Saturday, November 14, 2015

REVIEW: 'Master of None' - Dev Gets the Chance to Sleep with a Married Woman in 'The Other Man'

Netflix's Master of None - Episode 1.05 "The Other Man"

Dev has the chance to hook up with a woman he meets at a party, but the opportunity comes with a few complications.





"The Other Man" is a weird and offbeat episode of Master of None. It once again features Dev as he inserts himself into a situation where he doesn't know how to act. But it's also really funny. This episode is probably the comedic highlight of the season so far. A lot of that also comes from known dramatic actors Claire Danes, Noah Emmerich and Colin Salmon turning in truly dynamic and inspired comedic performances. This is unlike anything we have ever seen from these three and it's very delightful indeed. That weird sensibility is applied to a somewhat familiar sitcom trope. But the execution and making it specific to these characters in a really cool and easy way makes it one great episode.

Dev accompanies Denise to a work party because she doesn't want to show up alone. That's for the purpose of being able to give her new editor-in-chief the full Denise experience - aka multiple orgasms in half an hour. The two quickly go their separate ways and that's when Dev runs into Nina, a food critic. On paper, it doesn't sound like Claire Danes and Aziz Ansari would work together as a couple. But that's just not true in this episode. They have a fun banter almost immediately. Danes' Nina has a personality from the first instance she appears on the screen. She only tries talking to Dev in order to get out of a conversation with someone else. That leads to an even more playful back-and-forth as Nina becomes a bit more direct with what she wants from Dev. He is all for this connection taking the turn for the sexual. He's just amazed that someone like Nina who has such a fancy lifestyle would be into him. She points out that it's not that difficult to do her job. But Dev doesn't care. He just thinks her entire life is so awesome.

And then, Dev learns that Nina is married. It doesn't seem to mind her at all that she is cheating on her husband. And yet, Dev doesn't want to be a home-wrecker - and get killed like in one of his favorite movies, Unfaithful starring Richard Gere. He bolts because this is all too weird for him but Nina is still pretty confident that he will come around and want to have sex with her sometime soon. Dev doesn't think so but he also has to consult his friends over whether or not this is something that he should ever do. He has conflicted feelings about it. But he has always been open to hearing how other people view the situation as well.

So that leads to a beautiful one-shot sequence of Dev walking Denise through the set of The Sickening as he fills her in with what happened the other night. She points out that he's not the one doing the cheating; Nina is. So he shouldn't feel guilty about anything especially since there are no children in the picture. Dev's co-star Benjamin has a different opinion in saying that marriage after awhile is no longer as exciting as it once was. The thrill of it is the only thing Nina is looking to have. But Benjamin is also fine referring to Dev as a human dildo who is capable of fucking his wife as long as he doesn't know about it. Sure, it's messed up but it's still fine. This conversation plus an awkward run-in with Nina's husband, Mark, at the ice cream store pushes Dev into having sex with Nina.

It's only after the fact that Denise pointed out that the conversation they were having was in the abstract and not specific to Dev's own situation. When re-visiting that prior scene on the set, that makes sense. All three are talking about this issue with Denise and Benjamin bringing up the complexity of the issue in an overall way while Dev just wants advice on what he should do with Nina. Dev can't change what he did now knowing what Denise actually thinks of him for doing this. But that also doesn't stop him from going back to do it a second time when his continued misadventures at dating fail to produce any meaningful results.

This type of story would typical come to an end with Mark coming home to catch Nina and Dev in the act. That does happen too. It's a fantastic scene filled with some truly memorable comedic lines. Emmerich's line reading of "so you fucked my wife?" after learning about the ice cream incident was hilarious. So was Dev saying "You didn't have to bring up my ethnicity or my size." That was a very funny scene despite the darkness that's also present as this marriage has to face its true ongoing problems. But then, the action actually cuts to a month later. Dev and Denise are just hanging out in a store talking about some completely new, random thing and Nina and Mark walk in. Dev hides out of fear that he'll get hurt. But in fact, their marriage is stronger than ever before because this experience with Dev forced them to address all the problems they had been having. They completely changed their lives because of him. It's the kind of ending this type of story doesn't usually have. Dev and Denise are thrown by it and that's what makes it so amusing. They don't know how to react but Nina and Mark seem happy and that's the only thing that Dev really cares about. Again, that's because he doesn't want to be killed by a snow globe.

Some more thoughts:
  • "The Other Man" was written by Joe Mande & Aziz Ansari and directed by Eric Wareheim.
  • Master of None really has a strong grasp on what modern romance really is like. That's especially true in the scene where Nina points out that Dev's date is only using him to get free food and not a relationship. 
  • The subplot with Dev forming a friendship with Colin Salmon is very delightful because of all the weird character details the show gives Colin. He is very obsessed with his cat who was taken from him by an owl. He makes cinnabons in his trailer for the movie. He needs to finish a sonnet before he lets Dev knock off an impressive display of dominoes. And that was the only reason why he invited him over to his apartment. It was a strange but very effective story.
  • It's great that everyone knows the plot of Unfaithful but they still let the other person describe the plot to them again.
  • Between "Look, I don't have time to explain lesbian shit to you" and "What the fuck is Car Man? That sounds stupid," this was a pretty fantastic episode for Denise.
  • The Sickening really is a great bad movie.

As noted in previous reviews from this series, every episodic review was written without having seen any succeeding episodes. Similarly, it would be much appreciated if in the comments section, the conversation would only revolve around the show up to this point in its run.