What I’m Watching: Made for Love (Season Finale)

Made for Love: Season 2, Episode 8 “Hazel vs. Hazel” (B+)

Well, that was quite an ending, one that could be the perfect haunting wrap-up if this show ended up not getting renewed or which could give way to an intriguing and very different third season. Hazel’s journey back to be able to fight Other Hazel for control of her mind and body was a winding and intense one, filled with Ray Romano in what likely will be his final appearance as Herbert, arguing that Other Hazel actually had the stronger case to exist and that, since they were both her, he was going to be on her side also. Fiffany and Herringbone’s return couldn’t have come at a better time, and fortunately Bennett warning Other Byron because he still felt some allegiance to him just delayed the inevitable so that they could get the right people back in their bodies. Hazel’s decision, at Fiffany’s urging, not to bring Byron back was a fascinating one, which makes a lot of sense but also shows the torment that the Byron we know feels at not being in control. I’d also be concerned that Other Hazel and Other Byron were able to evolve so quickly that Other Byron, even if he’s in an idyllic family setting with a woman he loves, would continue to do so and ultimately take over. Hazel dismissing Jasper and telling him never to return was another intriguing move, and it’s been so interesting to see her evolution. I would certainly watch more of this show – it’s odd and unique but very compelling.

Season grade: B+
Season MVP: Cristin Milioti as Hazel

What I’m Watching: Made for Love

Made for Love: Season 2, Episode 7 “Under Open Sky” (B+)

Who would have thought that Bennett would be the one to save the day and realize what happened with Hazel and Byron? Byron complimenting him and then giving him a hug was a tremendous red flag, and the timing worked out well that Jasper had just rescued Fiffany and Herringbone from their horrible purgatory. Bennett does deserve some credit since he was the one who kept them in the pasture cube to begin with, and the only question mark is why he’s been so loyal to the real Byron all along, which puts his goodness in question. I enjoyed that Jasper attempted to shield his houseguests from Anydoors before she clarified that she was able to see them there and that she couldn’t process what to do when he asked her just to trust him. Herbert’s desire to end his life now that he thinks Hazel is happy was a nice enough sentiment, if it wasn’t actually a different version of his daughter who had taken over her body and therefore not her being at peace at all. Saying goodbye to Diane was a very touching moment, though I do think that Bennett being the one to take custody of her is a punishment whose cruelty he doesn’t quite realize. His departure was actually quite peaceful, but seeing Hazel running towards them and comprehending that she didn’t make it in time was a heartbreaking moment that will very certainly put her on the warpath in her battle to get her body back in the finale.

What I’m Watching: Made for Love

Made for Love: Season 2, Episode 6 “Alice? Are You Listening?” (B+)

It’s difficult to know what to make of the previous episode’s ending, especially since we did meet a woman who looks quite a bit like Hazel, Alice, played by Oona Chaplin. That the sight of a phone made her freak out was confirmation enough that she would be paranoid about technology, likely because of her experience with Byron and his surveillance of her, with or without an implanted chip. The idiots at the FBI did manage to discover some skulls and get promoted, so it’s possible that Aaron does harbor ill will towards his brother and his unexplained knowledge of the FBI tracker Hazel had was just a convenient method for him to be able to take him down. But it’s not as if it’s the Hazel and Byron we know who are even in charge of their bodies at the moment, which makes things much more complicated. Watching “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” with Herbert was perhaps a bit too on the nose, and he believes that he’s managed to get his daughter back when the person that he’s talking to is actually just a clone who may or may not resemble the real Hazel all that much. Hazel and Herbert’s conversations with Hazel’s late mother on the phone was a trippy experience, especially because it was so rooted in customer service that she had them rate the call at the end, which made it feel both inauthentic and very authentic at the same time. Bennett’s reaction to the new couple was entertaining since he just didn’t know what to do with them, and maybe their newfound gratitude and mutual love will be productive. We’re still seeing snippets of Herringbone and Fiffany with that truly odd story about her twin sister Bessica, and Judiff’s hapless accomplices are actually getting her somewhere even if they’re not doing a great job of staying under the radar.

