The Other Two
Cary Becomes Somewhat of a Name/Brooke Gets Her Hands Dirty Season 3 Episodes 3 - 4 Editor’s Rating «Previous Next» « Previous Episode Next Episode The Other Two
Cary Becomes Somewhat of a Name/Brooke Gets Her Hands Dirty Season 3 Episodes 3 - 4 Editor’s Rating «Previous Next» « Previous Episode Next EpisodeAfter Brooke quit her job and Cary decided he needed another part at the end of the last episode, it seemed like they would get everything they wanted. After Brooke’s experience with an armpit stunk (he-he), it seemed like she was making the right choice … until it wasn’t. And for Cary, though he continued to make strides in “the industry,” as they call it about every 20 seconds, it was one setback or another. But what does the show, ultimately, want us to believe? Is it good or bad to be in “TI”? Oh wait, we can’t call it that because of TI. Ugh, I guess we’re stuck with “the industry.”
Brooke, wearing an all-white outfit straight out of Shiv Roy’s closet and a blazer that is also somehow a cape (a blape? a cazer?), isn’t quite ready to leave behind all the perks of her old job, so she crashes a party that Ellen DeGeneres is throwing at her house but thankfully not attending so that everyone can enjoy themselves. (What about Portia? Is she banned too?) However, when Brooke arrives, it’s like she’s a ghost; no one can see her or hear her, not even Chase, who is there dressed as a “shitty little rat” because, well, Justin Bieber did it before, so he’s on the same career trajectory.
It’s a funny gag, especially when she meets the other muggles at the party — a social worker, a translator, someone’s cousin — and when she decides to haunt a bathroom to find out what Da Baby did that everyone is gossiping about. Wait, did Da Baby do something? Am I missing out? Do I need to go to the dark web? Shuli tells everyone that she thinks it’s Brooke, someone who left “the industry” but has yet to cross over to the other side.
It’s also Shuli who finally gets Brooke to snap out of it. Being in the industry is more than just getting good gossip and attending cool parties; it’s actual work, and as stupid as it may seem to some people, it’s very rewarding for others. Shuli tells Brooke she needs to make up her mind, and she decides that she really wants to do good. I wonder if that has anything to do with the hot coworkers of Lance’s she meets at the party and conjures from obscurity by getting them to reveal their celebrity-dating histories.
Speaking of Lance, I am living for the ongoing gag that all he ever does is get out of the shower and linger around shirtless. He has the exact perfect body — someone who looks like he goes to the gym regularly but will still eat a pizza with you after he has given you multiple orgasms, asked about your day, and let you watch all the Bravo you could want. We even got the most delightful of fleeting glimpses of Lance’s upper butt-crack region. Marry me, marry me, marry me a million times, my altruistic king.
Anyway, Cary is following his success in Night Nurse with lots of auditions, general meetings (called “generals” and not at all related to the military), and the dreaded “self-tape.” His agent (or a casting director; it’s never quite clear) has Cary getting a wig, breaking into a museum, hiding in a suit of armor, and doing everything he possibly can to get a role that eventually goes to someone with a bigger name than his.
He also gets dicked around by Wes Anderson, but it gets him waiting in a Zoom meeting with Dylan O’Brien, who really was in The Maze Runner. Yeah, he’s a real dude. There apparently aren’t enough teenage girls in my life, but there are a ton of adult gays, and they are essentially the same creatures. While waiting, Dylan decides to shower and doesn’t quite turn off his camera. Naturally, Cary invites his bestie, Curtis, to watch him bathe on Zoom and log off right before he returns to wait for Wes.
Now, this is technically like revenge porn or something, right? I mean, it’s not good. Dylan clearly didn’t give his consent to be viewed naked by a bunch of gays, and we should entirely admonish Cary for his behavior. But, also, if I were in that situation, I would have zoomed that Zoom until all the good bits were right in my face. I wouldn’t trick anyone into getting into this position, but if they do it through their own technological failure, should I not benefit? I’m not proud of it. It’s not right, but I get it, sister. I really do. (For those in the know, this is called the Sherry Pie.) But is there a Me Too coming for Cary? I wouldn’t be surprised.
Things with Curtis go sour, though, when they meet up at Ellen’s party and Cary finds out that Curtis got the role in a sitcom they both auditioned for, one that was originally written for a woman but they changed to a gay man named Courtney. Was she originally a teen because, as I just explained, no diff? Cary was great when his friend was holding down his old job in Gay Minute, but when he gets something he really wants, he has to be bitter, telling everyone that Curtis got the job because he’s so femme, a lie that Curtis told Cary just to make him feel better. Even when Cary books a job of his own, a three-episode arc on Emily Overruled, neither of them can really be happy about it because of the inherent competition in (ugh) the industry.
