way to live on through her.
Though I wonder where this story is going in the remaining five episodes (mostly due to Isla clearly wishing Lev was talking about postponing the wedding, not becoming Jewish), Running Point firmly establishes Lev as the most (only?) endearing character in the ensemble, the only character whose presence and humor comes from his warmth, rather than the bitter cynicism seen with every other non-Jackie character in the series. Of course, the conflict is really resolved by the racism of Isla’s father (his will notes anyone who converts would immediately forfeit their inheritances), but seeing Lev offer Isla a moment of compromise she never finds with her brothers (who used to call her Island Gordon in high school) is a welcome one for Running Point, a much more effective bit of accessing emotion than some of the more cloying moments offered elsewhere in the season’s first half.
But when it comes to actually embodying the concepts Lev discusses with Isla, “Beshert” falls a bit short – except when it comes to portraying the simple idea of the inevitability of the Gordon family siblings, whose conflicts and traumas are things that draw them together, rather than apart (it is the closest the show really gets to Arrested Development, in a way). As the siblings throw each other into the pool (a fight triggered by Sandy getting mad at Ness for showing interest in his partner, but not him), Running Point briefly finds a pocket of emotional resonance between its main characters, perhaps the most encouraging sign yet that there is a beating heart underneath this series worth exploring (if it can seriously refine its delivery, and avoid the Ted Lasso/This is Us pitfalls it’s already shown a propensity for).
It’s not an incredibly poignant moment or anything, but is certainly the first time in this half-season where Running Point‘s elements have coalesced into anything meaningful. There are other attempts at this in “Beshert” – like Isla and the coach’s conversations, which are eyebrow-raising in how they seem to be teasing some long-gestating flirtations between the two – but it is really most effective when the Gordon’s strong personalities are inevitabilities for each other; after all, there are few things more inevitable than family, and if Running Point can find these moments at the intersection of humor and emotion, it could start to find its footing as something more than an occasionally goofy, well-lit sitcom with an incredible lack of confidence in its own delivery.
“Beshert” certainly isn’t the right blueprint – it isn’t nearly as funny as it thinks, and it once again forgets it has an entire basketball team and storyline going on – but the third act purports there is a core slowly starting to form at the center of the series, one it could more easily access with a more concerted effort to be funny, and by finding poignancy in the connective tissue between its characters and their stories. At the halfway point of its freshman season, Running Point certainly isn’t a good show yet – but there are a few signs of life, and hope this series can find some consistency at it unveils the larger, climactic stories of its second half (and again, remember at some point there is a whole ass basketball team and organization happening in the background).
Grade: C
Other thoughts/observations:
- There is a montage in this episode that is just a string of really cliche Jewish jokes. It is… something. It includes talking about smoked salmon, saying “schmutz”, and making a Larry David joke.
- Ness at an Adele concert: “I cried so hard she had to stop singing to check on me.”
- This episode is really heavy on Isla’s voiceover, which keeps happening without doing anything but adding more dissonant notes to this show’s strange symphony.
- Jay warns that he’s probably not the most sage giver of advice: “I just did a child handoff in a Chipotle parking lot.”
- I’m just glad this episode doesn’t mention Sephora!
- we find out the team is now 3 games under .500… given they were 14-22 in the first episode, I’d say that makes their record about… 23-26 or so right now?
- What’s going on with Dyson? Or Marcus? Or Travis? Who cares, says Running Point! Seems like a missed opportunity in an episode about people finding their destiny, or understanding the concept of inevitability.
- There’s once again mention of Isla’s wild child lifestyle (her marriage to Brian Austin Green, specifically) which feels like a bit of character that’s only treated as a bullet point on a Post-It Note. There’s nothing we see in her behavior that suggests anything about who she was before the pilot episode – it’s why her emotional arc feels so stunted at this point, and hopefully something the series digs a little more deeply into, in its back half.
- Cam shows up for a board meeting in his scarf again… which makes me wonder if they just shot all his scenes on the same day, and are scattering them throughout the episode?
- “What are you, Cat Stevens?”