Roommates are a powerful force to deal with, especially when they are the controlling interest in the residence. These roommates decide the schedules, the dinners, and the TV programming, which can make the living arrangements extremely stressful. Of course, many sitcoms don’t really show this dynamic between roommates, making the apartments appear to be happy-go-lucky places. Mulaney, on the other hand, has an entire episode dedicated to the dysfunction between roommates and becoming the alpha of the house.
“Power Moves” is one weird episode, mostly because of the strange mixture of storylines. However, there are quite a few other aspects beyond the story that make the episode quite strange. Let me put it this way: A cat making a “Come Hither” motion.
Most of the episode is concerned with John’s attempt to avoid being the least-regarded member of the apartment. Apparently, Jane and Motif go out of their way to ignore any of John’s suggestions while constantly making fun of him. This turn of events makes John quite irritated, so he enlists the help of Lou Cannon to teach Jane and Motif a lesson. Lou teaches John a few, simple steps to becoming an apartment alpha, like purposely ignoring the other members of the apartment while also wearing a tiny fedora.
At first, this method of power move works quite well for John, but his success is short-lived. Motif discovers what is happening, so he starts making his own power plays against John, one of which is making fun of John’s basketball career. This leads to a ridiculous power move battle between John and Motif to the tune of a Backstreet Boys song. This battle is fairly short, but it is actually decently entertaining. Granted, there is no payoff, but that technically doesn’t matter.
Now, the weirdness of the episode mentioned earlier actually comes from a storyline involving Jane. Having fallen into a manner of depression stemming from love, Jane decides to get a cat. However, she isn’t a crazy cat person because of some random definition that makes no sense. Unfortunately for Jane, the cat is quite indifferent to her, so she decides to quickly figure out a way to make it fall in love and sleep with her. As Jane states in the episode, “No, not like that!”
Jane’s only method of gaining the cat’s affection is to take Motif’s advice and act like the cat isn’t the center of attention. This strategy leads to a particularly strange scenario in which Jane is petting Andre and playing with him like a cat. At one point, Andre even spends a few moments jumping and batting at a cat toy with his “paw”. This scenario is decently funny, but the payoff is creepy as hell. I won’t spoil the moment, but I will say that it’s a weird moment that just closes the episode on a disturbing note.
Like many of Mulaney’s other episodes, “Power Moves” starts out well, before delving into super weird moments. I did enjoy the little montages set to cheesy pop music, but the payoff for most of the storylines was nonexistent. Oh, and other moments were just downright disturbing. Honestly, the best part of “Power Moves” was Martin Short’s attempts to get an audition with Martin Scorsese. Lou Cannon (Martin Short) decided to spend all of his on-air time recreating the mannerisms of an infamous murderer. This “audition” was the most entertaining part of the episode, but it also failed to provide a payoff.
Mulaney has two more episodes to make a lasting impression on fans, and more importantly, Fox’s decision makers. Hopefully, the show will end strongly and provide a reason for renewal.
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