Love: It was the perfect storm
After one of her exes punches another one of her exes, Mickey makes a mess of herself and tells Gus and Bertie that they should go on a date.
Welcome to our second real installment in a series where we, Alex Alvarado and Kaleb Carter, watch and review the Netflix TV series Love. We introduced the series last week, then discussed the first two episodes on Friday. Our first discussion after the holiday weekend covers episodes 3 and 4 of the series.
S1E3; Tested— Gus faces an ethically challenging situation at work, while Mickey navigates a dicey new dynamic with her boss. (Directed by John Slattery.)
S1E4; Party in the Hills — Meltdowns and confusion ensues when Mickey invites Gus to a party and comes face-to-face with mistakes from her past. (Directed by John Slattery.)
Below is the conversation that came after we watched some more character-developing moments through the third and fourth episodes. For reference, Alex has already seen this series multiple times. This is Kaleb’s first watch-through.
Kaleb: So Alex, how much are they really hammering home how much of a mess Gus (played by Paul Rust) and Mickey’s (Gillian Jacobs) lives are right from the get-go in episode 3? They really aren’t going to make those two come together in easy fashion, are they?
Alex: Right, they’re total opposites, but they’re also sort of not? Not to get all “we’re all fucked up” on this series already, but we got a peek into what Gus’ relationship issues were, and now we’re seeing more of what Mickey’s been going through/putting herself through.
I don’t know where to begin with her because the fourth episode, actually, left me VERY CURIOUS about what else she’s done with her life, because it probably looked like a lot of fun.
Kaleb: But her friends sure have tamed down a bit, haven’t they? In Episode 4 we see them at a house party, and of all things, Gus is the life of the party while Mickey is juggling past love while being IN HER FEELS about Gus. I will say, Gus’ rendition of Paul McCartney and Wings’ song “Jet” is an absolute banger.
We also saw charmingly awkward Gus put the moves on a lady pal at the party, only to find himself thinking only of drunk-off-her ass Mickey, who had flopped hardcore into the pool at her friend’s party.
Alex: That party was pretty wild, from the live music like you said, but the actual best part was my mans letting people tattoo him.
Kaleb: He should have tattoo’d “scrotum.”
Alex: The party was wild not only because of the tattoo guy, but because Mickey brings the party to life. Just not before one of her ex-boyfriends punches another one of her exes across the face. I want to talk about it, but we should probably discuss how we got there in the first place. We left off with Episode 3.
Kaleb: Well just to get to this point, we had to endure some interesting character development/anxiety from the characters as Gus struggled to get Arya’s (Iris Apatow) focus in check so she could pass a test that she needed to in order to film. You fairly called her a brat, but we came to understand she was under her own stress.
Meanwhile, Mickey was under stress somewhat of her own doing because of her weird dynamic with creepy-ass egomaniac Dr. Greg (Brett Gelman). I feel like all of this sort of is a good bridge to what ended up happening at the party.
Alex: Do you hate Arya or just really can’t stand her? I’m just curious to see how you feel about her.
Kaleb: I don’t hate any young characters in a show that aren’t a Lannister. She’s just got her own issues and trying to figure out her own pressures in life. She’s just obviously a little used to receiving attention and adulation from all of those around her. It was Arya’s mother that was the real piece of work.
Alex: Yeah, teen T.V. stars. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen someone play that specific role in a film or show before this? Certainly, there have been people who act as actors, but I don’t know too many Aryas there were before this. So her job, her life, her education — all of that is going to be talked about with the perspective as a famous teenager not living a normal life.
But what we know about Arya is that she doesn’t take her schoolwork seriously (because she doesn’t have to, let’s be real), she loves dancing, and wants to be in a movie with Beyonce. Also, her parents are going through a nasty divorce, so that’s an obvious issue.
Kaleb: Was nice to still have a redeeming moment at the end with the aforementioned dancing and the two bonding on the golf cart. Maybe that’ll lead to her respecting his time and wanting to succeed and learn since she wants to live a more normal life anyway.
And while all this is happening, Mickey is uh… having her own adventure let’s say.
Alex: She was saving her job, Kaleb. Or that’s what she thought she was doing.
Dr. Greg sucks. I hate him at this point.
Kaleb: Mickey hasn’t learned she can’t sleep her way through fixing her problems (real or imaginary). And normally I’m all about that sex positivity, like, yeah girl, get you some!
Alex: But?
Kaleb: But she’s making terrible decision after terrible decision! She’s exacerbating all kinds of problems by touching butts!
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Alex. You’ve got to know. You’ve got to know which butts to touch. Bertie (Claudia O’Doherty) for example. She knows what she’s looking for. People who can share awful humor. I’m sure she and the nerdy guy at the party would have engaged in some bizarre, satisfying naked times. Even if his boo thing guy was right there watching the trainwreck that was that conversation.
