How To Live A Better Life - Season 2, Episode 11: "Jordan's Big Twin Brother" Review

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So there's four episodes left this season, and excluding the finale, with this episode we've hit the forgettable patch of the season. I'm not saying it's bad, it's just that I had a hard time retaining this episode, as well as the ones that come after it ("Puberty" and "Jordan Goes To The Dentist"). How To Live A Better Life, as I have explained before, lives and breathes on self-contained concept episodes. It just so happens that there's three particularly unmemorable ones in a row before we get to the absolutely ball-dropping "The Derkiss". 

I guess this episode is of note because we see the return of Gordon, Jordan's big twin brother (that sounds familiar). Gordon makes the journey up to Jordan's house to tell him that his Uncle Remus died, and then promptly leaves. If that was all he was there for, couldn't he have just called? He mentions that he'll be in town for the next couple of days so I assume he has other engagements but still, what a waste of a trip. Still, it was good to see you, Gordon.

Jordan doesn't want Gordon to go without some quality catch-up time spent together, so Gordon invites him to go fishing. Once Jordan gets back, he's very noticeably sauced, and a Mountain Dew bottle falls out of his shirt ("I'm holding that for a friend!"). This fires up Mike, and he has a heated discussion with Gordon about Jordan's boundaries, which in turn fires up Gordon, and in a major case of foreshadowing, Gordon threatens to take Jordan away from Jordan's own house. Makes little sense, but it's funny seeing Jordan reduced to a child while his brother and his British counterpart have an unofficial custody battle (How old is Jordan? Where are his and Gordon's parents?), which throws Jordan in the middle of a decision between the two. He decides on secret option C: Run away, but Mike and Gordon are waiting outside his house as if they knew he would do that, so Jordan has to make a decision. Who does he choose? Who? WHO? Well Mike of course. I guess one reason why this episode isn't particularly memorable to me is that the situation carries no real consequence or weight to it. I know, this is a comedy, but if someone is threatening to remove a central character from a show and mix things up, at least put some effort into making us think that it could be a possibility, if only for an episode. It's funny to say this now (post-season two finale) because the consequences and weight that are missing from this episode are ever so apparent in the season finale, and it's pretty much the exact same situation too. It's probably because it's the season finale, but this episode just feels like a test for what's to come. And boy, what's coming is good.

Stray Observations:

• There were about 4 really clean, loud slaps to Mike's body this episode. It's almost like he was wearing some baby oil.
• The distinction between the Gordon and Jordan characters was really well played by Jordan, be it a simple one.
• Mike looking at a sleeping Jordan: "I should take advantage of this!" 
• Unofficial awkward cut counter: 3
• Gratuitous zoom on Mike's mouth? Check. 
• The universal way to distinguish between twins is that they're always wearing different shirts.
• Gordon's wearing his shoes on the bed. Ugh, barbarian.
• Those twin shots look good. I wonder who taught them that?
• Overall Episode Grade: B

How To Live A Better Life - Season 2, Episode 7: "Jordan's Commercial" Review

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Man, this was a solid episode. Especially for Jordan. Anyone who knows the impeccable Jordan Ross personally knows that he is a major film buff, and just kind of exudes that classic "director" look. He essentially plays a heightened version of himself on the show, so it's only natural for him to give a great performance when an episode like this comes along. It is the new best episode of the season so far, even with its two glaring flaws. "Jordan's Commercial", at this point in the show's life, is pretty much the best episode of the series.

As I just mentioned, there are some problems with this episode. It's no surprise, really. The flaws are stuff that the show constantly struggles with, so I guess they aren't as big as they ought to be, because we are used to them at this point. However, I'm going to keep pointing them out as long as they keep popping up.

I normally don't mention the intro to an episode in the main review, but I need to say something. This is flaw number one of the episode: the intro just falls flat. Every single time, the intro falls flat. This one was super flat. It involved a way-too-long conversation with Jordan talking to Mike about how he didn't get a part in the play he auditioned for. They rambled, and then started wondering if what they were doing would be considered an intro or not. I know that the show is supposed to be a documentary, so that would allow the characters to go meta and reference their own show, but look at the previous episodes. "Jordan's Dream", anyone? If the show itself doesn't follow documentary rules, then it's just weird when it suddenly decides to remind you that, "Hey! This is all supposed to appear like it's non-fiction, even though it totally is!" It's hard to explain what I'm getting at here, so I'm going to try to make it as clear as possible:

A fictional show about a non-fictional documentary likes to take on stories that are completely and totally fiction. So when it decides to revert back to the non-fictional documentary aspect of the show, it throws you off. 

