Summary
Loot Season 3 couldn’t help but feel lesser in Nicholas’s absence, with “What’s Up with Us” providing even more bad news for Molly.
There was simply no way that Loot Season 3 wasn’t going to experience some kind of decline in the absence of Nicholas. His farewell episode might have been one of the best half-hours the show has ever produced, but it has left a glaring Joel Kim Booster-shaped hole in the comedy’s very core. His absence is deeply felt in Episode 6, “What’s Up with Us”, which tries to settle back into the usual formula but only ends up delivering even more downbeat news.
The bad news involves Molly and Arthur. It’s their six-month anniversary, and in Nicholas’s absence, Arthur has planned a romantic getaway to celebrate. For novelty’s sake, though, he is taking Molly to be his plus-one on a birding trip to San Benito in the hopes of spotting the elusive red-hooded shrike. Every facet of the trip is the exact kind of thing that Molly will despise, but it’s the thought that counts, and it immediately becomes clear that Arthur has gone to a ton of effort to make the trip special, including paying for a balcony room in a hotel in the middle of nowhere out of his own struggling pocket.
Predictably, Molly doesn’t get any of it. She doesn’t see what’s exciting about spotting a bird, noting down the date and time you spotted it, and then just being on your way. She doesn’t understand that there’s a fungus in the air that requires her to take short, shallow breaths, which she interprets as panting like a dog. She doesn’t get that the humble accommodation — which nonetheless looks very nice to me! — is the most Arthur could stretch to, but that paying for it himself has allowed him to retain some sense of sovereignty, which is rapidly eroding in the face of Molly’s bottomless coffers providing him a life of luxury that he gets no real say in.
Molly immediately clashes with Paula, the head of the Southern California Alliance of Birders (SCAB), which makes for some decent comedy but only really highlights the issues that she and Arthur are having. To be fair, Paula is pretty objectively in the wrong here, badgering Molly for no reason at all and rejecting all of her efforts to fit in with the group, and Arthur makes the obvious mistake of taking Paula’s side in an argument that almost turns physical, making things extremely frosty between him and Molly.
But I really disliked Molly in Loot Season 3, Episode 6, which I’m not sure is the position I’m supposed to take. Later, Molly reveals that she has purchased a ridiculously extravagant tour bus with a live-in DJ for her and Arthur to spend the night in, and when Arthur points out that it’s totally at odds with the kind of experience he was trying to provide, she accuses him of being insecure that his girlfriend makes more money than him. It’s a totally irrational way to behave. Initially, it seems like this disagreement is going to be smoothed over, since it’s interrupted by the arrival of the red-hooded shrike, and Molly makes a note of it in her journal as a symbolic gesture that she’s taking Arthur’s passion seriously. But then the bird is fatally sucked into the vents of the tour bus, so nothing ends up getting resolved. Molly and Arthur head home separately, he in his car — with an unopened bottle of chilled champagne still in the trunk — and Molly in her tour bus, with DJ Liam playing the saddest songs possible.
Elsewhere, Sofia finds out that Howard is dating Destiny and immediately starts to worry that she’s going to break his heart. Howard is adamant that their relationship is serious, but Sofia knows better. He invites her to brunch in the hopes of reassuring her, but when Destiny doesn’t turn up, Sofia fears the worst. It turns out she’s in the hospital with a broken wrist, though, which vindicates Howard — or so he thinks.
As it happens, Destiny broke her wrist playing whack-a-mole with the boyfriend she claimed to have broken up with. Apparently, he didn’t take ghosting for an answer, and he’s in the hospital lobby waiting for her, still under the mistaken belief that they’re an item. Destiny asks Sofia to break up with him on her behalf so she can be with Howard, but both Sofia and the audience can see that she isn’t taking the relationship with Howard anywhere close to as seriously as he is.
Sofia does as instructed either way, but when she returns, she’s brought to tears seeing Howard and Destiny cuddling on her hospital bed. It’s open to interpretation whether she’s crying out of happiness, or she can see Howard’s broken-hearted future inevitably coming to pass.
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