Summary
DMV manages to improve by half in Episode 4, largely by keeping Colette away from Noa, but she desperately needs another mode to operate in aside from frantic faker.
In Episode 4 of DMV, things are half-improved. The secret is keeping Colette away from Noa for a while, since that dynamic was already becoming tired. This frees Noa up to interact with other characters, namely Gregg, which is good news since Gregg remains the best character by a country mile and is fast becoming the only reason to watch the show. But that’s maybe a little harsh for so early in its run.
The problem is that Noa is replaced by Amber (a guest-starring Chelsea Frei, seen recently in Peacock’s The Paper), an old friend of Colette’s who is now a famous actress in a silly network procedural and has no idea that Colette actually works at the DMV. So, Colette perpetuates the illusion and pretends to be the vet — that’s veterinarian, not veteran, a distinction that does come up — that she originally intended to be when she moved to Hollywood.
What this consists of, comedically, is Colette doing her frantic fake-it-until-you-make-it routine, which is basically the only mode she ever operates in. There’s really no functional distinction between Amber and Noa in terms of how Colette interacts with them. Whether she’s trying to charm Noa into a relationship or pretend to an old friend that she isn’t really a loser, the outcome is mostly the same. The only real novelty here is that Barb and Vic quickly get involved to play along. Barb’s efforts at dramatic acting and Vic constantly being in different outfits that he has collected from the lost and found — in a funny detail, the DMV regularly auctions off unclaimed personal items — are good for a few laughs but don’t considerably alter the dynamic.
It has a nice payoff, at least. Of course, Colette eventually ends up confessing, but in the process, she actually has to confess that she is happy, which is a first for her, and Amber just readily accepts it. It works because Amber is essentially a pastiche of a stuck-up semi-famous actor for most of the runtime, so the little bit of sincerity is unexpected.
Elsewhere in DMV Episode 4, Gregg is alarmed to discover that Noa is working through his break, which is a big no-no in the DMV since everything is about making use of every state-approved benefit and slowing the whole process way down. Gregg is a brilliant character, and remains the one who really embodies the underpinning ideas that the sitcom is trying to get across about how a loathed state-run institution becomes so loathsome in the first place. We also get a little backstory for both of them here, with Gregg alluding to a past as a teacher — while smoking a fake cigarette, since he still takes his smoke breaks despite having quit years prior — and Noa revealing that he’s the scion of an oil conglomerate back in New Zealand and joined the DMV as a way to help the most people possible after coming from what he believes to be an unethical background.
It’s all just fine, but it needs to be better — and that starts with giving Colette anything else to do — if CBS are going to be sticking with this show for the long haul.
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