“Say what you will about Paul Shaffer, but he shows up.” – Puddle
“Oil & Water” is an improvement on the dismal “Into the Wilde.” That’s not saying too much because it’s still not a great half hour of comedy. It still featured very unnatural-sounding dialogue. It still didn’t have enough laugh-out-loud moments. It still felt lazy. But, it was an improvement nonetheless.
The strongest aspect of tonight’s episode was the simplicity of the main plot. While “Into the Wilde” seemed more concerned with developing character relationships that just aren’t palpable yet, “Oil & Water” was all about telling a story. And while the story was clunky at times, the overall arc was pretty clever.
Emmy (Keri Russell) finds out that Steve (Will Arnett) officially works for Wilde Oil (after standing up for him in front of Andy, moments before Steve tricks Andy into going to Alaska to protest a Wilde dig) and convinces him to quit. But after visiting the corporate office for the first time, Steve finds that he enjoys the day-to-day atmosphere of office life. Emmy volunteers to help him actually quit when she realizes that they can bring Wilde Oil down more efficiently from the inside out. To truly bring them down, though, she hypothesizes that they’ll have to destroy an Inuit village to eventually make Wilde Oil appear even more evil.
Steve and Puddle (Stefania Owen) become concerned that Emmy almost enjoys her new duties as Steve’s secretary/evil-idea-planner, but once she stumbles upon Steve’s vodka cellar and a nearly frozen Fa’ad (who burned all his clothes in order to keep himself warm), she understands that breaking a few eggs to make an omelet doesn’t really apply when the eggs are crying Inuit children. As she rushes to stop Steve from submitting a final proposal, she finds him assisting Puddle with a science project that Emmy had been too busy to help complete.
Elements like these are going to be crucial to Running Wilde’s success in my opinion. You can’t give Steve too much of a heart, but he can’t be the Tin Man either. And luckily, the relationship between Steve and Puddle has been the strongest so far, even if Steve-Emmy is the intended focus.
“Oil & Water” shows that Running Wilde might be making steps in the right direction. For now, though, they are just baby steps.
More about “Oil & Water”
* The KFC bit was undoubtedly distracting, but product placement has become so common in the current TV landscape that it’s best to just accept it and move on.
* The stuff with Fa’ad in the vodka cellar should have been weak, but Peter Serafinowicz sold it big time. He’s quickly becoming the breakout character on this show.
* You’d think I’d love the Arrested Development references, but they have been far too telegraphed and clunky so far. “I’m up here freezing off my Blue Man Group.”? Give me a break.
* “I had Marvin Hamlisch for math.” – Steve
* “I guess Bob Fosse didn’t want to spook me.” – Steve
* “It’s not like anyone ever froze to death.” – Fa’ad
* “I use a lot of this money to help fight my gambling addiction. I really feel like I’m one big win away from finding a cure.” – Migo
* “They’re giving sexual harassment lessons and I think I’ll be pretty good at it.” – Steve
This review originally appeared on TV Geek Army.