Superstore Review: New Initiative (Season 4 Episode 7)
Superstore is constantly displaying their mastery of balancing real issues that retail workers face with hilarious comedy.
Superstore Season 4 Episode 7, “New Initiative,” tackles the challenges that physical retail stores face to keep customers against gigantic online retailers, a serious issue. Also, it’s really funny.
As a former retail worker, I’m firsthand familiar with the tone-deaf tactics that retail giants try to keep their customers coming into the store. “Smaisle,” an initiative to make more small-talk with customers, is a pitch-perfect lampoon of this effort.
(I shop online to avoid having to talk to people, but maybe that’s just me)
Jonah: This one is red. So that’s a plus…if you like red
The more important issue, though, is the stigma held by Jonah’s pretentious parents that is all too common. The stigma that retail workers, just by their chosen profession, are lesser.
Of course, Superstore handles the humor in this masterfully. Jonah lies to his parents about what he’s been doing and who he’s been dating because they have high expectations.
Deep down, we all know that our parents want to be ignorant about certain things in our lives. Jonah just takes his WAY too far.
And perhaps the funniest moment of the episode comes from Jonah’s effort to protect his parents’ illusion. When Glenn asks him to clean up the poop on the floor of the men’s room, he claims to have had the accident himself. Hysterical.
Perhaps I’m understating the arrival of Jonah’s parents, too. Their attachment to Amy in the store has to be a good sign for the Jonah/Amy relationship, right?
Not to mention, there are a lot of parallels to the first time that Jonah met Amy’s parents.
Funnier still, Superstore continues to display an innate mastery of physical comedy, evidenced this time by Dina and Garrett’s smiling contest.
The contest takes them through legitimately sad customer encounters, Sandra’s incompetence, and trading barbs about how intimately they know one another. It still never crowns a winner, either.
The physical act of smiling, though, makes all of these terrible things work for laughs. Superstore‘s continued mastery of physical comedy brings me back time and time again.
Dina and Garrett trading barbs never gets old, either.
A few stray thoughts:
- Mateo had some more fantastic bits on “New Initiative,” and my favorite is a toss-up between his impression of a straight person and his utter disgust being asked about a drill.
- Glenn’s small-talk conversation with a customer who may well be a murderer was fun, too.
- So now we all know: the only way to get Glenn to stop is to get his attention and throw a yam at his face.
- “Ask us to ask how your day is going” might be the most deliciously retail-esque thing Cloud 9 has ever had on display.
- How could Jonah’s mom be dumb enough to think he was dating Natalie Portman? And who HAS she been emailing?
What did you think of this episode of Superstore? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
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Superstore airs Thursdays at 8/7c on NBC.
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Nick Hogan
Nick Hogan is an experienced podcaster and writer (particularly on media topics), who loves discussion and analysis of TV and is always looking for new shows to watch. He is also a parent who loves buffalo wings, blowing raspberries, and his beloved Cincinnati Reds.