Rhett and Link's Buddy System Review: Spa Trip

"Did you know that Dayton has the fewest surprises per capita of any American city?" "I'm not surprised."

Please, please, please make sure you watch "Spa Trip" before reading this review. As an episode, it's a gift that just keeps on giving, slowly but fantastically evolving as it spirals out of control into surrealism. Through it all, it's one of the most captivating episodes of media I've seen all year.

At its initial core, it's about personalities clashing. Rhett is a man of luxury, and as such, he imposes on Link for every minor, self-proclaimed transgression, be it the way he sleeps or the way he cuts his toast. On top of that, too, he's self-serving - note the two tickets to Spa Chula he gets himself, only relinquishing the second and advancing the plot to Link once he feels marginally guilty.

Link, naturally, is reluctant, so Rhett makes it his mission to get Link to relax and, as you'd expect, having shoved his feet into a vat of acid and being asked to go nude, he balks out of the situation. In a tactical move, though, the episode doesn't devote itself entirely to that one joke - in fact, it's a multitude of 'em - but for now, the subversion is delightful, finding their roles reversed as Link becomes all the more comfortable with the spa and Rhett all the more on-the-edge. To be fair to Rhett, though, both of them end up lying in a manufactured uterus while their masseuse Enrique roleplays an unhealthy marriage and cuts them out with a knife, so... he's got fair reasoning.

As Link becomes more comfortable, and with the assistance of some Truth Lotion, Link reveals that his living situation is supposed to be fleeting as he aspires to relocate to Dayton, Ohio, and in yet another twist, it allows us a look into Rhett's psyche. As disciplinary and condemnatory as he can get towards Link, he does deeply care for him beyond just being a roommate, even if he can't bring himself to recognize that. However, the feeling isn't reciprocated because Link can't make anything deeper out of Rhett's occasional abrasion, and his oblivious "There's no reason to stay" is a perfect summation of that: right when Rhett is starting to come around on Link, it's painfully revealed that Link doesn't feel the same, and that quote burns.

Through all of this, it's worth pointing out that Enrique makes for a hilarious character, simultaneously grounded in his cadence yet eccentric in his ideas and practices, all of which he gets a touch too into for comfort. Writing characters like him are always hard for shows to grasp because old hippie characters are such a well-worn trap, but Enrique feels injected with an almost ethereal, calming personality to undercut the cliches that he inevitably embraces. However weird his practices are, too, it's hilarious how they become so normalized to Rhett and Link that the two literally get into a spat over if Link deserves a hole drilled in his back; ultimately, Link storms off, and Rhett, in an act of spite, insists he get a hole all the way through.

Then, it becomes a Black Mirror-esque horror sequence. After a visit from Ignatius (read more about him in the "Notes and Quotes" section), Link makes the realization that Rhett needs his companionship, and after a quick and very specific Google search, he rushes back to Spa Chula, discovering a secret back room hiding the spa's darkest secret: they incapacitate patrons into mindless zombies to watch toy review videos for eternity (with the drilled holes used for feeding tubes). It's deliciously absurd and unpredictable, even with the episode very subtly foreshadowing here and there, and that's why it works so well - at once, it comes out of nowhere, but follows its own sense of logic as opposed to existing to shock. It's a moment that blows your mind.

Link makes his valient effort to save Rhett by finally stripping down naked in an act of ultimate trust, and it's a hilariously botched effort on face value, but at the same time, it's Link at his most vulnerable, all for Rhett, and there's finally a sense that they see each other on more even terms. Either way, it doesn't work until Link trips on Rhett's feeding tube and dislodges it, and the two attempt to escape before being cornered by the mastermind of the operation: the kid himself. So they flick him aside. Easy peasy.

And then, in the greatest twist Rhett and Link have ever pulled off, it reveals itself to have been an overly-extended PSA against those insanely-popular kids on YouTube who review toys, hilariously dropping all of the tension of the episode entirely as the two turn to face the camera and break down the elephant in the room:

"The truth is, the only way to explain the popularity of these videos is that there are thousands of people being held captive in nefarious view farms, much like the one depicted in this episode of Rhett and Link's Buddy System."

"Don't be a statistic. The next time someone offers you a glass of urine, be sure it comes from someone you trust."

It begs the further question - where does the line of our constructed reality stand? "Spa Trip" is a complete, hilarious blur; we don't know what's real and we don't know what's fake. Buddy System completely undoes itself for the most painfully stupid twist you imagine, and it's brilliant. In satirizing the heavy-handed critique other content creators give in regards to "problems with the system," Rhett and Link get to point and laugh while making themselves look equally vain and petty. In other words, it's the perfect, self-aware ending to a perfect, self-aware episode.

Notes and Quotes:
-This week's song was "Naked," which I've listened to too many times to properly acknowledge without being embarrassed and whose video I've been most excited about seeing. It's not a particular smart or clever song, but it's insanely catchy and watching a naked Rhett saunter and dance around while Link looks on (with convenient but suggestive camera blocking to hide anything too un-PG)* is always a site to behold, especially once the music video pans back to Rhett with a look of disgust, perhaps at how Link's interpreting him for the sake of making his point. Speculation aside, I loved it.
-"You're not wrong, that would be subjective. You could just be eating it better - that's a fact."
-"I am an expert. 300 views don't lie."
-"I got a birthmark on my bum I'd rather no one see / It looks like a cave drawing of Judge Judy (Guilty!)"
-"Either you're not trying at all or you're trying so hard that it's sad."
-"I wish I had a Siamese twin so I had somebody to talk to in the bathroom."
-A few more lovingly subtle touches this episode were how, when Link and Rhett, naked, argue outside of Spa Chula, a woman in the background stops dead in her tracks in the middle of the screen while her husband drags her away, or when Link runs off to try to find Rhett, Enrique shouts "WAIT!" and follows suit with very calm walking.
-The aesthetic choices throughout the whole episode were amazing. I'm a massive sucker for minimalist design, so Spa Chula looked awesomely simplistic - I wouldn't be surprised if the design was based off of the work of James Turrell.
-The biggest laugh of the episode comes from when Ignatius asks Link where he's from. Link looks up at a banner that reads, "Ohio Welcomes You" and responds, "Wisconsin." Perfectly-done subversion; I'm laughing just thinking about it.
-Further, every reveal of Link's Ohio-centric wardrobe was brilliant, straight down to the back of his pants and his underwear.
-I'm still not entirely sold on Ignatius' presence in the series. While his innuendo delivery was as fatigued as possible - I can single out the scene appearing in the Season 2 trailer as the point where I started to fear for this season - he also grants us beautiful lines such as, "Y'know what? This bag of beans is a bag of junk, man! Plus, it's making man noises." We'll just have to give him more time to settle in.
*I am fully aware that Rhett was not naked so much as wearing skin-colored tights (most likely), but writing "convenient camera blocking to hide his skin-colored tights" sounds exceptionally lame.

Final Grade: A+. "Spa Trip" is legitimately brilliant. I don't know what more there is to say. It's just ballsy, inspired, and amazingly dark, all while standing as a testament to Rhett and Link's sheer creativity. It's silly. It's emotional. It's nihilistic. It's everything you could possibly want, and I don't know where else the series could possibly go, but my God, I'm hyped.

For the last Buddy System review of "Taste Test," CLICK HERE.