What inspires us? Underneath all of the editorial posturing between George and Antrem and the missing lesbians case, the question of inspiration runs through every vein of ‘The Case of the Stolen Sperm’. As I’ve said all throughout the Second Look of the first season, Bored to Death is at its best when its not trying to make its way through convoluted and under-developed mystery cases, but when it’s trying to draw important parallels between its three protagonists and bringing them together both physically and thematically, which it does quite well in this entertaining half hour.
‘Sperm’ begins with Jonathan struggling over the first sentence to his second novel – something we’ve heard about all season, but this is the first time we’re really getting a glimpse of his writer’s block. It turns out that he’s only a month away from his editor’s deadline, and he’s obviously had no time to focus while working on his magazine comic with Ray and moonlighting as a private detective. In all honesty, it’s something the show hasn’t spent a lot of time exploring outside of “I’m newly single and struggling to find words,” and ‘Sperm’ isn’t really interested in solving the question definitively. Is he a bad writer, or heartbroken, or simply too full of himself to produce anything articulate or interesting?
All of these possibilities are raised when Jonathan comes face to face with Louis Green (the wonderful John Hodgman), a rival author and critic who slammed Jonathan’s first book – making him a very real embodiment of Jonathan’s professional failures, and the perfect parallel to George’s own feud with GQ editor Richard Antrem – minus Richard marrying George’s favorite ex-wife, of course. But the fire it brings to George’s writing – and the offhand jealousy it brings from Jonathan that he can write so much on a whim – point out something quite important to Jonathan: writing is much easier when you’re inspired, and the sight of Priscilla and Robert together bringing out the best and the worst in George is a clear example.
Even Ray’s struggling from a lack of inspiration – when the lesbians he’s been donating sperm to suddenly disappear, Ray and Jonathan start to connect the dots and find that none of the dozens of couples Ray’s sperm has been sent to have gotten pregnant. It’s just another notch in a long tally of emasculating story lines for Ray, including a few weird ones in this episode about his sperm not even being his own (Leah says “It’s my sperm too”) and his sad economic state. He does get a small bit of solace from the last couple, who berate him endlessly about his intelligence and eating habits but were lucky enough to get pregnant (or unlucky, if you don’t want a heavily-bearded baby who jerks off to lance his wounds).
Unfortunately, as the first half of a two-parter, ‘Sperm’ is more about setting up story lines to play out in the finale, including George’s continued attraction to Priscilla, the impending boxing match, and whatever the hell happened to the black market lesbians. But it’s the questions behind those, questions about masculinity, inspiration, and love (the big themes of the season) that drive the episode home in the last five or six minutes. Bored to Death‘s ability to ask important character questions without losing its super low-key tone is one of the things I enjoy about it, and ‘The Case of the Stolen Sperm’ is one of the best examples of this.
Grade: B+
other thoughts/observations:
– Ames continues to tease us with the possible presence of Bebe Neuwirth, who plays Jonathan’s agent.
– There’s the whole pot-smoking co-op girl story, which does have a role in future episodes. It’s not really that entertaining, and outside of the conversation about weed in the pilot, the pot scenes haven’t worked all that well – save for George and Ray getting high in Leah’s Subaru.
– the only episode that doesn’t feature someone raising their fists precedes one with three boxing matches. Interesting, eh?
What did you think of ‘The Case of the Stolen Sperm’? Check back next Tuesday as we bid farewell to the first season with ‘Take a Dive’, and feel free to leave your thoughts/comments below!