What I’m Watching: Made for Love

Made for Love: Season 2, Episode 5 “You’re Not the First” (B+)

It felt too easy that Byron would just give in to Hazel’s desire to spend some time in the real world and see where he grew up in Montana. Aaron was predictably combative, explaining how Byron turned into the person he was, but unfortunately what Hazel didn’t see coming was that Aaron, who pretended to be concerned about her by letting her know that she wasn’t the first, was actually working to protect his brother’s best interests. Now the FBI isn’t going to have any idea where to look for the Hub, though Hazel may continue to step up her game in trying to exact control over him like she did in his childhood bedroom. Hazel’s bigger obstacle is going to be Other Hazel, who managed to get through to Herbert and convince him that Byron had replaced the her he knew so that she was able to download into Dr. Hau’s body. That process was entertaining to watch but ultimately it’s a very worrisome development, and Judiff’s intense search for Herbert may help Other Hazel break out of the Hub and get into the real real world. It’s also interesting to watch what’s going on with Fiffany and Herringbone as they continue to go deeper into their memories, while Jasper is starting to dream about Zelda in an unusual manner. I enjoyed Paula Abdul’s AI hologram Anydoors trying to help him deal with his awoken state, a small but humorous element of the invented digital world of this show.

What I’m Watching: Made for Love

Made for Love: Season 2, Episode 3 “Diane…We’re in Trouble” (B+)

I’m very happy to see that Fiffany and Herringbone are still around, even if they’re currently enduring something close to the seven circles of hell and finding respite in the ill-advised swag they were able to procure in between avoiding being mauled out in the desert. I’m not sure that they’ll soon be able to come into contact with any of the other characters, but we did get a major development in the form of Zelda talking to Jasper because she feels comfortable with him, something that even Hazel didn’t get. It’s probably not good for his newest and tallest employee to be so visible to Byron, but it also cements his job security, provided Byron doesn’t find out that he’s working with the FBI and that he’s having sex with his wife, two grave offenses. Herbert was able to quickly gain all the answers he needed from Bennett, whose sand tracking led to Byron coming to see him on the beach. While they may have struck their own deal, that may not matter anymore if Hazel succeeds in transmitting the message she’s supposed to when she gets to leave the Hub to go to the congressional hearing with Byron. Knowing how much he’s monitoring her and still refusing to tell her, it’s unlikely that she’ll be able to do anything without his knowledge, but she does have a comfort in the real world that he doesn’t which gives her a serious advantage out there that could give her the needed upper hand.

What I’m Watching: Made for Love

Made for Love: Season 2, Episode 2 “We’re Losing Time” (B+)

It really didn’t take much time for Herbert to figure out that something wasn’t right, even if his main indicator was his ability to get an erection at an unusual time of day. He did the math and Hazel went right ahead and gaslit him, but that disappearing medication which Bennett had to return late at night did the trick, and even though he doesn’t have that frozen finger anymore, he saw him stepping away into a portal, which tells him he has to investigate his reality. I was thrilled to see Patti Harrison back as Bengals, who was more than willing to accept the money that she was offered to show up at the Hub and then did a tremendous job of distracting Byron with questions when Hazel snuck off to go talk to Jasper. Byron was surprisingly intent on answering those questions in a way that was at least direct if not honest, and I wish we had seen more of Bennett and Bengals interacting. Hazel was fortunately not too obvious about knowing Jasper, whose height was the only thing that caught Byron’s attention, and it was excellent timing for Byron to finally decide to start respecting her privacy when he showed up to her space and would have seen Jasper had he come right in. Digital Hazel and Digital Byron have made concerning progress in developing self-awareness, with Hazel creating clothes and Byron realizing that he could create a door, one that many allow them to access whatever the Hub is considered.

What I’m Watching: Made for Love (Season Premiere)

Made for Love: Season 2, Episode 1 “I Have a Rotting Finger” (B+)

This was one of last season’s most peculiar and intriguing series, and I’m glad to see it’s back for another round. I thought that maybe I had forgotten something when we saw Herbert and Hazel walking in to find Byron (nearly) dead on the floor and her taking a golf club to him to finish the job. Playing with time has made this show a dizzying experience in the past, and we’re already seeing how Herbert being drugged each morning and then worked on covertly all day is leading to him noticing the things that aren’t exactly right because they’re too perfect, like the toilet that flushes instantly. I like that Bennett is the one who has to deal with a lot of this, quickly looking up what a timing belt was when he answered Herbert’s phone call and haunted by the sight of Diane both in reality and in his nightmares. It’s not much of a surprise that Byron’s grand gesture to have the chips taken out at Hazel’s request was a farce, and that both he and his new scientist had a backup plan to clone them so they can reunite in a creepy tech heaven. I’m not sure what to make of that floating house in space, but I don’t think it’s actually surveillance-free since that’s never how he operates. I’m intrigued by having Jay as an undercover operative who was more than willing after only a brief hesitation to sign an end-of-life agreement, and his new alias Yasper has little hope given his hapless boss, played by the dependably absurd Chris Diamantopoulos.

