Just when I thought Up All Night was finding its sweet spot, we get this. Sloppy writing turns Chris into a douchebag, and not even a particularly funny one, at that.
Character Regression
Chris (Will Arnett) reverts to some kind of moronic pumped-up "master of the universe" type in order to compete with and impress his international banker brother, Casey (Dean Winters, who's much funnier as a guest on 30 Rock, but then again he's funnier on those Allstate commercials). That's bad enough. For some reason (cheap laughs, I'm guessing), they also gave my former favorite character Missy (Jennifer Hall) some ludicrously incongruous backstory about growing up on the mean streets of Oakland, Calif. Feels kind of tacked on, doesn't it? I mean, we've never gotten any inkling of that before. And it's dumb.
Celebrity Preschool
When Amy has a chance to get into the highfalutin Little Nudge Academy, (and that name doesn't represent this show's writing at its best either -- wouldn't it be something snootier and less ethnic?) Reagan (Christina Applegate) agrees to host the school's charity auction, and recruits a reluctant Ava (Maya Rudolph) to be the emcee. Chris gets a visit from his brother Casey. They're so competitive with each other that Chris can't tell Casey that he quit his lawyering to be a stay-at-home dad, and Casey can't tell Chris that he lost his banking job and has been unemployed for a year.
Character Flaws
Isn't Reagan supposed to be the hypercompetitive one? Chris has always been kind of vain, sure, but it was startling to me how unlikeable he and his brother were in this episode. I was really hoping that things would pick up with the auction scene, but Ava's drunken auctioneering fell flat. The whole episode felt kind of like a spec script that slipped through into production somehow. It needed work.
Up All Night is coming off a couple of strong episodes, so I'm not giving up on it or anything, just because they slipped a bit. But I have to warn the writers: Don't mess with Missy.
Best Lines:
"Oh, 'commence promptly.' Way to not split the infinitive! Oh my God, did I just split the infinitive?!"
--Reagan offers a grammatically (syntactically?) incorrect compliment to the woman that runs Little Nudge Academy.
"Don't feel threatened by my masculinity, honey. It only exists to love and protect."
--Chris reassures Reagan not to worry about his weightlifting to prepare for Casey's visit.
"It's tough to move a psychedelic houseboat in this market."
--Ava tells Reagan why she still hasn't sold the Super Freak II.
"Come on! This is for a very good cause, i.e. getting her into a school with a petting zoo."
--Reagan pressures Ava to host the auction so Amy can go to Little Nudge.
"That coo is my Kryptonite! Keep her back!"
--Ava tries to resist Reagan's use of Amy to manipulate.
Recommendations:
