Portlandia Review: Passenger Rating (Season 7 Episode 9)

Steve Buscemi is back directing and guest starring on Portlandia Season 7 Episode 9.

The sketches focus on the idiosyncrasies of social graces – when and how to force politeness and the struggles with doing so.

The main story involves Fred and Carrie and a ride share driver, played by Buscemi.

Carrie is shamed in front of her friends about having a low passenger rating. Fred offers to help. His advice is to kiss up to the driver.

The message is that getting a good rating is more important than getting to your destination.

The absurdity of that is telling of our society’s emphasis on making things social that do not need to be social as well as using ratings as a “moral barometer.”

Ride share apps are convenient and cost-effective, but is the social cost really worth it?

Carrie tries to follow Fred’s instruction, which is to agree and go along with whatever the driver says.

This goes hilariously bad.

Filat (or Fillip, as Fred corrects her) makes sexist jokes and Carrie goes along with it, enthusiastically agreeing with him. He is surprised as he was half-kidding with the jokes.

He had stereotyped her as a “Portland liberal, pro-choice feminazi.” Carrie is all those things, although probably not cool with the “feminazi” term, but she assures him she is not to get on his good side.

You can see that this is a painful charade for Carrie to keep up, but she powers through, stumbling along in accordance. She tells him that she is here for him – that she is down for whatever he wants to do.

All this in the name of a high approval rating from a stranger in a customer service field.

Filat/Fillip really tries her patience by saying that he wants to go to a gun store. The fear on Carrie’s face is understandable. Going to a gun store with a complete stranger would scare the hell out of me, too.

But she agrees.

He loads her up with guns and gun paraphernalia and it looks like she is going to get that five-star rating, until she calls him Fillip. Filat is very offended and rates her poorly, her score dropping to 1.3 stars.

Buscemi is skilled at playing creepy weirdos and he is great as Filat. I even feel sorry for him a little bit at the end. Carrie Brownstein plays off him well, too.

The episode opens with a skit that takes place at the Small Talk Convention. That sounds like my worst nightmare. Small talk, in my opinion, is probably one of the most insufferable aspects of social niceties.

I don’t know, maybe I need to go to a convention to learn how to get through it better.

Sometimes we can’t avoid difficult social situations and we do our best to prepare for them.

Andy Richter guest stars as an employee who needs to learn the fine art of firing someone. His boss brings in an actor with which to practice.

Matthew takes his craft very seriously, making this a humorous skit. Fred Armisen blows me away each and every week with his comedic talent.

The fraud detection sketch considers false relationships that can form when dealing with a friendly service person.

Caleb helps Sandy out with not just her credit card purchases, but her life, in general. He analyzes her based on what she is buying. He is pretty accurate with reading her, and is helpful in many ways.

Sandy develops feelings for Caleb, but, in the end, he is just a fraud detection agent and leaves her hanging at dinner.

Brownstein is great at playing Sandy through this journey. The part where she laughs too hard and long at Caleb’s assistance is funny.

The other three episodes that Buscemi had directed previously are stand-out episodes, and this one is no different. One from last season, “First Feminist City” (Season 6 Episode 8), is one of my favorites of the series.

This episode is delightful, overall, and makes me a little bit sad that we only get one more episode this season, and one more season in the series.

Stray Observations:

• One of the events at the Small Talk Convention is titled “Pointing at Someone’s Kid and Saying ‘Aww!'”
• “Canadian math problems.” This is the name of my new synth-rock band.
• The birthing photographer sketch is comical, but makes me cringe, profusely.
• “I do crafts all the time. I’m a premium Etsy member.”

What did you think of this episode of Portlandia? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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Portlandia airs Thursdays at 10p on IFC.

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