Close Enough Review: Robot Tutor / Golden Gamer

"...Bone?"

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Whereas last week was, in my eyes, a bit of a mixed bag, this week's episodes present Close Enough bouncing back with, as always, the unflappable determination that makes it perpetually exciting. It's something I touched on then, the special appeal of the show, and I think "Robot Tutor" and "Golden Gamer" manage to actualize that perfectly, demonstrating Close Enough's knack for taking a fairly conventional idea and managing to fully reinvigorate it with the brand of fun so unique to its identity, ensuring that whatever material the show has will be a one-of-a-kind experience.

Case in point: not dissimilar to prank episodes, there's something sort of iffy about plots centered around robots that will end up, inevitably, having some evil turn that threatens the life of the protagonists. "Robot Tutor" is able to do the premise one better, though, by really honing in on its characters rather than succumbing to the cheap thrills at its core. More than just being an excuse for everything to go batshit, it's a chance for Close Enough to demonstrate the strength of its characters and even find perhaps the most unlikely hero yet: Candice. I don't think she's a character that the show has really struggled to implement, always being used to provide a fun, childlike flippancy, but I've never really known what potential she had to be anything more than someone for the adult cast to bounce off of. It's surprising, then, to see her put at the front and center of a premise, and even moreso that she makes the episode.

"Robot Tutor" is centered most squarely around Candice's questionable grades in school straining Josh and Emily's spring break plans—a stay at Emily's boss' luxury beach condo, Sand & Bone—and necessitating the use of Brainio, a robotic tutor who asks increasingly-complex questions while hurling ads at you every time you answer incorrectly. That certainly creates the omnipresent risk that Close Enough will fly off the rails and discard more meaningful development in the name of insanity, but rather than focusing on the robot, it smartly shifts the spotlight to how Emily and Josh operate as parents and subsequently affect their daughter. Emily, the squarer and more responsible of the two, is much more innately invested and concerned about her child's education, though that ultimately leads her to let slip that Candice isn't particularly smart to her child's face. Josh, on the other hand, is more laid-back and unconcerned, but that fuels into a different breed of investment. He chooses to emphasize that Candice, more than anything else, should simply find something that she's passionate about and not be worried about her grades, even if that eventually goes awry.

I do think that scene of Josh consoling Candice is worth shouting out, though, as the sort of sublime, quaint bit of character work that Close Enough is so shockingly skilled at. There's not really any jokes in the scene; it's just Josh demonstrating what makes him such a surprisingly nuanced, realistic character, all while giving him a chance to impart his general life philosophies onto Candice, who he's intent upon bringing the best out of. Sure, it's towards a slightly questionable goal, hacking Brainio so that she'll get every question right, but that doesn't downplay the sweetness of the moment because it has more subtlety to it than merely being a stepping stone to the rest of what unfolds.

While all of that's going on, the episode also gets to balance things out with an appreciably substantive if not massively compelling sub-plot involving Alex and Bridgette's failed attempt to conjure up some divorce sex at Sand & Bone. While we can infer from their half-amiable, half-caustic relationship that there's a lot powering how the two operate, "Robot Tutor" actually addresses where they are at this point in time. Driving a stake through them feels like the easiest means of creating conflict, but it presents a nice chance to show what powers the two characters, and especially the individual flaws that feed into their ultimate incompatibility. Bridgette becomes obsessed with her social media and preserving the artificial memories of her time at the condo, while Alex gets knee-deep into his pursuit of Toluca Lake, an "actual person" who lives an unplugged life in a yurt and feeds into his need for approval.

It's an interesting set-up that unfortunately falls a bit at "Robot Tutor's" wayside, to mixed results. I do think there's value to Alex and Bridgette calling a truce before the meat of the episode starts, ensuring that nothing distracts from the ensuing spectacle of the condo being cut out of its complex and carried off by evil robot drones after Brainio discovers that Josh and Candice cheated the software and circumvented its ads, but it also leaves their resolution feeling weirdly detached from the rest of the episode. (Additionally, however fun it was for Toluca to be immediately vaporized by Brainio, it felt like a bit of a cheap way to put the complications that she created on the back-burner.)

With that said, I respect how that allows the episode to trim its fat and focus on Candice, who slips out of the Ludovico trap attempting to force her and everyone else to watch ads for an eternity and, using what Josh taught her, successfully bypasses Brainio's password protection and activates its self-destruct button by deftly putting together her recollections of words she's seen. It's quick and snappy, but as the summation of all of the delicate work preceding it, the ending is undeniably satisfying, granting Candice a well-earned victory and proving that she can be used to a greater capacity than past entries have really attempted. Even if the beach condo is... far from where it's supposed to be, Candice successfully writes her own name in the sand, bookending an earlier scene rather nicely, and relative to the standards of Close Enough, things are about as good as they can be.

