Like any good title, “New Coke” works on different levels. On a surface level, it refers to Gordon’s unfortunate ongoing addiction to cocaine, which finds him making increasingly bad decisions this week. On a more macro scale, the title reflects each character’s defining, underlying goal—to find the “next big thing.” If last week’s “SETI” found most of our characters in the midst of a transition, “New Coke” finds them struggling to adapt to their subsequent new lives—all to varying degrees of success.
The most obvious example of this notion can be found in the arc of John Bosworth. At the Mutiny house, the team is shocked to discover that Cameron has taken it upon herself to hire Bosworth as the newest member of their company. Her idea is that, once he’s had time to acclimate, Bosworth’s CEO experience will help manage workflow. Donna correctly points out that Bosworth knows zilch about computers and will more than likely just be in the way. Indeed, it doesn’t take long for Bosworth to realize he’s become the old coot in a roomful of young and irreverent frat boys.
Having been almost entirely absent during the course of the premiere, Toby Huss’ presence in this episode is a nice shake in the status quo. His opening scene alone, wherein he jokingly walks into the Mutiny house pretending to have been brutalized and needing the assistance of a can, marks one of the major comedic highlights of the episode. On the other end of the emotional spectrum, his wordless expressions upon realizing how out of place he is in this environment really makes you feel for the guy and how much he’s truly lost. The most heartbreaking moment of this entry, however, comes when one of the Mutiny guys intercepts a letter that an incarcerated Bosworth wrote to Cameron and begins reading it aloud to the others while mimicking Bosworth’s Texas drawl. It quickly becomes apparent that the letter is of a super personal nature, revealing Bosworth’s sense of regret about his family. The team members quickly try to shut this gag down but not before Bosworth enters the room, having heard the whole thing, and makes the embarrassed employee finish reading. It’s a painful, awkward situation and proves to be the breaking point for Bosworth who, after a heart-to-heart with Cameron, expresses his need to head out on his own for a bit.
Mutiny’s problems are further exasperated when Donna and Cameron attempt to secure financing from a VC only to have the male representative treat their gender as a stumbling block. After asking if they “have or want” children, the man clarifies that he “needs to know that [they’re] fully committed, even over biological imperatives.” The situation is an unfortunate reminder that, in spite of their unmistakable skills, the two do work in an industry that sees their sex first and their ideas second. That being said, the scene also finds some humor in the fact that neither character knows how to dress for the occasion, with Donna worrying that she’s overloaded on the business attire and Cameron believing she’s embarrassing herself by wearing jeans with holes.
Donna and Cameron’s lone reprieve, ironically, comes in the form of what initially seems to be yet another obstacle. Upon discovering a plagiarized version of Parallax, one of the company’s flagship games, the duo confront its author, a white-collar worker named Tom Rendon. Though furious about his actions, Cameron also can’t help but be impressed by the man’s skills, as he found a way to effortlessly improve Parallax’s graphics. Tom further proves his resourcefulness when he manages to hack into Mutiny’s code and designs a way to have multiple users get in through a single account, thus overloading the system and causing delays in the games (as Yo-Yo puts it, this is akin to someone buying one movie ticket and then sneaking his friends in). Taking a page out of Sun Tzu, Cameron decides that Tom’s knowledge could be valuable and brings him into the fold. Though frustrated once again to be left out of a hiring decision, Donna allows this with the caveat that she will take off if anymore decisions are made behind her back.