‘Not Suitable for Work’ Season 1, Episode 7 Recap – Steak and Tears

When you think about it, Not Suitable for Work is kind of a weird show. Thus far, Season 1 has been defined by consistently good writing and solid — if overly broad — humour, but Episode 7 is the first time I’ve had to wonder where everything is going. It’s still funny, but the unceremonious approach to dealing with romances is becoming a little confusing. We just had Josh and Elena’s totally understated breakup, and now it seems like we’ve completely put the Abby and Austin dynamic to bed, just as it was becoming a bit more engagingly sinister. The worry is that we’ll run out of things for the episodes to be about before we run out of episodes, but I suppose there are only two left, and they’re both airing together.

The assumption, at least initially, is that the bulk of “Does Jon Hamm Cry?” is going to be about Davis pining over AJ. After Josh spotted Bill leaving her apartment and then later deduced who he was, he tells Kel — who is in bed with Kate — about the discovery. The only solution is a “Steak and Tears” night, a standard, macho approach to dealing with bad news that uses high-quality beef to soften the blow. But by the time we get to that, Josh has had some bad news of his own, and his reaction to it completely overshadows the Davis and AJ thing.

We do get to it later, but we might as well discuss it later. In the meantime, Josh’s awful dad is leaving his presumably less-awful mother, which finally prompts Josh to realise that his dad is awful. It isn’t the most layered plot in the world, but Josh’s nepo baby status has been a consistent source of laughs, and since his dad funds basically his entire life, you can understand why he has thus far been disinclined to ask too many questions. But leaving his mother after thirty years for no better reason than she makes him feel old is the final straw for Josh, who starts confronting his dad at work and throwing away all of the expensive stuff he bought him.

As ever with Josh — and indeed Davis, which we’ll get to — I still find it pretty hard to care. But Not Suitable for Work remains pretty good at using these tropey subplots as building blocks for relationship development, and that’s more or less what happens here. In Elena’s absence — it would have probably been nice to see how Josh’s feud with his father affected her, but alas — his “grief” allows him to be there for Davis when he finally walks headlong into the reality that not only does AJ not feel the same way about him, but is in a relationship with his mentor and boss.

This news comes, in a roundabout way, courtesy of AJ’s aggressively Bostonian mother, Amy. Since it’s AJ’s birthday — does AJ stand for Amy Junior, in that case? — she turns up unexpectedly at the apartment and then, more worryingly, at Fisher-Stassen, where she brings a cake and sings “Happy Birthday” in the middle of a $50 million deal. AJ is embarrassed and furious and berates Amy about the difference between a job and a career, which makes her difficult to empathise with, and Amy ends up taking comfort in Davis, who runs into her outside the apartment. He says some nice things about AJ, and when Amy mentions that she has been crushing on someone at work, Davis naturally assumes it’s him. He’s less than thrilled to learn from Josh and Kel that Bill is the object of her affection.

Against my better judgment, I kind of felt for Davis here, partly because he seemed so genuine when talking about AJ to her mother. He also pretends to be Kel’s agent to get him an audition for a Jeremy O. Harris — this show has the most random cameos —  Broadway play, and is very charming with that, even though he isn’t especially good at it. I still don’t think Davis’s crush on AJ has ever been reciprocated enough for the angle to be compelling, but his general gadabout demeanour notwithstanding, I do quite like him as a character.

The confusing part of Not Suitable for Work Episode 7 involves Abby and Austin. The anti-ketamine ad she styled him for is really blowing up, which leads to an opportunity for him to become a brand ambassador for the designer whose shirt he was wearing. I was still very much of the opinion that Austin would keep throwing Abby work in a consistent effort to manipulate her into bed like a creepy weirdo, but instead he just drops her as his stylist so he can use the same one as Sofia Coppola. It certainly speaks to his arrogance, but it just feels like such a sudden, random development that I’m not sure it really takes. And given she hasn’t had anything else to do this season, what’s she going to busy herself with in the remaining two episodes?

I guess we’ll have to wait and see. Maybe she might start noticing Kel after all.