Summary
Rooster seems to be finding a more worthwhile point in “Angry, Like An Angry Person”, but it remains stuck in a slightly slapstick mode that doesn’t necessarily get the best out of it.
I keep expecting to like Rooster more than I do. Luckily, Episode 4 reassured me that it does seem to be going somewhere, even if I don’t think it’s necessarily there yet. I don’t think we need Greg continuing to get pulled into disciplinary meetings for innocent infractions or suffering comedy pratfalls to get the point across. That point was made already, and is reiterated here in “Angry, Like An Angry Person”. Greg doesn’t fit in, a problem worsened by his inability to bounce back from his separation from his wife. He’s stuck in a comfortable middle-aged stasis that he can’t escape from.
Part of Greg’s reflexive defense mechanism is avoidance. Walt’s throwing a faculty bar night to celebrate his wife, Joanie, being back from Japan, and the last thing Greg wants to do is attend. Unfortunately, Walt isn’t planning on giving him much choice. The same goes for virtually everyone else on campus, staff-wise, so the half-hour becomes a funny exercise in having to endure a social event full of people you don’t want to be around. Naturally, several evolving character subplots are also bundled up in this.
But the chief one is Greg’s, and, surprisingly, his student, Tommy, who gets a little characterisation of his own. Greg’s latest writing assignment is a short story written in a style emulating the student’s favourite author, and Tommy has chosen Greg, presumably because he isn’t especially well read. Greg initially rejects the characterization of himself as any kind of literary legend, but it must sit with him a little bit, since he’s especially protective of Tommy when it turns out he used AI to turn his essay in and might get expelled for it. Dylan gives him until midnight to submit a new version, and Greg endeavours to help him, but he can’t because Walt petulantly closes the library when Greg uses it as an excuse not to attend his party.
As a result, Greg ends up going on a night out with Tommy and his friends, initially conned into attending by Tommy claiming to be a lonely outsider, and then sticking around through peer pressure and a surprising facility for beer pong (despite, as we’re frequently reminded, his never having been to college). The “joke” is that Greg is much more comfortable among the college students than he is around his peers; he barely gets through the door of Walt’s party before he’s forced to literally flee after loudly mocking Joanie for wearing a kimono (Carell not knowing how best to fold his coat on the way in is the kind of physical comedy that Rooster is really good at). But when we catch up with him at the frat-themed party — Ludlow doesn’t actually have frats — he’s sitting with two bottles duct-taped to his hands, singing R.E.M.’s “Everybody Hurts”, having a better time, if not necessarily a good one.
The night out is good for Greg, and indeed for Tommy, who reveals that despite his earlier deception, he is an outsider on account of being a townie. He’s inspired to write a more on-brand Rooster-themed essay, and in a nice bit of juxtaposition, it forms a rubric for Greg’s emboldened return to Walt’s party, where he tries to make a move on Dylan and ends up settling for Walt’s unsubtle assistant. Still, at least he got over a five-year hump. Progress is being made, albeit unconventionally.
Rooster Episode 4 spares less time for Katie, who is advised by her students to explore casual dating, tries to flirt with a handsome bartender, and ends up spending the night with Archie, and even less for Sunny, who is now being tutored by Walt in the sauna and interprets his advice to be authentic as publicly broadcasting her pregnancy and forcing Archie to like it on social media. There’s simply no way that relationship is going to work out, but the fact she’s pregnant does create a very real feeling of commitment around the whole thing that nothing about Archie suggests he’s ready for. How the show handles the subplot as it progresses will probably be really telling.
I’m assuming, of course, that it’s going to, because “Angry, Like An Angry Person” — a snippet, by the way, of Tommy’s AI-generated essay — seems to be getting into the weeds of its characters in a way that is promising, if a little messy. And the “For Katie” graffiti tags that keep popping up everywhere, including on Archie’s car while it’s parked suspiciously close to Katie’s house, are liable to out this liaison sooner than either of them expected.
