How To Live A Better Life - Season 2, Episode 5: "Jordan's Dream" Review

Watch The Episode Here

First thing's first: welcome to the review! I will be providing my analysis of the almost-popular web series How To Live A Better Life for the remainder of this season, and subsequent ones that are sure to follow. I will go back and review the first four episodes of the season, and eventually I'll cover season one, but for the sake of being topical, the most recent release is a good place to start.

That being said, I find "Jordan's Dream" to be one of the weaker episodes of the season so far, only bested (worsted?) by "Home Is Where The Home Is", but I'll get to that review later.

I am always for sitcoms experimenting with alternate story lines, genres, and whatever gimmicks the writers can come up with over the course of a show. Especially broadcast sitcoms, as they tend to not be as serialized and will usually find themselves having to fill up 20-22 weeks worth of half hour episodes. Anybody who has ever tried to write an episodic series should know first hand that, unless you have story arcs pouring out your ears, trying to maintain a running story for that long is not easy at all. Hell, even keeping a story going for 10-13 episodes is a feat in itself. Since sitcoms usually don't have that problem with running stories, that means they will have to come up with several self-contained stories to fill all those extra episodes, and some may argue that's an even harder thing to do.

This season of How To Live A Better Life will be 14 episodes long, compared to last season's 10, and if you've been watching the show for long enough, you will know that this show lives and breathes on self-contained episodes. That's all that's been done so far. I know personally that there will be exceptions, but for now, it's entirely procedural. So when you look at "Jordan's Dream", you won't find anything different, but you will find that it's a bit lacking compared to a typical HTLBL episode.

In the episode, Mike finds Jordan fiddling around with a Super Nintendo, which is actually a dream machine. Jordan starts talking about the movie "Inception" and the device that they use to put everyone into the same dream. Mike dismisses him, as per usual, and walks out. Jordan, feeling discouraged, takes a nap using his powers to instantly fall asleep in any position.

Later, Mike is feeling bad about not taking Jordan seriously and goes to apologize, but finds Jordan asleep, so in a scene that involved waaaaay too much unnecessary narration by Mike, he decides to try the machine out. He wraps a controller around Jordan's arm, then his, and goes to sleep. What follows next is Mike realizing that he's in Jordan's dream, as evidenced by the four clones of Jordan in his living room (When clone #1 is explaining to Mike that Jordan dreams copies of himself, he mutters, "Arrogant, I know." in what sounded like a annoyed tone. If a clone of Jordan says that about what is essentially himself, does that mean that Original Jordan knows he's arrogant? If he does, and his clone didn't seem to approve of it, does he like being arrogant all the time? Can he help himself? Am I reading too much into this?) One of the clones decides to help Mike find Jordan because if the dream machine (Super Nintendo) shuts off while they're still dreaming, they'll be stuck in the dream world forever. Mike doesn't seem to care, but the clone tells him that he needs to finish How To Live a Better Life, so Mike springs into action.

They eventually find Jordan, perhaps too quickly, and Mike tells them about the situation. Here's where it gets confusing: When clone #1 leads Mike to Original Jordan, he suddenly disappears before he can tell Mike one important thing. Dramatic, yes, but ultimately pointless because we never find out what that thing was! Mike didn't seem to dwell on it much, rightfully so, because he needed Jordan to wake up, but why create that drama when it's never going to be resolved?

Whatever. Mike tries to get Jordan to go back, but Jordan doesn't want to. He hobbles away as their time limit reaches zero, and are presumably stuck in the dream world forever. Cut to Jordan waking up. He muses about how weird the dream is, then goes on a quest to find Mike, only to find four copies of him in the living room, the exact opposite of Jordan's dream. End episode.

So, they're stuck in the dream world now, right? So that means that next week's episode, and all future episodes will be from the dream world, right? The universe of How To Live A Better Life will be changed forever, right?

Ultimately, I feel like this does not matter at all. The next episode will chug right along as if none of this ever happened. A bit jarring, but hey, this is a sitcom, and they're allowed to do this type of stuff......right? 

Next time the show decides to go supernatural, let's hope for a clearer, more thoughtfully paced story. This one started out fine, but then just went off the rails there at the end. Again, none of it matters, I mean this is a show on the INTERNET, but come on, respect the fans (all 4 of them) enough and deliver something more than this.

Stray Observations:

• During the quest to find Jordan, Clone #1 and Mike stumbled across Ryan Sylvan in a cage! His real life name is Ryan Cage! DESPITE ALL MY RAGE I AM STILL JUST RYAN CAGE IN A CAGE
• "Wow, these stairs are safe in Jordan's dream." Yeah, right. Those stairs are deadly.
• Gratuitous zoom in on Mike Sylvan's mouth? Check.
• I love that in their world, there is a British version of Inception.
• "You mean the bumperdoodle?" "Yes, the bumperdoodle!"
• Jordan's delivery of "I gave you a dollar!" was perfect.
• Those shots with the clones look good! Guess what? I taught them how to do that!
• "...Dijon mustard."
• Overall Episode Grade: C-