It’s hard to find comparison points for a show as unique as Review, but if you were pressed to find one, the best would probably be Seinfeld. That’s not just because this season Forrest has had a new girlfriend in every episode. Forrest, like the main characters from Seinfeld, has a myopic worldview and a completely self-serving ethos, which causes everything to crumble around him. He combines the flighty, bizarre sense of the world of Kramer with the complete lack of morality of George. There is no hugging on Review, and, despite Forrest’s best efforts, there is no learning. What there is, particularly in this week’s episode, is a lot of hilarity.
The first experience, being falsely accused, is the weakest. Frankly, the best joke comes from the question itself, wherein the man presenting it says he knows he will be blamed for eating his mom’s birthday cake on account of the fact he is constantly eating people’s birthday cakes. Forrest wants to get himself accused by Josh and his girlfriend of being an avocado thief. They decide to frame him for arson.
Forrest gets dangerously close to being taken to trial, until Josh’s girlfriend’s friend confesses to being the one who burnt down the sorority. What makes this not work is the strange malevolence of Josh. We don’t know his girlfriend enough for it to ring false for her, but it rings false for him. Also, as odd as it sounds, it feels strange to have people be so malicious to Forrest apropos of nothing. Forrest is almost always awful, but it’s through apathy and obsessiveness. It’s decent enough, segment wise, but it’s merely an appetizer for the next two great reviews.
The next question comes from a boy wondering what it is like to sleep with your teacher, because he has a crush on his teacher Mrs. Greenfield. Forrest mistakes it for a prompt to review sleeping with Mrs. Greenfield, so off he goes to Iowa to seduce a married woman. That’s a funny opening salvo, and then we find out Lennon Parham is playing Mrs. Greenfield. Forrest does succeed, somehow, to win her over for a royal sexing, and then she actually moves with him back to Los Angeles. Not before the two run into the kid who asked the question for the show, giving us the first time Forrest has been recognized for his work within the universe of Review. It’s a cool thing to see, and humorous in its execution.
Forrest gives sleeping with Mrs. Greenfield five stars, but the final segment is just as deserving of a five star review. Forrest is asked what it is liked to be a little person by one William Nilly (earlier in the episode A.J. presumed “willy nilly” was referring to a person). First, he just orders giant stuff and has Josh walk on stilts. It’s hilarious to watch Forrest using a giant toothbrush and a giant phone. It’s such a delightful swerve, before we get to the obvious way of handling things. Unsatisfied, he takes a lesson from Dorf and puts shoes on his knees.
Watching Andy Daly as Forrest scoot around on his knees like he is actually a little person is fantastic. He feels indignation anytime somebody tries to help him, so much so that he kicks his father and girlfriend out of the house so he can cook. Then he starts a fire. Then he can’t reach the fire extinguisher from his knees. All along, you can see Forrest’s actual legs behind him. You can see them as he freaks out about being unable to grab the fire extinguisher. At any moment, he could stand up and get it, but he refuses. It’s the most brilliantly, wonderfully obstinate moment of Forrest committing to his review. He runs outside on his knees. When his father and girlfriend get back home, he still refuses to stand up. The house burns down. It’s a dark ending. It’s not what makes it great. It’s Forrest’s devotion to walking around on his knees like that makes him a little person. Also, the fact that after all this, he gives it three-and-a-half stars.
This is the best episode of this new season so far. It’s the funniest and the best example of pushing Forrest to the limits for the sake of humor. The wonders of this show, when it is at its best, is actually perhaps best exemplified by a line from that first, less successful storyline. Forrest is lying in his bed when his father tells him the police are they. His response? “At last,” at which point he blithely gets out of bed. There have been a lot of awful people on television, but few have been as amusingly benign about it as Forrest McNeil.
Four stars.
Chris Morgan is not the author of THE book on Mystery Science Theater 3000, but he is the author of A book on Mystery Science Theater 3000. He’s also on Twitter.