Summary
A hilarious two-part premiere finds Loot back in fine form – and it’s about time someone made fun of those awful Vogue interviews.
You know Loot is onto something because its Season 2 premiere starts by satirizing those awful “73 Questions” interviews that Vogue do. That’s always a winning approach, and if Episodes 1 and 2 are anything to go by, the Apple TV+ comedy has returned in fine form – perhaps even better than it ended with.
Molly’s ridiculous philanthropic wellness persona is a good fit for those ridiculous interviews, even if I was a little surprised to see David Chang locked in her secret kitchen and Tony Hawk in her backyard. But the point is simple enough to grasp. Molly has a lot of money, and despite her intention to give it all away, she hasn’t managed to yet.
How To Lose Money and Alienate People
This forms the basis for Episode 1, “Space for Everyone”. Molly’s public reputation has taken a bit of a hit thanks to the interview revealing her “cabana”, and Sofia worriedly informs her that the mayor’s office has canceled the Alameda Street project. Now she and the team have a mere 22 hours to devise a solution to homelessness lest she be seen as a grifter.
To make matters worse, John has taken their brief liaison in Corsica in the Season 1 finale as an excuse to flood Molly’s office with flowers and pitch a reconciliation, which she isn’t into. She just wants space – a request that will come back to bite her before the episode’s end (Maya Rudolph’s delivery of “mostly hand stuff” is wonderful, by the way.)
Sofia suggests a solution in the form of Noah Hope DeVore, a billionaire wonderkid who has used an algorithm to determine the most statistically optimal ways of saving lives. He seems keen on a partnership when he turns up at Molly’s home and requests a whiteboard, but the party is quickly broken up by the FBI, who burst in to arrest Noah for wire fraud and various other financial offenses. As it turns out, he’s just a conman.
Space for Everyone
Things aren’t going swimmingly for the rest of the Wells Foundation team either. Arthur has taken to wearing a leather bracelet with a turquoise star in it, which is concerning for its church cult adjacency and also because it speaks to an obvious midlife crisis, possibly stemming from Molly having jumped into bed with her ex-husband rather than him.
And Howard, it turns out, has been secretly living in Molly’s guesthouse for weeks. We get more on Howard’s financial situation in the second episode, but for now, this gives Molly an idea to solve her present problem. She pitches “Space for Everyone” to Sofia, a scheme in which she buys up the city’s abandoned hotels and uses them to house unhoused people at scale – and for free.
It’s a good idea, and the public loves it, but John immediately ruins it by jumping on TV to announce that his tech company will be moving into space travel – and that the inspiration for the idea came from Molly. Well, she did ask him for space.
Sofia, Meet Isaac
In Episode 2, “Clueless”, Molly buys her first hotel, but the place is a wreck. For help, she brings in an architect friend, Isaac, who immediately clashes with Sofia about the function of the building. Naturally, Molly and Nicholas decide to set them up on a date.
This subplot occupies about 50% of the episode. The date goes surprisingly well, but after some pushing from Molly and Nicholas, Sofia sends Isaac a cavalcade of unanswered text messages. Since Sofia is thoroughly embarrassed about being ghosted, Molly gets a Slovenian ex-soldier from her security team named Goran to track Isaac down.
Worryingly, Isaac’s in a bar. But when Sofia gets there, she discovers he’s holding a birthday memorial for one of his dead friends, and that she was texting his work phone. He had every intention of reaching out to her, but he didn’t think she’d want to mix business and pleasure. Oops.
This whole thing is hilarious because Sofia ends up having to give a speech about Danny, the dead guy, who she obviously never met, and then she sings karaoke (and she’s good!) It’s a funny scene in general but it helps that it’s genuinely and uncomplicatedly positive – something that can also be said of the second half of the episode.
Howard Is Broke
Arthur tries to help Howard out with his finances. Since he won’t cancel any of his video game subscriptions or other luxuries, their attention turns to his old storage container, hidden in which is a potential jackpot – a substantial collection of pro-wrestling figurines that he’s reticent to part with but that Arthur thinks might turn a serious profit.
So, the two of them head to a wrestling show to try and sell the figures off, but it’s clear that Howard doesn’t really want to. He’s super enthusiastic about the local wrestling community and is dismayed to see what has happened to some of his favorite performers, forced to sign autographs at conventions when they’re still perfectly capable of performing.
After Howard keeps coming up with excuses not to sell his collection to any prospective buyers, he finally settles on shifting the whole lot to a creepy-looking guy who wants the figures to “watch him” do something that we’re probably better off not knowing about. Defeated, Howard is on the cusp of agreeing to a deal, but Arthur does an about-turn and tells him not to. Instead, he offers to give him some money, not as a handout, but as an investment in a new wrestling league for the retired local performers.
In just two episodes, Loot has managed to create a lot of laughs and several promising subplots for subsequent installments to unpack. Many critics said of the first season that they were waiting on a return of investment down the line, and while it’s early days yet, it does seem like the show is getting ready to pay out.
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