What I’m Watching: Made for Love (Season Finale)

Made for Love: Season 1, Episode 8 “Let’s Meet” (B+)

As of this writing, there’s no word on whether a second season of this show is going to be made, and I’d like to argue that it should. The opening installments of this rather quick run were extremely intriguing, and I feel like there are so many characters and subplots – Fiffany, Herringbone, and Bangles – who we barely got to see and know who could have entire episodes devoted to their backstories. There wasn’t actually much that played out over the course of this finale, but what little did happen was monumental. Hazel saw that she finally had the power in their dynamic for the first time and used it to her advantage, forcing Byron to back up his offer of vulnerability and actually allow himself to be exposed. The fact that he teared up as he was revealing details about himself was winning him points, but then he went ahead and had an involuntary reaction that indicated an entirely different sentiment that he was feeling. Offering to help Herbert in exchange for Hazel returning to the hub was a manipulative but predictable move, and the quickness with which she responded that she would rather let him die – which Herbert heard – made it seem like she wouldn’t even consider it. Instead, the big payoff from the over-the-top ridiculousness of Judiff bugging the ketchup turned out to be crucial to the plot, and Hazel knew that the ability of the hub to mimic at least the look of the outside world would probably be enough to keep Herbert from thinking anything unusual was going on. It’s the ultimate show of respect to the father she’s reconnected with even though he didn’t ask for it and may not have wanted it, but we’ll see how all that plays out in the second season that will hopefully exist.

Season grade: B+
Season MVP: Cristin Milioti as Hazel

What I’m Watching: Made for Love

Made for Love: Season 1, Episode 7 “I Want to Feel Normal” (B+)

It doesn’t come as much of a surprise that Byron feels no loyalty to anyone and that he wouldn’t reward someone sacrificing their convictions with anything other than betrayal. It’s not as if Herringbone does much that makes him endearing, though at least he wasn’t actually going to hurt Bennett. But he did seem very willing to throw Fiffany under the bus, and now the two of them are trapped in the pasture cube together, permanently on the run from whatever it is that seemed legitimately terrifying. Byron is taking further steps to convince Hazel that he’s serious, but I think we all know – and hopefully she does too – that it’s psychological manipulation, and that he wants her to see the divorce papers as a gesture that she doesn’t need to sign since him offering them was enough of an indication that he’s changed. Hazel did spend this episode doing something selfless, preparing Diane as if she was real and making it so that her father could see that she understood how he felt, even if it wasn’t something normal that she had initially accepted. Getting everyone at the restaurant to act nicely was sweet, and it’s just a shame that her very human interaction with her new coworker got cut short because of Byron’s announcement. Herbert offering to give Diane up if Hazel decided to keep the plane made it clear that he and his daughter have reached a very good place, and now we’ll just see how he supports her as she considers an important step in her own relationship.

What I’m Watching: Made for Love

Made for Love: Season 1, Episode 6 “I Want You to Give a F*** about Me” (B+)

All the time Byron has spent in a simulated world has made him pretty much incapable of functioning in the real one, though at least he’s aware of how what he’s experiencing isn’t actually reality. Trying to amplify the distractions he might encounter at the beach proved to be very unhelpful, and once he did venture with Bennett into Los Angeles, he didn’t bother paying attention to the ticket he got and to the fact that he was being surveilled and photographed in an environment that he wasn’t controlling. It’s reassuring to know that the main character of this show didn’t die, mainly because Byron didn’t execute the merge, and that, even though Fiffany and Herringbone were only interested in taking the chip out to serve their own interests, they decided to let her go after Hazel compared Fiffany to Byron, something she didn’t appreciate at all. Things didn’t work out positively for Fiffany, who appeared to secure her exit package only to find herself trapped indefinitely by her angry employer. Hazel managed to communicate how she was feeling over the course of this episode very well to other people in her life besides Byron, chewing her father out for not caring about her nearly as much as he did about his sex doll partner. I enjoyed seeing Kym Whitley, who just appeared in last week’s episode of “Call Your Mother,” as Judiff, another peculiarly-named individual who became a nun to infiltrate the church and expose its crimes, and who knew how she might be able to help Hazel provided she didn’t look directly at her. Finding out about Diane seemed to change her perspective, but at least Hazel and Herbert got to a pretty good place bonding at the cemetery as the episode ended.

What I’m Watching: Made for Love

Made for Love: Season 1, Episode 5 “I Want a Lawyer” (B+)

It does seem futile for Hazel to try to figure out a way to get away from Byron without him knowing since he is watching and listening to everything she does, and Herbert is too lazy to use their very convenient secret language to mask their conversations. I’m not sure what it is that Bengals did with Diane overnight that got Herbert upset, but at least he was relatively interested in helping Hazel to connect with his typically sleazy divorce lawyer contact at the bowling alley. Biff – a great name for such a character – was all about minimizing the abuse she described so that it didn’t sound bad at all, and he was only interested once Herbert mentioned Byron’s name and he realized how much money he stood to make from a settlement. That productive development was short-lived as Byron demonstrated his omnipotence with the blackmail photos appearing instantaneously on the bowling alley TV screens, but what he was actually doing was far worse. It tracks that both Fiffany and Herringbone aren’t really on the side of morality but rather money, though it’s possible that selling the chip to Ignacio will also weaken Byron enough that he will no longer possess the problematic power he does now. Things don’t look good for Hazel after Byron apparently executed the merge, but maybe she’ll somehow spring back to life once they take the chip out, or she’ll act like Byron does? I’m sure that would be entertaining, though there has to be some way back from this.

