What I’m Watching: Nine Perfect Strangers

Nine Perfect Strangers: Season 1, Episode 5 “Sweet Surrender” (B+)

A clever thing that this show is able to do in portraying how its characters can’t distinguish vivid dreams for reality is that it can show them in exactly the same manner, indicated as imagination only by a sharp awakening experienced by the one conjuring it up. Zoe and Heather both saw Zach and Zoe even spoke with him, and Masha was aware enough of how Zoe was acting to realize that she was seeing him right there and then at her birthday party. Having Ben Falcone, Melissa McCarthy’s real-life husband, play the man who showed up to tell her how bad a writer she was, surely adds to the mind-bending nature of all of it, and that sent Frances straight to Tony as their initial rivalry has turned into something very close to a romance. Lars did dream that he was giving birth to Tony’s baby, but he’s also reporting his findings while he’s well aware that he’s compromised as a journalist since he’s being drugged. I’m intrigued by the way that he swooped in to comfort Carmel when the sight of Ben and Jessica having sex got her very angry. Also of note is that Delilah and Masha share a sexual connection, one that apparently Yao doesn’t know about and can never know about since it might trigger the same kind of jealousy that Delilah feels about him and Masha, I suppose? It’s a twisted web of people all linked in various ways that are only going to get more intertwined as they spend more time at this place.