Those good vibes continue into "Golden Gamer," along with continuing the trend of shifting focus onto an unconventional character: Alex. Right from the cold open, there's something exciting about him finally being front and center without anyone else in sight, and it seems to commence the episode with a thesis statement: Alex can withstand being the leading man and demonstrate an ability to stand on his own... and goddammit, he does. Even if he may not have the most intense plot, it's something for him to make a meal out of while demonstrating what makes him such a lovable character in the process.

One of Alex's defining traits is that he always feels like he's at wit's end; if he's not pent-up, he's certainly a punching bag, and as "Golden Gamer" humorously casts him, a character of Sisyphean proportions attempting to bridge the gap with his unimpressed community college students. Whereas he was able to, at one point, connect (?) with his UCLA students through a Borat routine, he's become jaded in light of his divorce and lost youth. He decides, then, that the best solution would be to pull a stunt to zhuzh up his lessons on Greek mythology, and after fumbling a fairly simple stunt and brutally stumbling down a building, doubles down for glory by pursuing the most dangerous stunt known to man: the Widow Maker.

Josh maintains an adjacent plot of fairly equal proportions, if not equal strength. Even so, his quest for validation mirrors Alex nicely: after reuniting with one of his old buddies who has since become a multi-millionaire video game developer, Josh attempts to redeem his past failures by getting knee-deep in the video game he attempted to make in his 20s, Dudeman. Josh's insecurities and flashes of perceived inferiority are nothing too new for the show—"Skate Dad" is perhaps the most succinct realization of the idea—but the premise is assisted by the fun twist of his eponymous video game protagonist coming to life and egging him into a regressive, self-destructive lifestyle.

Perhaps one of the greatest points of convergence, too, is "Golden Gamer's" emphasis on fantastic visual gags and physical comedy, complementing the plots that it has a handle on perfectly. Josh drunkenly teeters around before collapsing in on himself before a disgusted Emily, but the episode's first big showcase is Smasher's, a bar ostensibly for stunt people that opens the doors (or rather, the breakway windows) to a cavalcade of fantastic physical gags. Characters crash through furniture, stage fights, and discard garbage into trash cans affixed with a flaming ring, and it's the sort of absurdity that no other show could do such gloriously stupid justice.

That spirit carries on into the episode's climax, marrying the episode's slapstick with its furious character work by putting Alex on a motorcycle atop Griffith Observatory and before a ramp descending into a pit of fire. Before Alex can do much more than stare at the abyss and begin his lesson, though, his students interrupt and tell him that he has nothing to prove; he's their bro. It's a nice little moment for Alex to finally be validated, the one thing he really needs as a person, and for however much his students give him a hard time, it comes from a place of unspoken respect. Now, granted, they proceed to film him stumbling down the observatory in the exact same manner as earlier—classic Sisyphus—but triumphantly with a new caption on the video: "Dorp Rules!"

Keeping up with the episode's parallel plotlines, too, the moment that Alex's narrative is resolved, it's Josh's turn, with him inexplicably getting atop the motorcycle accompanied by Dudeman with the intention to "drop-kick [the] jump in the dick." It's fun to see "Golden Gamer" treating its two narratives as equals to the degree that they practically pass the baton over, and it's equally appreciable that it finds a way to reiterate the same message, if more attuned to Josh's specific case. As Emily and Candice anxiously reassure him, he's not a failure and that dreams just change, with a sweet little flashback montage showing everything that happened since the devastation of his dream career (meeting and marring Emily, having Candice) driving the point forward rather cutely and tastefully. Even if he gets strong-armed by Dudeman into doing the jump anyway for the sake of a spectacle—and I mean the fire pit is there so why not, really?—it at least grants Josh the definitive closure of throwing his Dudeman cartridge into the flames. Slamming into a van afterwards is just fun collateral: nobody escapes "Golden Gamer" unscathed, but they're all the better for it.

Close Enough's ongoing eagerness to pull back the layers of its cast and find new ways to examine their place in the show ultimately makes for a fantastic assurance that it's a show that has legs. It can still be rather scattershot, and there's certainly a lot of fine-tuning that can be done, but "Robot Tutor" and "Golden Gamer" are the show at its best: compact, hilarious, preposterous, and surprisingly meaningful. Here's hoping we can continue down this final stretch going just as strong.

FINAL GRADES:
"Robot Tutor": A.
"Golden Gamer": A+.

Next Friday: Josh contemplates a vasectomy, and Bridgette gets a job.

For my last review of the last two episodes, "Prank War" and "Cool Moms," CLICK HERE.

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