Up All Night - 1x04 - New Car

This show is definitely moving in an upward trajectory. The jokes are just as funny, if not funnier than last week. We're seeing different sides to the characters that make them seen more three-dimensional. Cast charm is finally gelling with each other. And we even got to bring back some buffoonery, but in a way that's actually endearing and funny. Stay tuned for a very special episode of Up All Night, where we discuss the dangers of locker room horseplay...

"Oh yeah. The Little Old Lady from Pasadena? That's me."

A disasterous attempt to get themselves (and a metric ton of baby detritus) to the beach in Reagan's sporty little convertible ends in them not even getting past the driveway, leading Chris to decide that it's time to get a more sensible family car. Reagan, apparently tapped to be the unreasonable one this week, is reluctant to give up her cool ride. She literally feels it makes her cooler and adds an air of mystery about her. She's convinced that strangers sit across from her in traffic and are enchanted and wonder whether she's a rock star or a spy. It's the most hilariously delusional thing, especially when she starts actually talking to these folks, trying to feed the air of mystery about her.

What responsible parenting may look like.

Their efforts at maturity are momentarily waylaid when they get absolutely plastered while doing online car research. They keep looking up every cool car from their adolescence (DeLorean re-pre-sent!) and end up accidentally buying an "A-Team" van on eBayslist from a Native American they're 100% certain shape shifted into a raven and died thirty-four years ago. I love these dumb sons-of-bitches.

That... that's not what the A-Team van looks like...

After taking the van in for a trade-in, that I can only imagine is valued in pesos, they test drive a reasonable, mature crossover vehicle/SUV thing that even their boring neighbors drive. Reagan is resigned to losing her cool forever, when Chris surprises her by going all out and having it painted black and decaled with the same design the Native A-Team van had. This is enough to preserve Reagan's delusions of hip mystery, and all is right with the world.


In Ava-land, after being named in a magazine's "10 Ten Celebrity Dropouts", Ava decides that her show needs more gravitas. Someone makes the mistake of mentioning they read a book about the current economic crisis. Ava decides to prove she's way smarter than fellow dropout H.G. Wells by inviting the author to come on the show and discuss intelligent matters with her intelligently and shit. In order to do that, she has to read the book. She gets about as far as you'd imagine.

All I remember is that the pepper (not pictured) was the
mortgage-backed securities and then I got hungry.
And sneezy.

After days (weeks?) of procrastination, it's up to Chris to help her cram for the interview the night before, because, who the hell knew, Chris is a giant fucking dork. Aw. We've never seen Arnett play dork before. He tries to diagram the utter collapse of Western civilization with random knick-knacks from around the house. That leaves Ava about as well prepared as you can imagine. But that's okay, because mid interview, she decides to rely on her primary strength: getting Nobel prize winning economists appearing on national talk shows to admit they were sexually assaulted in a boys locker room when they were young. Not what I was expecting, guys. Pretty dark. Kind of awesome, I'm impressed.