What I’m Watching: Difficult People

Difficult People: Season 1, Episode 5 “The Children’s Menu” (B-)

This episode was much improved from last week’s to be sure, but I still find it to be incredibly inconsistent, which is a shame since I think there’s enormous potential given the two talents and the premise of the show. Creating a restaurant that features only children’s menu items for adults was a brilliant idea that many I know have joked about starting, and it’s just a shame that, inevitably, it attracted actual children who came and contributed to creating Julie’s own personal hell. The fact that the restaurant exists as it does and that Billy gets puts in charge only to close it immediately to order elsewhere and then completely change the menu is much harder to take seriously. In general, this show likes to take jokes and beat them senseless, hammering home a certain point over and over again. Julie’s mother giving her a hard time about pretty much everything is a major example of that, and it makes the comedy weaker and less effective as a result. The new SNL opening credits with literal children as the new stars was another example, one that takes reality and stretches it a bit too far. The You Tube star Julie used to babysit who couldn’t remember her was somewhat more effective, and I like that she recorded Julie and Billy exploding at her and then remixed them to make them seem like the idiots instead of her, a concept they couldn’t quite understand that set them back to square one.