Avenue 5 Review: I’m A Hand Model (Season 1 Episode 3)

Three years becomes six months. Six months becomes three years and six months. Either way, on Avenue 5 Season 1 Episode 3, “I’m A Hand Model,” no one is going home happy, at least not for a little while.

What a difference an episode can make. The episode is like a wholly different show, a wild turn to suddenly working. There’s not really anything different being done, but somehow everything is clicking, characters are finding their sweet spot, and the comedy is hitting all of its beats.

The show has certainly been fun previously, but there has been a feeling like something is missing that plagued the previous two episodes. Here, though, there’s a spirit to the delivery, a spring in the show’s step as though it has discovered its winning formula.

The humor is now coming out of their exasperation at no one being talented at what they’re doing, leaving everyone, crew and passengers alike, in a collective hell. The need to conceal leaves everyone dirty in some way, honesty orbiting the ship along with the dead crew members. It’s a double-edged sword, really, as honesty is a road toward full-blown panic, and lying is a way to keep peace for the foreseeable future.

Fortunately, the lying is where a lot of the fun comes from, and where Avenue 5 is working best.

Karen Kelly’s role shifting from instigator to passenger liaison in one swift swoop completely corrects the issues with her character. Now that she’s on the side of the crew, all of her butting in and meddling finds new purpose and clicks so much better. There’s reason to include Karen in everything now, which will hopefully lead down some interesting avenues that Rebbeca Front can have fun with.

Zach Woods is the exact kind of chaotic energy needed for a slow-moving disaster. His character Matt is only interested in bad ideas, and recording the fight between Doug and Mia is certainly one of them. The reason for doing this is unclear, but it appears to be an attempt to show how bad the situation has deteriorated on Avenue 5 for Rav, since he’s broken the fight into clips and only sends the worst parts.

Maybe Matt is a rogue rival company’s operator, looking to hurt the cruise line in any way he can. Or maybe he’s just completely off the wall, which is equally acceptable. Either way, more of Matt could go a long way, as Zach Woods is always reliable and always hilarious.

Even Judd’s working now, both literally on the show and figuratively as a whole, with his orbit theories and his need for a vigil to raise money. Josh Gad has not been given a ton to do on the previous two episodes; here, he’s more proactive and thus more engaged. The need to trick people is his forte, and so a sham vigil with actors is by far the best use of his time.

Hugh Laurie’s slow descent into panic throughout the episode is by far the highlight. He commands every scene by being the butt of most jokes, but it’s that final scene that cements the power Laurie brings to Avenue 5. The scene feels like it’s ripped from The Thick Of It or Veep, this realization that nothing is real on the bridge and Captain Clark’s increasingly manic reaction to each reveal of his model crew (literally a crew of models).

That it’s paired with the realization that Karen is joining the team of exaggerating and Rav’s struggles in her press conference places all three in a similar place: they’re all impossibly over their heads and doing their best to appear authoritative. Clark may appear the most authoritative for the time being, but he’s on a trajectory of constant shock that will surely have its drawbacks down the line.

There’s only so many lies he can handle, especially when there’s so much time to find more fake functions of the ship to blow his mind. Now that Clark knows the real crew is underneath him on the bridge, it’s curious that he chooses to not tell Judd. Is this because he wants to keep some power, or is it that he doesn’t trust Judd? Maybe it’s both, but it’s interesting Clark may be as duplicitous as everyone else.

Seeing Clark’s home life starts to add to his character, with his potential thruple and having a drinking problem before heading off on the voyage. These pieces of information don’t necessarily change his character, but do add some complexity to his stress. The lack of communication between a couple is one thing, but for it to occur between two partners is a place where he may grow more isolated and reckless.

There’s mention that the six-week journey alone has been a tough sell, but now that it’s ballooned to forty-two months, that’s a different subject entirely.

Avenue 5 Season 1 Episode 3, “I’m A Hand Model,” takes its characters and places them in situations that they’re most suited for, but tests their mettle in the process. Making the comedy come from character rather than their situation gives so much potential to the show. While the situation is certainly one suited for comedy, it’s with these characters where so much more can surface.

The more we find out about them, the more interesting and imperfect they become. It can’t all be fun and games, and so informing episodes around characters revealing more about themselves could go a long way to making them both more endearing, and more awful in the process. But both are equally fascinating, and equally welcome.

 

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

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