Summary
Poppa’s House gets close to a decent outing in Episode 10, but it’s undermined by a couple of wildly unfunny decisions.
Episode 10 of Poppa’s House is so close to being a decent episode that the fact it remains pretty rubbish is genuinely frustrating. If there was ever a show that simply cannot get out of its own way, it’s this one. “Elevator Friend” almost realizes that everything is ten times better when it’s focusing on Poppa and Ivy, but just can’t resist giving Junior another pointless subplot.
However! Somewhat improbably, Junior’s story turns out better than Poppa’s, which is unnecessarily saddled with an aggressively unfunny supporting turn from Tommy Davidson as an eccentric recovering alcoholic whom Poppa decides to befriend for predictably convoluted reasons. This isn’t to say that Junior’s subplot isn’t still silly, but at least it culminates with Junior actually sticking up for himself, which is progress of a kind.
The episode is so-called because Poppa needs someone to go to the Mets game with him to honor Leon’s final wish – you’ll have probably forgotten, but Leon, who we’ve never met, died in Episode 8 – and Junior is unavailable. Because Poppa doesn’t have any other friends, he struggles to find someone to take, and his only option is a guy he vaguely knows from the radio studio who he used to mess around with in the elevator.
Poppa only knows this guy as “Ten”, since he worked on the tenth floor, but we later learn that his real name is Jarnold, so that’s what we’ll call him. Regardless, this guy is such a ridiculous caricature that it’s difficult to take the underlying point seriously, which is a shame since it’s another good example of a legitimately interesting point – how older guys make friends and socialize – being mired in utterly unfunny material.
After inviting Jarnold to his house, Poppa realizes quickly that he’s a bit too eccentric for him. He has a bunch of interesting stories about his past that go nowhere because all Poppa’s House Episode 10 wants him to do is constantly make weird noises. It’s infuriating.
This is how we find ourselves in the very bizarre position of being thankful for a Junior subplot. This one introduces us to Todd (Lamorne Morris), one of Junior’s college buddies who is now a “successful” filmmaker calling himself Preston Valentine. Todd has just wrapped a movie for Paramount – yay, meta references! – called A Loud Place, which is an all-black riff on A Quiet Place, and has written a sequel, A Louder Place, filming of which begins soon.
Todd’s problem is that he doesn’t like Nina, whom he thinks has saddled Junior with unnecessary baggage and derailed his career (he calls her Yoko, which is admittedly pretty funny, but the guy’s annoying so I don’t want to give him too much credit.) Junior and Nina get a peek at the script for A Louder Place and act out a scene in which the main character’s wife and family are killed by aliens so he can live in their honour with his super cool best friend rescuer. It’s not exactly subtle (or, I think, entirely platonic, but let’s not read too much into that.)
Junior’s big moment here is rejecting the opportunity to be a second unit director on the sequel, refusing to abandon his family and sail off into the sunset with Todd. And while I acknowledge that he doesn’t deserve too much credit for making what is obviously the right decision, I’m so used to Junior acting like an infant that this feels like progress.
Junior even elects to spend time with Nina instead of accompanying Poppa to the Mets game, leaving Poppa to take Ivy instead, which was inevitable. They’re even caught on the kiss cam, and Poppa puckers up! Ivy takes the safer option of chugging her beer instead, but it’s coming, folks.
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