Mulaney had a long break during the holiday season before returning to finish the first season. Normally, a break during the season would be good for the show, but Mulaney isn’t one of these shows. The show returned with a new episode focused on Jane and Lou Cannon, but the episode wasn’t the best.
“Worlds Collide” deals with a scenario in which a woman comes between two different men. However, this scenario plays out quite differently during this episode of Mulaney because there is no love involved. Instead, the woman in question is Jane, and she comes between John and Lou Cannon by becoming Cannon’s personal trainer. Apparently, Jane is a personal trainer, which has never been mentioned in any previous episode, but the show rolls with it. This plot line seems a little forced and very out of left field. So, why did Jane become the personal trainer?
At first, it seems that Lou Cannon is simply trying to get in shape, but he actually has a different idea in mind. Cannon was offended when Jane refused to laugh at any of his jokes, so he decided to hire her in an ongoing attempt to make her laugh. None of these attempts work because Jane only enjoys apartment photography and trophy wives. So, Cannon starts spending all of his time with Jane while giving John multiple days off in a row.
Elsewhere, Motif is trying to incorporate his past experiences into a comedy routine, but he had a slightly different childhood than the members of the urban clubs where he performs stand up. Most of Motif’s fans don’t truly understand certain portions of life like tennis clubs and private schools. Actually, the only person who understands Motif’s comedy is Oscar, the lovable next-door neighbor. It’s definitely not a good thing when a retired Jewish war veteran is your main comedy fan.
“Worlds Collide” is one of the least memorable episodes of Mulaney’s first season, which is disappointing. Each episode had progressively been getting better, but “Worlds Collide” took quite the nosedive. The plot involving Motif and Oscar was pretty entertaining, but Jane and Cannon’s storyline was largely forgetful. I watched this episode multiple times, but I still struggle to remember key moments. I also found it strange that Jane was randomly a personal trainer. This had never been mentioned during the entire season, at least until it was applicable to an episode. Finally, I found it strange that John wasn’t really integral to the episode. During each scene, John was a random observer to the moments. He actually had very little impact on the episode.
The other issue with “Worlds Collide” was the fact that barely any of the jokes were very good. In fact, the best joke was a random moment in which a dog rides a skateboard while wearing fake dreadlocks. It wasn’t spectacular, but the moment was decently funny.
I was quite sad to see the more disappointing episode of Mulaney. I was starting to get into the show more as the episodes progressively got better. Hopefully, these episodes will return to better quality as the show finishes its first season. If not, the show will quickly get cancelled before it gets better.