Alex: Well, before I judge Mickey too much, I think Dr. Greg’s a douchebag. Even though Mickey didn’t get her facts right before getting his cum inside of her for leverage, Dr. Greg still came out of that whole situation, to me, still looking like a garbage person.
Dr. Greg said he fired the two women at work, not because he wanted to have sexy time with them, but because they were dumb. That’s just his side of the story.
Kaleb: Yeah because he has a tremendous ego and thinks he has the answers to everyone’s problems. That show persona has him so full of it and he tries to pass it off as if he’s the one you should feel sorry for.
Alex: GOD THAT EGO. It’s terrible and I hate listening to his bearded, radio voice of self-righteous and great advice.
Bertie, like you said, is amazing. She has the absolute best line of the series so far.
Kaleb: When she ran off when her and Mickey got to the party? Yeah, I chuckled.
Alex: Oh she can get down. In our last post, you said you wanted to see drunk Bertie. Well, you got it. She spent Episode 4 convincing Mickey, and us, that she certainly has a party side.
Kaleb: And my thirst for her was quenched. Wait. Phrasing?
Alex: Dork.
Bertie’s great, and she had that scene in the party where she had the two guys’ attention while she was going over how exciting her job as a focus group moderator is, and even demonstrated by getting them drunk on tequila. She wasn’t hiding the fact that she was open to a threesome in the immediate future, and those boys were drooling.
Kaleb: Yeah! I mentioned that! I was loving everything about that. More of that. Please. And so what do we get out of all that? Mickey STILL avoids her feelings and suggests Gus and Bertie should be an item. Why???
Alex: I mean, that’s the last thing we see in Episode 4, is that Mickey says Gus and Bertie should totally go on a date, but they don’t totally agree with that. Or it doesn’t look like it.
But when Mickey asked that, she clearly wasn’t in the right headspace. Born-again Good Guy Eric (Kyle Kinane) swung by the party to prove his worth to Mickey, but she’s not having it. Dustin (Rich Sommer), another ex of Mickey’s goes to the party by himself (I don’t know why?), and he didn’t care to see Mickey one bit (even though she’s the only person at the party he talked to?).
Kaleb, you know now that there was a history between Mickey and Dustin. And that they broke up because Mickey cheated multiple times, and Dustin even got the dude to FaceTime in and say “yes we did!”. What else happens at this point?
In any case, she should be in the living room hanging out with Gus while he’s playing an actually good cover of a song.
Kaleb: Again, we’re reminded that Mickey’s coping skills are poor. She uses sex to fill a void. She doesn’t have any of the men she has cared about at the party on her side. Without sex, she turns to more straight vodka and flies off the handle.
Alex: Do you feel bad for her?
Kaleb: Absolutely. She’s struggled internally for a long time with her self-worth and that much is apparent. But she’s also hurt people due to her reckless abandon. That’s all laid out plain as day. Where can two people (Gus & Mickey) so far apart find common ground? Because we can assume that’s coming.
Alex: Yeah, she seems like someone with good intentions but is so fed up with everything that she lashes out by either fucking or fucking up, and in this case, she’s fucking up by going straight to the vodka after watching Dustin punch Eric, which was pretty weird. Honestly, I don’t even remember Dustin hit him, I just remember that it was not incredibly necessary. Also, nobody at the party seemed to notice?
In any case, I think Dustin only came to that party to stir shit with Mickey because she was really the only person he talked to. And she came up to him. Nobody noticed Dustin otherwise.
Kaleb: Dustin’s a shit-stirrer because he feels like he was wronged by Mickey and is entitled to something, even if he doesn’t know what that is. Now that makes me wonder if the men in Mickey’s life will just keep jumping into the fray as she becomes closer to Gus.
Alex: Gus, the nice boy. He was actually getting along really nicely with the one rando woman at the party, but didn’t hesitate to leave her when Mickey body-slammed right into the pool from the roof. He left a girl that was pretty into him for Mickey who would later wake up and say that he should date her roommate.
Kaleb: Well then why don’t we dive into the next episode and see who makes the next mistake in this goofball love story?
Alex: Not before I end this with a question to you!
The next episode (not to spoil it, but it’s in the episode’s description), Gus and Bertie do get set up to go on a date. What are your expectations for it?
Kaleb: I bet they get Chinese food, Gus chokes on a shrimp and they have awkward conversation they try to kiss only to mash teeth and then get past the awkward moment and then they hit it off over some random 90s Japanese anime and become tight friends and Bertie becomes a confidante for Gus, so she has to play both sides of the Gus-Mickey coin as they both explore their feelings for one another.
