Superstore Review: Conspiracy (Season 6 Episode 9)

Superstore is beginning to wind down. After the announcement the show is ending with a shorter Season 6, it’s been hard to picture the endgame coming together. 

On Superstore Season 6 Episode 9, “Conspiracy,” you finally start to get a glimpse of the show’s endgame. It’s not major, but you begin to see hints of how Superstore might wrap up the existing stories. 

For instance, Glenn seems overwhelmed by all of the changes that Zephra is making to the store he’s worked at for many years. As Glenn slows down, you can’t help but wonder if retirement is coming his way, or if his slowing down will be some kind of catalyst for the end of this particular Cloud 9’s story.

Maybe the IT guy’s incident report gets him fired? Who’s to say?

Either way, the way Glenn’s story is masked within a modern issue is clever. He’s struggling with change so he masks that in conspiracy theories about Zephra, fueled by Marcus and Sandra. 

So essentially, “Conspiracy” is a multi-layered story about how people get wrapped up in conspiracy theories, and a hilarious commentary on them. 

Marcus and Sandra are the perfect choices to fan the flames of Glenn’s conspiracy theories. Jon Barinholtz and Kaliko Kauahi sell every moment with complete and utter commitment, which makes the whole thing work. It’s genius.

“Genius” can’t really be used to describe the rest of “Conspiracy.” It’s somewhere on the scale of fine to pretty good. But for a show that’s ending soon, it doesn’t read like the rest of the stories are building to anything. They could be, but it’s unclear.

Exploring the platonic relationships at the store is a good choice. Cheyenne and Mateo and Jonah and Garrett (respectively) are some of the better comedy team-ups that Superstore employs (pun intended). 

Jonah’s obsession with Garrett not remembering their fight is sweet, but not really that interesting. It’s inherently watchable, but mainly because Jonah and Garrett are some of the best characters. Ben Feldman and Colton Dunn have great chemistry that will be sorely missed. 

Cheyenne and Mateo’s feud starts out funny and then gets old — fast. 

They burn each other with some of the best jokes on the episode, and then it quickly devolves to an attention seeking fake-feud. The former is very funny, the latter is not at all. 

Mateo: I wouldn’t trust Cheyenne with protection

Besides being filled with possible hints at the endgame, “Conspiracy” is a mixed bag. The best comedy pairs on the show (Jonah/Garrett, Mateo/Cheyenne) are always solid choices to carry an episode, it just doesn’t work out this time. 

A few stray thoughts:

• In a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment, Dina wants Garrett’s feelings on their “post-coital” debrief. Garrett avoids this question. I’m sure that’ll be important later.
• “I always expected her to kill me, not break up with me.” Sayid is both low-key sexy and low-key hilarious.
• Superstore needs a spin-off a la Mayberry R.F.D. Can you imagine? Sayid, Marcus, Justine, Earl, Sandra, etc., on their own show? 
• Ok Cloud 9 shoppers — what’s the over/under that Amy returns for the series finale? 

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

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Superstore airs Thursdays at 8:30/7:30c on NBC.

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