Weddings usually are hell for everyone in real life, so naturally it would make sense a prime destination one in the Man Seeking Woman universe would literally be in Hell. As seen in movies and shows before it, there's a lot of comedic potential in Satan's playground, but only a few ever take full advantage of their fire background. Thankfully, however, "Stain" lives up to its potential, and produces one of its best episodes to date.
Josh (Jay Baruchel) is in a rut of sorts after his interaction with his ex-girlfriend Maggie (Maya Erskine) during last week's episode. After spending many Saturdays at home in the dark playing video games by himself, his sister Liz (Britt Lower) and her boyfriend try to cheer him up by taking him dancing with them. Josh is naturally, and rightfully, resistant, knowing this will make him the third wheel in a very couple-centric activity.
They assure him it won't be awkward, but of course it ends up being ice skating couple competitive dancing on a national rink with Russian commentators commenting liberally on his poor social skills. Josh's personal stakes can never be found in privacy.
From there, we get to see the aforementioned trip to Hell, which Josh and his best friend Mike (Eric Andre) are invited to in the dead heat of July for their friends' nuptials. From there, we see Josh interacting with demons (something Baruchel himself is not unfamiliar with, as we know from This is the End), embarrassing himself continuously and having to deal with Maggie's new, good-looking and super successful new boyfriend.
We also get one of Man Seeking Woman's quickest episodes to date, filled with clever sight gags from its performers and playful writing from Ian Maxtone-Graham and show creator Simon Rich. As the show grows more focused — this is easily the freshman series most liner episode to date, narratively — there's still a breezy confidence and new-age sophistication which even Girls didn't fully obtain even in its own first season.
In this episode, we — hopefully — see what's truly to come in Man Seeking Woman. After a parade of very funny, but not necessarily focused, installments, Rich's program is now truly coming into its own and finding room to play with relatable themes and modern-day struggles in a tighter, more concentrated fashion. The concentration on what they want to do, while progressing the characters finally and understanding timing and comedic rules more fully, allows the show to be as witty and goofy as ever, but make more emotionally satisfying productions.
It's a beautiful thing to see an already great new show become even better as it goes about. Not only is it rare, it's inspiring, and even some of the best shows of the past couple years had some trouble continuing their success down the road — glancing to you, True Detective, as much as I love you too. Man Seeking Woman is a show I truly hope to God doesn't get the ax from FXX. It doesn't quite have a following yet, but it's hard to believe it'll have trouble finding one if it keeps its quality this high. There are many ways this show can fall, but so far it continues to only go up.
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