Being the last man on Earth is a comedic concept with potential both rich and limited. Will Forte provided some great laughs thus far with his highly inspired and atypically sweet freshman sitcom The Last Man On Earth. As seen by this week’s episode “Sweet Melissa,” though, comedy is not without its stumbles. After three really special half-hours, this fourth installment falls a bit short.
It’s not a bad episode. Rather, it’s a decidedly just average one, written competently by Liz Cackowski—whom you may remember as Bill Hader’s character wife Liz in Forgetting Sarah Marshall—but too forceful in its comedy to feel easeful or genuine. This is a common problem in sitcoms, particularly multi-camera ones. But since The Last Man on Earth is so wonderfully natural and graceful with his comedy in the past, it’s disappointing to say the least.
As seen during last week’s cliffhanger, As seen during last week’s cliffhanger, Phil (Forte) is not married to the last woman alive on Earth, Carol (Kristen Schaal), as the newlyweds are graced with the company of Melissa (January Jones), a beautiful, young, blonde drifter who also found Phil’s “Alice in Tucson” sign two weeks prior. Because he didn’t leave an address, however, Carol beat her to the punch. Her company delights both of them, but Phil seems more stricken with her presence than his wife.
As Melissa gets more acquainted with the couple, Phil’s demeanor unusually changes. He shaves his beard—now looking like Quentin Tarantino or k.d. lang, as the women note—dresses nicer or forgets his shirt and dusted off an old weight-bar to boot. Phil does these all while continuously reminding Melissa he’s happily married. But as the new passenger gets more acquainted with the couple it’s apparent the last man on Earth can’t keep his humane nature in check.
Much like her work on Mad Men, it’s evident another performer could make the material better, but she doesn’t drag the scene down or take the air out of the moment as she’s known to do in her worst moments. She also, thankfully, never is directed out of the straight woman persona in "Sweet Melissa." Helmer Phil Traill this week thankfully never lets her go bananas or out-of-the-ordinary for cheap laughs or to mix things up. One should very much be thankful about that.
“Sweet Melissa” also ends with another great end joke and accompanying sight gag, which leaves the room open again next week for laughs and conflict. That’s all to say that Forte’s new show still isn’t even close to being dead in the water, but that doesn’t make this weaker episode go down any smoother. Hopefully this was just a rough patch and the greatness of The Last Man on Earth is alive and well again in Tucson next week.
Image courtesy of INFphoto.com