WeCrashed Review: Hustle Harder (Season 1 Episode 5)

It’s all about conniving, backstabbing, and jealousy on another interesting hour of WeCrashed episode 5, “Hustle Harder,” with Rebekah and Adam inching closer to the end of their eventful reign at the company.

The hour kicks off in an odd attempt at comedy, landing on absurdity as Adam goes to a regular Chase Bank to apply for a $50 million line of credit, ending with a conversation with Jamie Dimon (and way too many obnoxious sounding acronyms).

It’s incredible how many people fall for this façade for so long, and at this point, I feel like I’m just repeating myself with every watch, but it works for Adam and gets him a $100 million line of credit as he walks out of that office.

The absurdity continues as he travels the world to continue building out and is met with constant obstacles due to the impossible building out of these extravagant and costly offices. All the while, Miguel is trying to keep up with the numbers and the financial expectations placed on them by their latest, biggest investor.

“Hustle Harder” begins showing the cracks in their co-founder dynamic as Adam begins secreting away in meetings that Miguel isn’t invited to and doing things without caring for his co-founder’s thoughts. It doesn’t help that there doesn’t seem to be a single “adult” in the room as the company continues to hemorrhage money.

Bruce just continues to hype him up in a way that really veers into enabling territory instead of doing his job, which is managing money and evaluating bad investments for what they are. Meanwhile, Masa basically gives Adam carte blanche to do whatever he needs without proof of concept for any of it.

Elsewhere, Rebekah’s new outlet for her own internal frustrations and failings: by taking it out on everyone else at the office.

There’s something to be said about celebrating your partner’s wins, but this feels like an unbalanced relationship, and it’s highlighted during the Time 100 gala red carpet. It seems like she realizes it as well and begins to make a tyrannical kind of turn, projecting it onto everyone around her, except for the one person she should be talking to.

That’s when she turns to Elishia for guidance, and even then, you can sense that it’s the beginning of the end of that relationship.

Elishia: Branding helps people be seen the way they want to be seen, and you deserve to be seen.

Elishia’s sentiments are admirable and true about people deserving to be seen, but it feels like a giant validating force that Rebekah doesn’t really need. It ultimately costs Elishia much more than she thinks it does by the end of the hour.

America Ferrera does a fantastic job with Elishia and her parting words as she gets “the talk” from HR that we’ve seen a few others get at the hands of Rebekah (who becomes the new Chief Branding Officer) throughout the episode are delivered with a crushing accuracy.

Elishia: It’s not Adam that’s making you feel small. It’s you. You’re small. And you’re worried that he outshines you because he does. You have no light of your own.

Anne Hathaway plays Rebekah playing the victim so well. She manages to have it shut off like a faucet, which is honestly impressive and feels like a relatable situation because I think we all know someone like that in our lives.

The final shot of the Chase water bottle and the tap left open by Adam feels like a mirror to how WeWork is constantly wasting money and essentially throwing away any chance of profits at every turn. It’s a cheeky shot that feels louder than anything throughout the hour.

Random Thoughts

• The acronyms at JP Morgan come off as incredibly obnoxious, which I imagine is the goal.
• My consistent complaint with this series is that these episodes could stand to be a tad shorter and not feel so bloated.

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

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WeCrashed streams Fridays on AppleTV+.

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