Change We Can't Believe In

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Phil and Lem are made to work on a project alone with Veronica while Ted is busy dealing with an overly attached security guard determined to become his new best friend.

Previous: Beating a Dead Workforce

Ted (Jay Harrington) has always had trouble with the idea that he's not universally beloved, and here his need to be liked forces him to continue a relationship with someone he can't stand, simply to avoid hurting his feelings. Though Linda (Andrea Anders) offers advice on how to deal with Ted's situation, she, too, is distressed to learn that the man she hates talking to hates talking to her too.

Ted starts taking the long way around the office in an effort to avoid talking to the security guard Ryan (Chip Chinery), noting that there's no "nice way to say 'you're killing me, you energy-sucking time-goblin.'" Needing to get upstairs to speak with Veronica (Portia de Rossi), Ted, Phil (Jonathan Slavin) and Lem (Malcolm Barrett) try to get past Ryan without engaging, only to have him state that his mother's back in the hospital, forcing Ted into conversation with him, and eventually sucking both Phil and Lem into the fray as well. Linda gives Ted advice on how to deal with the situation by demonstrating on Mr. Krebs (Jeff Doucette), a boring old man who speaks to her every time he passes her cubicle. It's only later that Linda learns that it's she who speaks to Krebs and not the other way around, discovering that he has started avoiding her in an effort to curb her small talk. The situation here is very relateable for everyone involved, which is what makes it so funny, and the fact that all of these characters are too polite to admit that they don't want to talk to one another just makes it all the better.

Phil and Lem are made to work on a project with Veronica instead of Ted, a scenario that Ted doesn't tell them about until the last minute because he knows they'll fly into a panic. It's the unadulterated panic in both Phil and Lem's eyes that really sells this story, and the fact that their project, a new PA system, results in the same reaction from everyone else in the office is just gold.

Just as Ted finally confronts Ryan, stating that "[he] need[s Ryan] to dial down how much [he] talks to [Ted]," Ryan's wife Sarah (Lydia Blanco) comes in thanking Ted for being such a good friend and taking the time to talk to Ryan about his mother's health issues and all the other problems they're dealing with at home. The set up here feels incredibly forced, not to mention cliché, and it just seems like an effort to pander to the audience and make Ryan a more sympathetic being. The situation only gets more ridiculous as Ted goes to Ryan's home to apologize, only to have Sarah go into labor and eventually give birth in the back seat of Ted's car.

The episode ends with Ted and Veronica sitting on the floor singing "I Got You, Babe" over the intercom to the empty building. The scene is very strange, both in practice and on paper, and there's really no explanation for why it's there beyond filling space.

As usual, the regular actors here are all very adept at their roles, and the chemistry between them all is fantastic. Doucette's interaction with Anders, as Krebs and Linda, respectively, is great, but the performances by Chinery and Blanco, as Ted and his wife Sarah, really bring a lot to the table here in regards to Ted's reactions.

Director Lee Shallat-Chemel includes a commercial for Veridian Dynamics here, which is notable because the majority of season two episodes appear to have been missing these, and it's really nice to have that small touch back. There's nothing else that really stands out about the direction here, not to say that there was nothing to like about it, but it's just par for the course for this series in terms of quality.

Elijah Aron and Jordan Young team up to write this episode, and they keep a keen focus on the difficulties that these characters have in interacting with one another in human ways. Not only does Ted find it difficult to function when Ryan involves himself in Ted's life, but Veronica feels the same way about both Phil and Lem, not understanding how to get through to them without growing insanely irritated. It gets to the point where Veronica declares that only one of them can speak during presentations, and the bond between Phil and Lem proves so strong that they're able to communicate with each other through non-verbal means as well as creating a system of whistling on the spot in order to continue helping one another.

Veronica and Ted both learn a lesson in how to deal with people while taking their feelings into consideration, while Linda learns the opposite lesson, though whether these lessons carry over to later stories remains to be seen. Phil and Lem also learn how to work with Veronica, despite the fact that their issues here seem worse than they were before, though this, too, is likely to remain solely to this story.

Next: The Impertence of Communicationizing