Round Two: People of Earth

People of Earth: Season 1, Episode 3 “Acceptance” (B+)

In its second week, this show demonstrated that its premise actually does work and that it’s able to relatively layered in both its comedy and its more sincere developments. When Richard first had something to share, everyone in the group groaned because he didn’t have a real update, but it turns out that he had in fact been served with divorce papers. I love that Amy Landecker from “Transparent” was the one who played Debbie, who, as soon as Richard asked her whether she was being coerced by the reptilians, lashed out at Richard for perpetuating this myth and then tracked him down at the meeting when he signed the forms in an unhelpful way. The best part of the whole thing was that, in acknowledging that she and Richard did have problems in their marriage, things were already bad by the time they were abducted. As viewers, we’re well aware that aliens do exist, and it’s nice to see that, even in this kind of situation, someone as level-headed, comparatively-speaking, as Debbie, still doesn’t try to deny the existence of aliens, deciding that being happy is more important than learning the truth. Gina definitely didn’t hit a raccoon, and her mention of that event has piqued the interest of several of her fellow group members. Though they’re not great at being emotive, the aliens are capable of looking through Kurt’s memory bank and identifying the license plate of the car that hit him, which is bad news for one of our human friends.