Loveday Writing

The episode begins with the team rehearsing the press conference with Joyce and Shane being subjected to questions. While Joyce thinks they’ll face intellectual questions, Doug, Bambi, Richie and Tina ask softball questions about Shane, which Doug believes they’ll be asked. While Shane tries, his nerves get the better of him, and Doug tells Joyce to prepare Shane for the press conference and lose her negative attitude towards him. Unbeknownst to Joyce, Glenn decides to cover the press conference for Lad magazine.

Joyce trains Shane at her apartment and whilst he is trying, he’s clearly not the sharpest knife in the drawer. He eventually absorbs the material Joyce is providing him and Shane confides in her that women aren’t really interested in what he has to say, and that his fellow firemen are mean to him for being sensitive. Joyce tells him that they’re just scared of being vulnerable. After a little bit of flirting, Joyce and Shane hook up, and the next morning, thinking Shane has left, Joyce tells Richie about having a one night stand (although she doesn’t tell him it was with Shane), only for Shane to return during the call with croissants and flowers for her. When Joyce gets to the office, everyone knows about her one night stand, with Tina figuring out it was Shane, and Doug tells her it was unprofessional and she’s playing with fire.

Meanwhile, Tina tells Doug that Bottom Dollar is now being audited by the county tax assessor after his stunt with Councilwoman Westbury’s troop sash in the previous episode. While Doug isn’t too phased, Tina is concerned, pointing out that they are bleeding money. Late one night, Doug sees Tina sitting in his office and she tells him that the books are a mess and $50,000 is missing from them, something which he admits he didn’t know. They have Gerry look at the books again and they realise that he is a bad accountant, but not a crook.

Tina and Doug asks the staff about the missing money, which leads to a montage of the staff admitting to various misdeeds such as Richie pawning the cameras for better cameras and rent money, another staff member admitting to fencing a copy machine, the centrefold models selling drugs, Rita stealing office supplies (as well as only just stopping short of admitting to killing her own aunt), and Bambi admitting to living in the office to hide from the Lambs of God for several months. Whilst this montage reveals a hell of a lot about the staff, it doesn’t solve their problem.

Meanwhile, Joyce tries to get Shane to understand that they aren’t in a relationship and that they only had a one night stand, only to fail spectacularly when they hook up again in a restaurant toilet cubicle, and Shane nearly declares his love for her at the press conference. Joyce cuts him off and sees Glenn in the audience, who asks her an important but softball question that gets her and the press conference back on track. After she thanks Glenn and he congratulates her on Minx’s impending launch, showing potential for a possible reconciliation, Shane shows up moments later.

Shane wants Joyce to meet his parents, who are enthusiastic about his appearance in Minx to the point that they attended and cheered him on at the press conference. Joyce then firmly tells him that they had a one night stand and they are not together, and he in turn points out that she used him for sex, but she says they used each other, and Shane backs out of appearing in Minx. Joyce goes back to the office to tell Doug, arguing that they now can’t use the photos without Shane’s consent, however Doug, deep in his financial hole, tells Joyce to fix it.

Towards the end of the episode, Doug reveals to Tina (and the audience) that he took the $50,000 himself, although what he used it for isn’t made entirely clear, and Tina reveals she already figured that out. Tina gives him resumes for Gerry’s replacement and Doug walks away to fire him.  Meanwhile, Joyce goes to see Shane at his fire station to try and convince him that his appearance as Minx’s first centrefold could open modelling and acting doors for him if he wants, however he doesn’t take this bait. Joyce ends up pointing out he signed a contract, and he in turn points out that at the end of the day the situation is not about feminism but a piece of paper. Joyce admits she hooked up with him to feel good again and offers to pull the issue, but Shane lets the issue print with his photos in them.

The episode ends with Tina giving Joyce a pile of Minx’s now-printed first issue and she happily flips through it, whilst Shane is teased by the firemen for his centrefold appearance. Shane tells them that they’re victims of the patriarchy (albeit mispronouncing the word patriarchy), confident in his decision and himself.

Overall, I felt that this was a slightly weaker episode and I believe this is due to Joyce giving into a moment of weakness and essentially throwing her own feminism out the window, as well as a mystery with missing money, dragging on for too long. Whilst Joyce’s moment of weakness and subsequent hypocrisy is pointed out by everyone and being forced to deal with the consequences makes for good character development, it did feel a little dragged out, especially her efforts to make things clear with Shane.

In regards to Bottom Dollar’s financial woes, whilst this reveal didn’t surprise me, I felt that the mystery dragged out for too long, especially since it was revealed that Doug was the culprit all along. If Doug admitted this to Tina in the first place, the problem could have been resolved earlier and it would have been good to have known what he used it for.

It will be interesting to see where we go from here, now that the debut issue has finally launched.

Stray Observations:

Episode title – An exciting new chapter in the annals of erotica is the description of the magazine written by Joyce to entice journalists to attend the press conference.

-Shane knows pig Latin.

-Bottom Dollar Publications have launched 20 titles in a decade.

Best one liners and interactions:

• “You gotta spend money to make money,” “You gotta have money to spend money.” (Doug-Tina)
• “Did she kill her aunt?” “Yes.” (Doug-Tina on Rita telling them that she bought a new Pinto with an inheritance from her aunt, who Rita tells them died from natural causes)
• “This is what happens when you hire people at 2am drunk on a Wednesday because they beat you at darts.” (Tina to Doug on the staff)
• “Mm, three of my five current stalkers were former employers.” (Bambi to the team when discussing Joyce’s one night stand with Shane)
• “I should have debuted the classier logo.” (Doug when he sees the Bottom Dollar Publications’ banner and logo at the Minx launch press conference)
• “I gave you my penis and I want it back.” (Shane to Joyce when she tells him that they’re not in a relationship, that they just had a one night stand)
• “I thought we only fired people on Fridays?” “You’ve never fired anyone.” (Doug-Tina)
• “Do you know how hard it is to see a burning building and not yell fire?” “Well maybe it’s not on fire, it’s just hot and uncomfortable.” (Tina-Doug on the financial state of Bottom Dollar)