…So he’s gotta do the time.
By Eric Goldman
Note: Full spoilers for the episode follow.
I love how The Last Man on Earth can sneak up on you. Here we have an episode about Phil Tandy being locked up by everyone else – on account of the whole “holding them at gunpoint” thing – and it feels like we have the vibe of it figured out…
…and then you get that freaking cheese eating scene. Oh my god, that was epically disgusting. Perhaps one of the grossest eating scenes ever depicted on network television, and yeah, that includes Hannibal. Did you see all that cheese in Forte’s beard? Wow, did he go for it too, putting the cheese in his mouth, spitting it out (repeatedly) and getting it just everywhere. And then he put it back on the table and… Let’s just pray no one ate it, right? But wow, what an amazing scene.
Tandy being annoying to everyone else could be annoying to us, sure, but in the midst of his non-stop talking were very funny, very out there moments that perfectly captured a guy who just can’t help but be off-putting. How can you turn telling a woman of a certain age she looks young and beautiful? By somehow bringing it to her looking like an 8-year old girl and saying, in the creepiest way, “want some candy?”, as Tandy did with Gail.
The other amazing scene in this episode was when Tandy had everyone playing charades and they were oh-so off in their guesses. The utter randomness of the titles they were throwing out was hysterical – “Star Wars!” “Mission: Impossible!” “Ugly Betty!” “The black remake of Annie!” – but what really made the scene work was the utter commitment to everyone guessing X Factor over and over and over, no matter how many times Tandy shook his head no.
I feel like there was almost more comic mileage that could have been gotten from Tandy “doing the time” past this episode, given what we got here, but I get wanting to not stick to that too long. Though that fire sure felt random… Perhaps too random? Considering Tandy’s house burnt down too, should we worry one of the group is a pyromaniac? (No, I don’t think that’s Todd’s secret though)
Regardless of whether his imprisonment should have lasted longer, seeing Tandy constantly shocked by his collar while grabbing the water was very funny. Let’s face it, Tandy in pain is not only a good source of humor, but something he does pretty much deserve after all the crap he pulled with these guys.
