Summary
Not Suitable for Work delivers most of the happy ending people wanted, committing to some predictable arcs but letting others spin off in more unexpected directions.
After that penultimate episode, it was kind of obvious where Not Suitable for Work was going in a lot of respects. But in the grand scheme of things, I’m glad it didn’t deliver quite the happy ending it was teeing up, since that leaves plenty for Season 2 to build on, and I think there’s enough mileage in the premise and characters for that to be a worthwhile endeavour. Whether it’ll perform well enough for Hulu to care — and there doesn’t seem to be a great deal of buzz around it, if we’re being honest — is another matter.
But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. After a complicated Christmas, Episode 9 — it always annoys me when seasons have an odd number of episodes, for some reason — picks up on New Year’s Eve, with the core cast mostly languishing where we left them. Abby is still blaming Kel for losing that Prada jacket, and now she’s working full-time in retail to pay it off; AJ has kept hers and Bill’s break-up a secret, and both are heading back to work; Kel finally has a decent part in a show; Davis is still pining for AJ; Josh is still broke. All of these subplots are about to intermingle, so let’s break it all down.
Josh Does Wes A Solid
After spending the break between Christmas and New Year with his newly single mother, Josh is back at work, where he discovers that his boss, Wes Dryden, is smarting after not being invited on any NYE shows. Since a broadcaster of his calibre can’t be left out in the cold like that, he comes up with a plan to give him his moment, which also means going grovelling to his dad.
He’s not after money, though, but an opportunity for Wes, one that he graciously allows Paula to take all the credit for. He manages to secure Wes a guest spot on Hannah Berger and Paige DeSorbo’s show, but it requires a facility for pop culture that he obviously doesn’t have. Luckily, Josh is on hand to save him once again by piping him answers through the teleprompter, and Wes kills.
Paula is even willing to let Josh go home early for his “date” with AJ. After running into her while doing laundry, Josh offered to spend a lonely New Year’s Eve with her, a seemingly platonic offer that he was clearly considering to be more of a date.
Abby and Kel Don’t Get Together
Despite some romantic chemistry finally sparking between them, the finale of Not Suitable for Work denies Kel and Abby a date, even though they come mighty close. After going slightly off the rails and getting caught graffitiing one of Austin’s ketamine ads, Abby finally takes AJ’s advice and apologises to Kel. He invites her to the cast party of his new show, and she heads off to work. There, Vanessa offers to rehire her, which is a kind of weird payoff since Vanessa treated her like dirt, and to celebrate Abby turns up at the party to see Kel.
It’s too little too late, though, since Kel already has eyes on one of his castmates. He had already resigned himself to the fact that Abby wasn’t interested in him romantically, and now that she is, he isn’t even noticing. “A Birthday Party For the Whole World” is pretty good for Kel, all told. His co-star seems into him, even if Abby feels a little knocked back, and he even gets a nice payoff to his substitute teacher arc, since the girls all attend his show (even if, sadly, his parents don’t, despite him having left them a couple of tickets at reception).
Kel isn’t a teacher anymore since Kate, obviously salty about spotting his attraction to Abby, replaced him, so the girls supporting him is also a bit of a farewell, one that I found oddly emotional (relatedly, Davis’s “This is great, you’re like Gru,” in response to Kel group-hugging the girls is the best gag of the finale). I still think Season 2 should contrive a way to bring back Beth, at the very least.
Davis Gets His Wish
On the subject of things going well, Davis finally gets AJ, though he takes an extremely complicated road to get there. I’m still not buying that AJ had no idea that Davis was into her, but once Abby lets her know, that changes the dynamic slightly, even though he still isn’t talking to her. At work, though, when AJ angrily takes some time off after hearing too much (read: any) about Bill’s trip to Aspen with Catherine, Davis confronts Bill about his treatment of AJ, and they end up having a ridiculous fight in his office.
It’s kind of petty, but it’s nice to see Davis defending AJ’s honour in a way that he doesn’t expect to benefit him in any material sense (he found out that Bill dumped her through Josh). Bill calls him a cuck and fires him, and the video of the office brawl gets spread around, which is how AJ finds out about it.
That night, while AJ is waiting for Josh, Davis knocks on the door to give her an award from work, and she asks him outright why he fought Bill. His answer — that he didn’t like how he treated her and didn’t think he should get away with it — is romantic enough for her to kiss him, but Josh chooses that moment to arrive, suited and booted, with a bottle of wine in hand. He has no choice but to slink away unnoticed.
Happy New Year, I guess.
