Go On – Season 1 Episode 3 – Recap and Review – There’s No Ryan In Team via Rickey.org
Go On is crafting a niche for itself in that spot oft-occupied by Community, in that a band of lovable weirdos convene around the life of an otherwise too-cool-for-school lead and soften his heart. “There’s No Ryan In Team” does a fine job with this trope, in and of itself, yet there’s this overwhelming sense that, even just three episodes in, the show is doing too much per episode.
“There’s No Ryan In Team” is all over the place, even while it’s hitting that sweet spot that straddles the line between comedy and earnest emotion. Ryan (Matthew Perry) is finally making real progress with the group, and has come to regard them as friends. Fausta (Tonita Castro) and Owen (Tyler James Williams) are already firmly on Ryan’s side, and even Lauren (Laura Benanti) seems to be warming to him. Sonia (Sarah Baker) thinks Ryan’s development is awww-worthy, while Anne (Julie White) remains a bit more cynical. And little has changed for Mr. K (Brett Gelman), who is as weird as he’s ever been. Naturally, however, Ryan torpedoes the harmony by ditching the group when they collectively run into some of Ryan’s work friends on the basketball court outside the community center. The group becomes resentful, and Ryan has to go about making amends.
Meanwhile, in a concurrent plot that feels like part of a different show entirely, Ryan’s boss, Steven (John Cho), is jealous of Ryan’s connection with the support group and goes out of his way to re-establish a bro connection with his friend. This includes a random lunch for two at a high-end restaurant and, weirder still, a drunken night in an alleyway sharing booze and firing airguns. I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again: if this feels straight out of a different show, it’s because of the disconnect between the Group and the Work portions of the show. It’d be one thing if we only touched down briefly at Ryan’s office each week, got clips of him doing his radio show, illustrating the subtle effects the group has had on his work life. But it’s another thing entirely to spend whole stretches of an episode at this workplace that feels detached from what the series seems to want to be. Steven was kind of creepy in his neediness, and Ryan’s affirmation at the end of the episode that Steven is his best friend feels unearned. I suppose introducing Steven to the group at the end of the episode serves as the joining of the two disparate worlds, and perhaps that will make for a more fluid show. I know that, three episodes in, this 50/50 approach to Group/Work scenes isn’t working.
What does work are the emotional beats concerning grief. The show is unique in how it broaches the subject of grieving in broad comedic terms. Knowing how sensitive a subject grief can be, this show probably shouldn’t work as well as it does, if at all. Yet each episode so far has managed to earn at least a few laughs out of honest observations like Ryan avoiding telling his gardener that Janie has died simply because he doesn’t like breaking bad news, instead choosing to invent escalating excuses for why she isn’t around, all while having to navigate the language barrier. There’s also a pretty great bit where the group, prior to the anti-Ryan revolt, helps Ryan come up with a vanity plate for his car that communicates his widower status using as few characters as possible.
Better still is Ryan’s make-good with the group, who are out getting drunk and bowling. Ryan recently purchased a new Porsche (which he continually expects to act as his own KITT) and allows each member of the group, even blind George (Bill Cobbs), a turn at the wheel, doing donuts in the bowling alley parking lot. There’s something to be gleaned from how each person approaches their turn:
-Fausta is giddy with wild glee, communicating her desire to live life while she can, as opposed to wallowing in her grief. In the montage from the pilot, of the group dealing with their grief during their everyday routine, Fausta is the only one smiling while reminiscing, which is reflective of her outlook. There’s a peace in Fausta that isn’t there in the others.
-Owen, who first brought up the idea of getting to drive the car in the first place, sleeps off his drunkenness in the back seat while Fausta drives. Owen is all bravado without much to back it up. He gets drunk and talks a big game, but that’s simply because it’s easier than confronting his own pain. We already know that Owen isn’t big on talking about his feelings. That is, until Ryan started coming to group. In which case, it makes sense that he’d resume his introverted style after feeling betrayed and disavowed by Ryan.
-Anne peels out of the parking lot and into the street, assuring Ryan that she’s going to teach his car how much cooler she is than him, again clinging to her public facade of being above it all, in order to mask a private anguish made all the more palpable by how preventable the death had been. Anne is perhaps the most interesting character in the series so far, as her veneer is very thin, yet it’s a facade that’s insistent enough to pass muster with the other group members. No one is really seeing through her just yet, but the cracks in the foundation are there, and doubtless always have been.
“There’s No Ryan In Team” isn’t a bad episode of television, it’s simply crowded. If introducing Steven to the group, at a 1:23am gathering at Ryan’s house (since it’s the one time each night that Ryan finds himself awake and unable to get back to sleep, overcome with loneliness from the memory of his wife), then perhaps we can gradually start melding the workplace sitcom and the quirkier, more unique sitcom the show tends to be around the support group. There’s something good here, and it’d be a shame to waste all that potential by trying to serve too many masters.
Credit: NBC