That's about as clear as I can make it. If it still doesn't make sense, then the show definitely has a flaw it needs to address.

But wait, didn't I say that this was the best episode of the series so far? I did! The intro would have you thinking differently, but I swear, there's some good stuff here. 

The episode begins with Jordan answering Mike's phone. On the other end is a production company who are trying to reach Mike to tell him that they want him to make a commercial for an anti-depressant pill. Mike isn't anywhere to be found, so Jordan offers to do the commercial for him. The company agrees. What kind of irresponsible production studio is this? They just give multi-thousand/million dollar projects to total strangers? Can I have their number? They won't be disappointed with what I can do for them. Well, they might.

Mike comes back to Jordan's house to retrieve his phone, only to find out the news. He obviously isn't happy about it, but Jordan doesn't care. He's got some film to study! For a 30-second commercial? *crosses arms* Typical Jordan! The next day, Mike is still mad, so he calls up his nephew Ryan Sylvan to help him make his own commercial for the drug. Ryan shows up, and we have a guest star! Hooray!

However, Jordan is ready to make the commercial now, so he steps out with his slicked back hair, sunglasses, and toilet paper roll viewfinder, ready to commit some footage. Mike explains that he was going to do the commercial behind Jordan's back, but Jordan just shoves him out of the way and takes over the project. Mike gives up, just like that. What I would have liked to see happen next would be a competition between both Mike and Jordan to see who can make the better commercial, with both of them starring Ryan. I think some funny stuff could come out of that. Mike doesn't decide to do that. He decides that if he can't make the commercial, he's going to make sure Jordan can't either through SABOTAAAAGE courtesy of the Beastie Boys.

This is enjoyable too, so I'm not really mad about them not going the route I wanted the episode to go, the bastards. What really makes this sequence is that every time Mike does something to derail the shoot, the actual "SABOTAAAAGE" sound bite from the song plays. It's not overused, so every time it comes up it produces a laugh.

Jordan quickly finds out that Mike is behind all of this, and confronts him. Mike tries to run away, but all Jordan wanted to tell him is that Mike is the star! So, the three collaborate together to make the commercial, and the end result is a commercial that's actually good by fake commercial standards. Seriously, it's fun.

Mike and Ryan don't feel that way though (They have no taste), and after the initial screening of the final product, they let Jordan know. Jordan disagrees, and goes to call the producers to see what they think. 

Here comes flaw #2: The ending. Of course! It wouldn't be an episode of How To Live A Better Life without a abrupt/bad/nonsensical ending! This one falls into the third category. When Jordan calls the production company, they tell him that the project has been given to someone else. Seriously, the work that they are doing is sloppy as all hell. Jesus, is it the zoo? Are elephants the producers? This wouldn't be SO bad, except for that the person they gave it to is Mike. Again. I guess, in a way, it makes sense, seeing that Mike is the person they originally wanted to do it, but what? Were they just humoring Jordan when he offered to do it, then when he finished the thing, they realized "Oh crap this kid was actually serious! Somebody call Mike Sylvan again!" You just wasted a dickload of money, Zoo Production Company. May you go out of business soon.

Despite the two bad bad things that book-ended the episode, everything in the middle was quite good. More than good, actually, it was great. The story was well-paced, and never got hung up on some weird joke or sequence. The jokes didn't come rapid fire like in some episodes, but were steadily flowing, and almost all of them were pretty funny. Most of the time you get a short "Huh!" laugh out the show's jokes, but in this episode, there were some deep, belly laughs waiting to be had. That's successful humor. I can only think of one other episode that has the same kind of joke repertoire going on, but it hasn't been released yet, so I'll just hush about it.

Stray Observations:

• Comments. Leave them.
• Mike wears that damn Nirvana hoodie for 90% of the episode, and 100% of the time he's wearing it he has his hands in the pockets. Even whilst running. Stop.
• I finally figured out why Mike openly narrates everything: The show is a documentary, so he's just talking to the cameraman! Of course!
• Toilet paper roll viewfinder.
• I really enjoy Ryan Cage's presence.
• Gratuitous zoom in on Mike's mouth? Check.
• The tissue in the camera lens is so ridiculously juvenile that it's hilarious.
• After Jordan explains that the toilet paper roll around his neck is a viewfinder, the cutaway to an actual viewfinder was very Arrested Development-esque. It was just missing some sort of music or sound effect.
• "I can't work with this!"
• Ah, the classic, "Taking your incredibly small role too seriously" gag. Works every time.
• Seriously, that commercial is great. "Haperal" is a good fake drug name.
• Overall Episode Grade: A-

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

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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-