Episode Report Card Couch Baron: B- | 373 USERS: B+ YOU GRADE IT It's a Gi…Boy!
By Couch Baron | Season 3 | Episode 5 | Aired on 2009.09.13
Pete gets on the elevator, and after the door closes, he looks to his left at Hollis and gets a Crafty Idea. This could be extremely embarrassing for all concerned, which is not necessarily a knock on the development. Pete peppers Hollis with questions about his choice of TV (an RCA) in a manner that, as I mentioned in the recaplet, is like Don asking that waiter in the show's first scene ever about his preferred cigarette. Of course, you have to replace Don's suave charm with Pete's bull-in-a-china-shop way of doing things, which explains the disparity in result. After the two extras in the elevator wisely and thankfully have departed, Pete goes on that "a lot of Negroes" prefer Admiral. "I've done research." The image of Pete going door-to-door in Newark just popped into my head, and it may take a while to get out. Hollis is clearly getting more and more uncomfortable with the demographic research Pete insists on pursuing, and when Pete stops the elevator, the smile Hollis has kept plastered on his face to this point gives up the ghost. He clearly thinks any kind of direct conversation with one of the building's white, white-collar employees could get him in trouble, but when Pete straightforwardly says he just wants to know why Hollis bought that particular TV, Hollis gets a bit heated as he says he doesn't even watch the thing, as "we've got plenty bigger problems to worry about than TV." I do not understand such a concept. Pete opines that owning a TV is part of the American Dream, and Hollis gives him a look like "Your honky ass will obviously never understand" before pushing the button for the elevator to resume. Pete at least is chastened, somewhat meekly apologizing that he was just asking for his job, and Hollis intones, "Every job has its ups and downs." Recognizing the Yogi Berra-ness of this comment, Pete brightens: "You don't watch baseball? I don't believe you." Hollis gives him a serious side-eye and then breaks out into a grin, and Pete chuckles as well. It's not "Ebony and Ivory," but it's a start.