Summary
DMV benefits from a change of location in “There Is No I in DMV”, with a guest-starring Randall Park stealing the show as Barb’s worst nightmare.
It would be a bit of a stretch to say that the East Hollywood DMV office has ever really felt like a team. It’s a designation that most of the employees would actively avoid in usual circumstances, but Episode 7 of the CBS sitcom, “There Is No I in DMV”, is not operating under usual circumstances. This turns out to be the best thing about it, since it’s also the first episode that really brings the core cast together.
You’ve got Randall Park to thank for it, largely. He guest-stars in this episode as Beau Young, the manager of the North Hollywood DMV branch, which is perceived to be the gold standard, much to the envy of everyone, albeit for different reasons. Barb resents the office’s short window wait times, while Vic and Gregg focus on the important matter of tracking down a rumoured soft-serve ice cream machine.
I’ll grant you that there isn’t a great deal of difference between the North and East Hollywood DMVs as far as settings go, but the out-of-office feeling is felt either way, mostly thanks to the hostility of Beau and the caginess of his staff. He’s a classic sitcom archetype, the guy who has risen to the top of his chosen field and considers himself a local legend and minor celebrity, despite the fact that his chosen field is being a manager at the DMV. He’s rude, arrogant, and has snapshots of himself with hurrying celebrities that he has printed from the CCTV footage and framed in his office.
His antagonism is weird to Barb since it doesn’t explain the supposedly well-oiled operation of the office. While Colette tries to prove herself to be a rule-breaker to appease Vic and Gregg in their ice cream machine search, Noa stress tests the office’s actual operation, trying to register a vehicle and finding himself frustratingly bounced between windows (hence the short wait times). The whole thing’s a con. Whenever a customer has been waiting for five minutes at a particular window, they’re arbitrarily moved to another.
Comedy-wise, what’s funny about this is mostly seeing Noa have a breakdown, and for good measure, there’s a big furore about a stolen copier. But the underpinnings of DMV Episode 7 are Barb realising that her office isn’t so bad; and, by extension, that she’s not so bad as its manager. All the impressive accolades she was comparing herself against were achieved by deception. If nothing else, at least the East Hollywood DMV is honestly useless. And, to be fair, it’s nice to have a break from Colette’s seemingly endless romantic pursuit of Noa.
Whether or not any of this will change things back on home territory is anyone’s guess, but I’m going to assume not. It makes for a better episode in the short term, though, giving the entire core cast – with the curious exception of Ceci – something to do, and even furthering their relationships just a little bit. Sure, Randall Park does most of the heavy lifting, but the sheer comedic quality of the final scene, which finds Beau negotiating with Vic and Gregg over the ice cream, makes me hope that he’ll return at some point further down the line.
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