What I’m Watching: Made for Love

Made for Love: Season 1, Episode 4 “I Want a New Life” (B+)

I am, generally speaking, a big fan of lengthy flashbacks that help fill in a lot of the important gaps in what we know about characters on a show. That worked very well here in establishing how Hazel and Byron first met, though obviously there’s a lot more to cover about how they got to a point of comfort that then began to disintegrate when Hazel realized that a life with this enigmatic billionaire inventor wasn’t actually what she wanted. Hazel is definitely scrappy and creative, and she’s more effective at that when she doesn’t feel totally paranoid that someone is watching her every move. The fact that she met Byron pulling a scam to get money and then that she got cash to pay her father his carefully-calculated rent by doing something very similar indicates that she hasn’t changed all that much, she’s just falling back into old habits now that she’s trying life on the outside. It took me a while to figure out where I knew her old friend from, and I realized that she’s played by Patti Harrison, a fantastic presence in the upcoming film “Together Together” that just released a trailer a few days ago and is slated for release in just a few weeks. She’s a great addition to this show’s cast and vibe, and I love how much Herbert detests her. Byron’s plan to win Hazel back by recreating the experiences she just wants to have in the outside world is going to fail miserably, and his hapless lackey, who reminds me so much of the AI guy from “Upload,” isn’t trying so hard to make it all happen. I am intrigued by Fiffany and her apparent allegiance to her missing colleague Herringbone, and I’m curious if those two have some secret plan to undermine Byron brewing because they’re aware of just how much he’s willing to risk to achieve his far-reaching goals.

Take Three: Made for Love

Made for Love: Season 1, Episode 3 “Love Is Strange” (B+)

The way in which this episode was structured was very helpful in terms of filling in the backstory and getting us to the place where we are now. I was happy to see Nyasha Hatendi from “Casual” as Keegan James, the journalist eagerly sharing the opportunity to go inside the mystifying private residence where Byron and Hazel have lived since they first met. There were so many warning signs that Hazel wasn’t happy and that she wasn’t on board with Byron’s approach to both life and their relationship, but it’s likely that they were edited out of the aired interview. What the public knows and what they don’t may not be that important, since Byron knows that he can do anything he wants and exert unchecked control over anyone who gets in his way. I liked that it was the dolphin who saw and understood Hazel’s pain and showed her the way out, and I’m curious to know more about that compassion and understanding. Herbert may not be good for much, but him showing up to pitch a bunch of drawn-out ideas was just the right thing to distract Byron from being able to go after Hazel. Keeping a close eye on her turned out not to be a benefit, as she knew just what to do to show him how much she didn’t want to be with him. Talking her new friend through a weird but fulfilling experience wasn’t about him or her but about underlining her contempt for Byron, a message he definitely got but isn’t willing to accept.

Round Two: Made for Love

Made for Love: Season 1, Episode 2 “Another” (B)

I was wondering after watching the first episode of this show whether Hazel was always going to look frantic as she tried to run from something that was literally inside her head, and the answer is apparently yes. She has good reason to be panicked, especially considering that the one ally she does have, her father, thinks that she must have done something wrong and that Byron could be convinced to take her back. The flashbacks to earlier moments in their relationship are definitely disturbing, and seeing her pass out and then get strapped down and hooked up so that they could insert the chip into her head was an unnerving sight. Herbert seems to be a fan of the big plans that can’t quite materialize, and he has some baggage coming into town after being deemed a pariah due to his romance with an inanimate sex doll that he’d like to think is perfectly acceptable and just a little bit not normal. Herringbone is the henchman that keeps showing up and trying to convince Hazel that he’s just there to help, and Dan Bakkedahl from “Life in Pieces” and “Veep” is definitely the perfect person for the role, making him relatively creepy and slimy and most certainly not trustworthy. Hazel isn’t into trusting anyone else right now, and I have a feeling that her direct approach of telling Byron that she wants a divorce isn’t going to be particularly successful either, though at least it’s one way of confronting the problem.

Pilot Review: Made for Love

Check out my one-minute take on every new pilot, which is embedded below and you can also watch by subscribing to movieswithabe on YouTube.