Avenue 5 Review: And Then He’s Gonna Shoot Off… (Season 1 Episode 2)

The solemn duty of respecting those passed becomes a morbid affair on Avenue 5 Season 1 Episode 2, “And Then He’s Gonna Shoot Off…”

While there may be good news with the shortening of three years down to six months for their return to Earth, there’s the issue of no proper command and a loss of respect infecting every partial decision being made. It also doesn’t help with Judd verbally flipping off NASA, possibly their only hope.

But emotions are running high, leaving everyone at their worst. Or perhaps they’re always this way, and this is their chance to become the very best (read: worst) versions of themselves. The pressures of effectively being marooned has left the crew on autopilot, where they are taking any bit of information they can and using that as a chance of hope.

But by doing so, there’s this distinct lack of properly checking what’s true, making Captain Clark’s flub of telling Karen of the six-month change a poor mistake. There’s no evidence to prove six months is viable, only a verbal boast. Even mission control can’t figure out where the figure is coming from, and with NASA now flubbed, help may come down to prayer or hoping supplies last.

All of this adds up to this strange tone for the episode, as each scene feels as though both crew and passengers are actively sabotaging themselves in order to appear strong for the foreseeable moment. It’s a slow-moving, ineffective power grab that doesn’t quite have much punch behind it, as it’s still requiring of a solution they do not currently have.

The characters have a lot of building to do still.

Rebecca Front’s Karen Kelly is wildly varying, at times a great foil and voice for the passengers, and others a strange instigator at inopportune times, almost to the detriment of her well-being. Front is a gifted comic, as proven on another Iannucci show, The Thick Of It; here, though, her character is hard to read beyond wanting input or control over the situation. Hopefully there will be more to add to Karen.

Her expert timing at grabbing the golden microphone is impressive, though.

Judd, as a character, still needs something more. Josh Gad is well served with playing a massive personality, but there’s not much else to grasp onto beyond that. The background jokes help build his persona, but he’s mostly a caricature who isn’t as nervous about the three year course correction (or six months, even) than someone of his more elite stature would normally show.

Captain Clark, so far, is working because of the charm and frustration Hugh Laurie plays so effortlessly with, where his lack of experience doesn’t mean much because he’s surprisingly the most sane of the bunch. He’s looking for any silver lining in a place void of it, and so while he’s currently the punching bag, he at least knows that Iris and Billie are the ones to go to for a dose of reality.

It’s a difficult balancing act, matching the wild with the reasonable, and while Avenue 5 may be leaning one way more than the other here, a little to its detriment, there are things that are working wonderfully.

The parts that do land turn out to be the more macabre humor. The orbiting coffin is a particularly funny bit, as is the accompanying transparent boxes with one of the dead coming out of it, endlessly cycling around the ship for the rest of the journey. It’s grotesque, but the manner Avenue 5 displays them, and the lack of concern from the main players, is a little window into these people at the end of their rope.

The visual gags in the background also do some of the heavy lifting, one of the more memorable ones being Judd’s insistence he is a passenger just like everyone else, and a billboard of him promoting the ship pops up immediately right behind him. It’s the little things like that, or how every single menu item at the restaurant is named after him in some way, that helps play to the egomaniac side of Judd.

The end of Avenue 5 Season 1 Episode 2, “And Then He’s Gonna Shoot Off…” hints at a potential mutiny, of the passengers at least taking some form of initiative to getting things back on track. It’s not entirely beneficial for this to broaden out, but so far the crew haven’t been lucky in doing anything to fix their predicament, so maybe the passengers will be a better chance.

If the show can get away from recycling the video chat delay joke and strive for a little more than bickering matches, there’s enough groundwork that can make something lasting. There’s certainly enough to work with, and hopefully it’s only the show still finding itself rather than some glaring issues.

 

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Avenue 5 airs Sundays at 10/9c on HBO.

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