Summary
DMV makes some improvements in “Stick Shift” by giving Colette less to do and better balancing the office dynamics. It remains imperfect, but less so than usual.
If nothing else, at least DMV seems to be listening to me. I’ve been crying out for the sitcom to give Colette something — anything — different to do, and in Episode 5, “Stick Shift”, it just about manages it. The difference isn’t major, I’ll grant you, and it still revolves around Colette’s increasingly hopeless relationship with Noa, but her being challenged to dial things down gives more space for other subplots and creates a better balance overall.
Colette feels much less dominant here. We’ve seen her fawn over Noa, and we’ve seen her pretend to be someone she isn’t, but the problem was that she was basically acting exactly the same in both of those two modes. The A-plot here finds Ceci calling her out on only performing acts of kindness around the office for credit, so Colette is, by definition, forced to remain low-key to try and prove her wrong. It’s a small tweak, but it does work, for what that’s worth.
Colette’s way of proving this isn’t the case is anonymously gifting Noa with a custom harmonica inscribed with his initials, which is a lovely gesture that he sincerely appreciates… and that she can’t say came from her, even though he immediately intuits that it did. To test Colette’s resolve, Ceci takes the credit for the gift, leading to Noa lavishing her with attention, flowers, and a song, much to Colette’s annoyance.
And, to be fair, to Ceci’s too, since the gratitude makes her bristle and she’s simply not into Noa in the same way Colette is. This subplot ends up taking a funny (albeit ridiculous) turn, since Ceci douses the harmonica in her homemade nail polish to stop Noa from playing it, but the cayenne pepper she uses gives him an allergic reaction that almost kills him. They manage to administer an Epi-Pen, which Ceci is happy to give Colette credit for, and Colette even gets a hug, which is progress in their relationship as far as she’s concerned (naturally, she holds on a bit too long.)
Elsewhere in DMV Episode 5, Vic’s general unprofessionalism — including convincing someone taking his driving test to run a red light, and then failing him for it afterward — finally becomes a big enough issue that Barb has to actually be a manager and deal with it. Gregg, from his teaching experience, recommends she meaningfully discipline him, which she interprets as giving him a made-up promotion in order to make him feel empowered.
Naturally, this goes straight to Vic’s head, and he starts ordering Gregg around, leading to some of the funniest scenes of the episode (everything Gregg says is funny). But it also causes Gregg to eventually reveal that he has been placated, and in response, Vic goes rogue, giving everyone sitting their written driving exams all the answers. Barb, already being mocked by Gregg for not being stern enough in the first place, suspends Vic. But when Gregg calls him later, he’s playing video games while receiving full pay.
Barb being fundamentally incapable of management is pretty funny, as is the reality that even if she weren’t, it’d be so difficult to suspend someone from a government position, paperwork-wise, that she might as well not bother in the first place. These tiny details always help DMV to sell itself as a critique of state bureaucracy and not just a knockabout workplace sitcom — I find myself wishing there were more of them in each episode.
“Stick Shift” concludes with some outside-the-box thinking, at least, with Barb promoting Gregg to the same fake position as Vic, meaning he can feel empowered without leveraging the presumed power imbalance. Barb might be generally useless, but at least she seems to know her staff.
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