“Inefficiency. I waste time on all this bulls— and don’t and get anything done. Good morning, happy Monday.” – Jeff Lewis
When Executive Assistant Jenni good naturedly plays along with client Barb and puts the phone up to Monkey the cat’s ear so that she can say, “Mommy loves her little monkers,” I’m reminded of the tiny indignities that so many of us must endure in the workplace day after day. In Flipping Out World, of course, many of those indignities – and some not so tiny – come thanks to Jeff Lewis himself.
If Jeff were purely a monstrous pain in the ass to his employees, Flipping Out would likely be a fairly one-dimensional reality show spin. However, things get far more interesting when we see some of the reasons that Jeff is as stressed out as he is and how he gets to the point where he boils over in front of those around him.
A great case in point is the lobby renovation at Casa Vega, a popular Valley restaurant. Because the restaurant has remained open for business during the construction near the entrance, the pressure is maximized to get the work done quickly. And with Cinco de Mayo around the corner, Christy and Mr. Vega are that much more stressed to get everything locked down.
And then we bring in the human factor, which in this case centers on Kash the contractor. We’ve seen Jeff deal with many contractors over the years, and Kash appears to be exactly typical: pleasant, vague, inefficient, prone to forgetting things (Jeff is right to call these guys out for never taking notes and then troubleshooting their own game plans on the spot), and generally not in tune with the meticulous and demanding Jeff Lewis Experience.
And it’s that meticulousness and demanding nature that very likely makes Jeff good at what he does – he whips these guys into shape and brings in projects that please the clients, who are of course demanding in their own right.
But the personal toll it takes is real; it’s real for Jeff and subsequently on his staff, who must absorb his abuse. And I do think we get to see a slice of that reality on Flipping Out, an ironically remarkable and special thing to take away from a reality show.
More thoughts on this week’s Flipping Out:
- “This is another thing that we waste way too much time on.” – Jeff
- “The wave is peaking, and it could crash.” – Jenni
- “Inefficiency. I waste time on all this bull— and don’t and get anything done. Good morning, happy Monday.” – Jeff
- “I always start with nice, but eventually you gotta be a dick.” – Jeff
- “I’m not just going to just ‘yes man Jeff Lewis’ you.” – Jenni
Some stats and info about Flipping Out, “Too Much of a Good Thing”
TV SHOW – Flipping Out
SEASON/EPISODE – Season 4, Episode 6
NETWORK/STREAMING SERVICE – Bravo
CAST – Jeff Lewis, Jenni Pulos, Zoila Chavez
GENRE – Reality TV, Docuseries, Trashtastic TV
This review was originally published on TV Geek Army.