What I’m Watching: The Detour

The Detour: Season 2, Episode 8 “The Job” (B+)

I was very excited to see that this season contains not ten episodes like the first but twelve, especially in light of the twist in this episode, and I’m hopeful that positive reviews will lead us to a season three renewal. After a hilarious episode focused on the postal service, this episode took things in a completely new direction, with a parody of “The Usual Suspects” as Nate seemed to put together all the pieces that everything had been a lie only to exclaim that he had absolutely no idea what was going on. As if selling water pills wasn’t sketchy enough, there has always been something strange about James Cromwell’s J.R. and his company. The revelation that he is Robin’s father is a shock, though at least it doesn’t appear that she’s in cahoots with him. Nate has now been positioned as the boss and is the target of their devastation and fury at everything in the office disappearing, and that’s going to be a mess to clean up. Nate’s one attempt to make a big sale pitted him against Robin in their typical worldview argument, as he was willing to do whatever he needed to make a few small ends meet and she wasn’t ready to compromise on her beliefs just to impress someone else. The Mountain Ballad Church was pretty over-the-top and great, with impossible math to describe their ages and a wholly absurd premise that oddly found them to be much more tolerant than you’d expect. Nate walking on water before Robin fell in multiple times was fun to watch too, though I think that’s the last time we’ll be laughing so hard for at least a little bit.