What are the consequences of ‘good intentions’? If you think about it, it’s an inherently selfish idea: by helping others, we improve our self-perception, and make ourselves feel good in a very puffy-chested, self-righteous manner. It’s an idea played with quite a bit throughout the show, and is front and center in ‘Revenge Play’. In a voice over, Amy mentions that the ‘path to hell is lined with good intentions’, an idea visited in all of the episode’s story lines. Written and directed by Mike White, its a fantastic half hour that moves away from the dreamier, fluffier tone and images of ‘The Key’, digging into the darker side of Amy’s mission.
At this point, Amy is all in teaming up with Jeff Flender’s plan to take down Abaddon, a revenge fantasy that both the audience and Tyler can see is tainted by the anger she feels towards everyone around her. We see it best while Amy’s eating lunch alone, watching from a distance as Krista lives out the happy life she thought she once had. Laura Dern is absolutely magnificent portraying her tempered fury, chewing on a bite of salad that couldn’t be pleasant for any of the vegetables involved. She’s got the job, the husband, and the smooth pregnancy Amy missed out on – and part of Amy just wants to rip that right out from under her feet.
People who’ve watched Enlightened and didn’t like it often talk about how oblivious Amy is to the world around her – something exacerbated now that she’s determined on bringing down the evil empire from her basement not-really-a-cubicle work space. Even when Tyler calls her out about her jealousy and anger fueling her, she’s only willing to concede that it’s “a little bit” of the reason why she’s doing it.
But that’s what is most entertaining to watch in ‘Revenge Play’: how she doesn’t realize how much her self-righteous redemption mission against Abaddon is fucking up everything around her. Her pep talk to Tyler inspires him to frame Omar as the one who was hacking into emails (the company is very paranoid when it comes to security breaches); furthermore, she thinks her negative thoughts about Krista caused a karmic event to mess with Krista’s pregnancy, which lands her in the hospital.
It speaks to how far her narcissism goes – and how much she thinks the thing that will save her and redeem her, is really the thing that’s going to destroy her life. She’s not out of the clear when it comes to the Case of the Computer Hacker (Detective Dougie demands to get to the bottom of this!) and she might not know what she’s unleashing when she encourages Tyler to make emotional decisions in the “fight for the little guy” – this is after all, a guy who got sent down to the basement for fucking with someone. Anyone who makes an evil password as their virtual voodoo doll is probably a little unstable, and in ‘Revenge Play’, Amy’s blinding vision of her revenge fantasy playing out (in a hilarious dream sequence, with the people in the jazz club she meets Jeff in filling in as detectives) prevents her from computing the fact that her poking around got Omar fired (even if he’s a dickhead, that’s a shitty way to go out).
Just how far is Amy willing to go on this destructive mission to ‘save herself’? She wants to be a revolutionary whistle-blower, a person who makes headlines taking out the bad guys at the top. But how many good people is she going to destroy along the way, and when will she figure out that it’s not Connie’s God or her all-powerful mental karma that is bringing down everyone and everything around her… Amy’s white skirt blotched with specks of red and black speak volumes to her mission against the black monolithic buildings we see in beautiful panning shots: she definitely thinks she’s on a mission for good, but there’s more collateral to her actions than she’s paying attention to.
Grade: A-
Other thoughts/observations:
– Very interested to see how Levi plays into all this later in the season.
– “I am powerful” she says in a voice over… overestimating oneself can be a dangerous, dangerous thing.
– anyone notice how buff Dougie got? “Hide your porn… especially you, Connie.”
– Connie: “It’s in God’s hands” is quickly followed by “I doubt God heard you.” Hilarious.
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Truly, this is becoming one of the best, and one of my favorite shows on TV. This is a complex, unique, engaging, and truthful show. It’s bewildering to me how this show hasn’t taken off like other hbo critically acclaimed comedies. Maybe it’s because it’s hard to describe and not necessarily a strait forward comedy or drama but rather a combination of the two mixed with dark comedy and harsh satire. I’ve tried convincing some of my friends to give the show a chance however, they all feel the plot-line I describe is kinda “corny,” which it is if you just read the synopsis. In reality however, what we have is an hbo’s version of some sort of Louie/the office hybrid, but not even that description is able to convey how good the show is. Good review, keep them coming!