Pat, going so far as to drug her security detail, gets to crash the party, too. She thinks there won’t be cameras if she’s with (vom) industry people and everyone will leave her alone. But it becomes even worse; everyone demands that she meet with their clients. She should have only taken the one with Teresa Giudice’s daughter. I’m sorry, but Melania is a star. She does end up with a general with JoJo Siwa, which doesn’t sound too painful.
I’m growing a little tired of the ongoing joke that Pat is imprisoned by her fame, if only because it’s giving the comedic genius Molly Shannon a one-note story line. In the fourth episode, “Brooke Gets Her Hands Dirty,” she dresses up like an old woman in prosthetic makeup to walk around in public without security or anyone noticing her. It gives us some cute moments, but the laughs don’t pay off.
But the sads do. The final scene is Streeter entering the bar where Pat is being treated poorly by the barman all day. He confesses that he lied to Pat about being out of town so that he could just go to restaurants, ride the subway, and do all the normal things that normal people take for granted while normaling normally. Pat quickly leaves the restaurant, crushed that her fame wasn’t just damaging her life and freedom but the life of the man she loves.
Brooke decides that she will finally do good in the world, so she adds #BlackLivesMatter to her Insta bio and puts in her pronouns too. Congratulations, she has saved the world! Most of the episode is Brooke trying to put off doing any real work while still wanting to do good. Most of this manifests in meeting up with Cameron, one of the Insta-gays that Cary met in earlier seasons. They decide to make the Impact Group, a nonsense charity that wants to make a difference while still having fun and attending concerts. The two stay up all night on what looks like a bath-salts binge while writing all over the wall.
After Cameron abandons her at an investor meeting and leaves her out of the $2 million launch party, Brooke finally works with a group planting trees in the Bronx. (Just wait for when we find out Cameron is the new Anna Delvey and Brooke gets in trouble for hanging with a grifter.) Yes, getting your hands dirty sometimes literally means getting your hands dirty. But at the end of the day, when she is with Lance’s co-workers talking about their toil and all the good it did, she just hears a ringing as Lance tells her the tale of the stinky armpit across America. Is this what Brooke wants? Does she want to be a simple brunette in bad turtlenecks and awful prints trying to save the world?
What is good for either of the Dubeks? Brooke doesn’t seem to like being in the industry or out of it. Does she just hate … working? That is the most universal concept on the show. Meanwhile, Cary is working on Emily Overruled and continuing to date his boyfriend, Lucas, the Method actor. Luckily, he wrapped the show where he plays a gay teen virgin, but he has a new role as a closeted dude in a Christmas movie, so they still can’t bone. Method actors, man. I guess the only thing worse than being Jeremy Strong is having to date him.
But Cary thinks this kind of dedication is great, though he’s sadly disappointed when he goes to the set of the show and everything turns black and white. Everyone on the show just hits their marks, says their lines, and gets out by 5 p.m. They don’t question, they don’t experiment, they just get it done. Cary hates it. He wants to act with a capital A, but even taking a sip of water when he shouldn’t gets everyone all up in a tizzy.
When the other actors wonder what is up with Cary and his “choices,” he starts to coach them all about Curb Your Enthusiasm, where there is no script because the actors do it all themselves. Then he tells them about Euphoria, where there is no shot list and the camera never stops moving; they just try to figure it out every day. Slowly everything starts turning full color like they’re stuck in some version of Pleasantville.
Eventually, he gets to Ms. Overruled herself, played by Dana Delany. I would love to have sat in this very gay casting session.
“Should we get Candice Bergen?”
“Meh.”
“What about Teri Hatcher?”
“Ew.”
“Oh! Dana Delany.”
“Yaaass, queen. Slay, mama. Mother!”
Cary tells Emily that after 18 seasons of the show, they should let her direct even if she doesn’t really want to or knows nothing about it. This gets her so riled up she has a flaming orgasm, much like I did when I got a shot of Lance’s upper butt-crack region. Cary then gives a performance that is so all over the place, so full of choices, it turns the whole set to color, but the crew is pissed off. They’re going to be working all day on setups. They will have to get all the extras to be SAG members now that Cary has spoken to them.
There are hints throughout that what Cary is doing isn’t that great. He says Curb having no script “mostly” gets it right. Um, sorry, but I hate that show, and I think it gets it all wrong. Also, one of the other actors thinks the way they do things on Euphoria actually sounds bad, and, well, I have to agree.
I think what the show is trying to tell us is that working in “the industry” is just that: work. Brooke wants it to be just gossip and parties. She wants all the perks, she wants to be interesting, she wants to be with celebrities. That’s great, but if she does, then she has to do the work, even if it’s shitty, like with Chase’s armpit. And Cary wants to act, but being on a TV show is a job. There are all of these people who want to go home to their families at 5 p.m. That’s not such a bad thing. It’s nice to have a stable, lucrative job, even if it’s on a show that people only watch when out of the house. (Thanks for that laugh, Pat.) Maybe what the Dubeks need is to stop chasing their dreams and start chasing a job, and they might find they’ll start putting the industrious in “industry.”
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