What I’m Watching: Work in Progress

Work in Progress: Season 2, Episode 8 “FTP” (B+)

I’m enjoying how this show is externalizing the way that Abby is navigating the difficulties of this moment in time, first with an NPR employee showing up in her kitchen to validate her news fatigue and then Death asking Abby to call before handing the phone to her at the end of the episode when her father called, which wasn’t foreboding at all. We also got another appearance from Vincent D’Onofrio as his signature detective character, who had to break imaginary things off with her. Being asked to create a campaign about how her company was morally responsible didn’t sit well with her, and the use of “Petty Images” was a clever nod to the manipulative nature of advertising like that which is purely performative and has been highly present over the past year and a half related to systemic racism, the pandemic, and other issues. Abby traveling back to formative moments in her past, like her college orientation about how dangerous the South Side of Chicago was and the overtly racist anti-drug education from even earlier, was superbly done as usual, and the scene that really spoke volumes was when she saw her stepbrothers as young children telling their mother they were going to go to the protests. Needing to water Travis’ plants and not doing it seemed awfully trivial, especially compared to the heartbreaking and unexpected news that her mother had died. Abby being consoled by her mother was another powerful and potent image that serves more than anything else to underline her own loneliness.