With each passing week, FXX's Man Seeking Woman finds itself more in sync with itself and its tone. Becoming less scattershot in its comedic approach and more aware with where it wants to take its high concept, surreal sense of humor, this week's episode, "Pitbull," proves, once again, that this show has a lot of potential, and likely long legs too.
Still struggling to connect to the opposite gender, Josh (Jay Baruchel) finds even his own hand having trouble participating in sexual favors for the man. Following a very funny break-up scene with the protagonist's five-fingered friend — voiced by Sarah Silverman and featuring some more fantastic prosthetic effects from Paul Jones — Josh is dragged, once again, by his woman-hungry friend Mike (Eric Andre) into getting some women laid. This time, they go bar hopping, and find themselves in a wild variety of crazed, drunken antics.
In the past, I've compared Man Seeking Woman's style to being similar to the work of Edgar Wright. While that's still the case, this week's episode resembles — in a good way — the directorial efforts of Baruchel's friends Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg. They were the duo who directed Baruchel in This is the End and also helmed this winter's highly controversial comedy The Interview. There are several drawn-out, music-accompanied, slow-motion montage sequences, and there are just as many stretched out discussions about a certain member in the male genitalia family. It sometimes gets a little overbearing, but, more often than not, it works.
Simon Rich's show hosts something so effortlessly imaginative, and in its parade of lunacy — from Mike talking about the wizard who gave him spiral eyes at puberty which lets him hit on girls to Josh calling every bar in the city to retrieve his disconnected lost penis, including guest star Tim Heidecker — it escapes being simply sophomoric. Much like the best films from Rogen and Goldberg, Man Seeking Woman is packed to the nines with ideas and creativity, while also speaking to something that feels relevant, heartfelt and honest. Above all, it's inspiring to see someone take ideas that would otherwise be crude and low-brow and make them wholly their own and continuously hilarious.
Best yet, Man Seeking Woman finds a way to provide an Infinite Jest joke for the second week in a row. Any show that can make room for David Foster Wallace references in addition to puns about male antimony must continue to earn my respect. Let's just hope Man Seeking Woman can continue being as rambunctious and funny as it can be.
Image courtesy of Peter West/ACE/INFphoto.com