For the second time in its ten-episode run, Fox's The Last Man on Earth decided to play two episodes back-to-back.
The first time was, of course, its first two episodes, which made a good amount of sense because a. the stories' bleed together and b. they were both directed by executive producers Phil Lord and Chris Miller (The Lego Movie). This week's "Dunk the Skunk" and "Some Friggin' Fat Guy" do bleed into one another as well, which makes sense, but come from different directors. They would be John Solomon and Michael Patrick Jann, respectively, both of whom do a nice job giving flair in select moments but keeping the attention still squarely on the characters.
With "Dunk the Skunk," we find Phil (creator Will Forte) still has the hots for Melissa (January Jones), even though he rushed into marriage with whom he thought was the last woman alive Carol (Kristen Schaal). After Melissa and Phil's drunken sit down at the end of last week's episode, where she confessed to being horny, Phil tries his damnedest to get in Melissa's pants. His big idea is to remind his wife how, in order to repopulate the planet as much as possible and not have kids who sleep with each other, he'll have to make the "sacrifice" to sleep with Melissa. It's all for the sake of humanity, he assures, and it's more a job than anything he tells Carol over and over.
While Melissa and Carol end up thinking Phil's just one "big skunk," he tries to live up to his newfound name by hosting a "Dunk the Skunk" contest where the ladies can throw balls and sink the last man on Earth into a bucket of water. While this doesn't quite work out as Phil wanted it to, the ladies do end up agreeing to Phil's request on their own. Phil goes out of his way to planet some rose petals and fireworks into their love-making plans, which unintentionally attract the attention of a sunglasses-wearing, red muscle car-driving stranger: none other than Todd (Mel Rodriguez), or "some friggin' fat guy" as the next episode title and Phil call him.
As we see with "Some Friggin' Fat Guy," the episode that is, Todd is actually a real sweetheart of a guy. He has a checkered past of lost family members and bad bullying and finds he shares a kinship to Melissa when they host similar interests in The Shawshank Redemption and trying different candy. It looks like there's finally some peace as far as everyone else is concerned, but that doesn't mean Phil won't try his hardest to make sure Todd and Melissa don't end up together.
The Last Man on Earth's showrunners still knows how to make the show both cinematic and appropriately intimate. Even though the stakes are always stated to be high, the stripped-down locations and minimal amount of characters still makes the Fox series naturally grounded. It's refreshing, especially for a broadcast network show, and it makes it thankfully always feel more like an indie film than Fox's latest sitcom.
This said, however, between last week and this week's episodes, Phil becomes too much of a jerk for his own good. Whether it's making fun of Todd's obesity, creeping in on Melissa or not caring about Carol, Phil became too self-centered and mean. They try to make it as though he's just trying to readopt to humanity after two whole years alone, and while this works in its favor towards the end of "Some Friggin' Fat Guy," it feels forced.
As seen from the first three episodes, Phil can be a genuinely sweet and likable character, so hopefully as more people come into the story this doesn't get lost. After all, it's hard for me to dislike Forte unless Tim & Eric are involved.
Making his debut, Rodriguez's Todd is a naturally likable character and makes an unusual but great addition to Forte's show. His everyman charm and nice guy attitude always is played up for laughs, of course, but the actor takes it in stride and makes himself stand out when needed or playing alone gracefully when he must be one with the crew. Needless to say, he should make for a great character as The Last Man on Earth continues, especially when given more time to grow.
While The Last Man on Earth is thankfully still as inspired and different from its peers to stand out and be fun—this week's highlight comes from Phil's misquoting of The Shawshank Redemption as a Tom Hanks feature—it also starts to lose the humbleness of its protagonist in favor of broad sex jokes and overzealous romantic comedy struggles. Hopefully this comes to pass as Forte's show continues as we don't want the former last man on earth to also be the worst guy.
Image courtesy of INFphoto.com