We’re officially at the halfway point of the (hopefully first) season of Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed, and there’s a lot going on, my friends. This episode is both incredibly gruesome and incredibly funny, and the show maintains an excellent balance between the two extremes.
Instead of trying to distance herself from this whole mess, Paula gets herself in even deeper and drags her colleagues in with her. In cryptic spurts, we learn more about Dennis and the shady overlords who puppeteer his violent ways, and even Mallory and Karl are getting in on the action by breaking the law and lying to one another. Oh, and the show seems to be priming us for a heel turn by Geri, who appears to be mining Paula’s horrific situation for magazine material. No one is innocent, except maybe for Rudy, but then again, he’s studying to be a lawyer, so it’s only a matter of time.
Let’s start with Dennis because we learned a lot … but somehow also nothing about him. As he’s about to descend on Paula’s apartment, he gets a call from a bro-coded dude named Bryce, insisting that Dennis drop everything immediately and go do a “favor” for a woman named Cecila. It’s not really a favor; it’s a demand. Bryce knows about Trevor, and he wants to make sure that Dennis is “operating in blue skies” before he takes on this next task. Dennis is absolutely not operating in blue skies — although there will be a blue Sky by the end of the episode, sorry not sorry — but he follows through like the attack dog that he seems to be for this random dude on the phone.
Later, we’re treated to an electrifying scene of Dennis blackmailing a woman named Joyce Tercek in an elevator. Joyce is an admissions counselor at Yale, and she’s also been lining her pockets with money from the university. How on earth an admissions counselor gets access to all that financial information is beyond me, but hey, let’s roll with it! Joyce is to admit a kid named Blake Vanderville (quite possibly the douchiest name ever) to the upcoming freshman class, or her financial secrets will be spilled. Dennis never once threatens this woman with violence, but his steady charisma and intimidating presence suggest that he’s capable of much more than just ruining this woman’s life with some paperwork. Again, Murray Bartlett is so very good here as the villain, and I just want him cast in some sort of Marvel situation ASAP because I know he’d kill it. (Pun totally intended.)
Speaking of paperwork, there’s an awful lot of it in this episode. Sneaky snake Mallory ends up conning her way into the assignment room at City Hall by purchasing the third-most-expensive Magic: The Gathering card her local comic book shop has, so she can gift it to the sweet guard. The guard is grateful, so he turns his back for five minutes so she can go swap out Karl and Paula’s custody file to the judge most favorable to dads. When she goes to dinner with Karl later, she feigns surprise about the assignment. Karl lies too, omitting that he went to talk to the cops about Paula earlier in the day.
Now, I love me some Jake Johnson, and the scene with him talking to the cops is pure hilarity. I’m unsure of why Gonzales and Baxter show him horrific images of Trevor’s dead body, but I’m so glad they did. Karl admits to doing cocaine when he was younger, talks about Paula’s tiny hands (my thoughts exactly, Karl!), and starts to have a panic attack. Karl’s character is generally uneven, but his instinct to protect Paula from both Mallory and the police in this episode is quite endearing, as is his normie reaction to being questioned by cops.
For Paula’s part, she’s trying to navigate solving the murder while holding down her job and dealing with her custody battle. Women truly can have it all. Her lawyer calls while she’s in the middle of both vetting Sky’s cam boy site and making her daughter breakfast, and he asks for a standard $10,000 retainer. He also informs her that letters of support from her community would be helpful, but Paula doesn’t really have a community to speak of. After school drop off, she awkwardly asks some fellow soccer moms for letters, and this might be the most horrifying scene in the entire episode, just for how terribly shifty and uncomfortable everyone is.
It’s kind of odd that Paula doesn’t ask for letters from anyone at work, especially given that both Geri and Rudy know her whole deal, are friendly with her on a daily basis, and are actual writers. Instead, Paula has her work pals helping her solve the case of the dead cam boy. When she logs on with Sky, a pal of Trevor’s from work, she immediately tells him that she’s just looking for intel on Trevor’s murder, no sexy stuff. Even though both Rudy and Geri protest, Paula tells him that she’s in the city and she’s willing to meet up to exchange information.
Of course, Rudy and Geri get roped into tagging along on Paula’s expedition, but they have to wait in the car while she goes to do her dirty work. Rudy hands Paula a can of dry shampoo to arm herself with before she heads in, which turns out to be a very smart move. That Brown degree, coming in clutch! While Paula is inside the motel and horrors begin unfolding, Geri and Rudy chat about their respective futures. Their fathers are both disappointed in them for the career paths they’ve chosen. Rudy is choosing to take the LSATs, while Geri is sticking with her dream of becoming a journalist. We see what she’s willing to do to achieve that dream later in the episode when she begins work on a salacious story about Paula’s current situation, which feels somewhat like a reaction to Rudy’s very rude comment about journalism dying. He’s not exactly wrong, but he also didn’t work to support his friend in her time of need the way that she did with him, and that is not cool.
Inside the motel, Paula chats with Sky. Sky doesn’t know much — he loved Trevor, and he even put all his money into the motel venture with him — but when Paula starts offering up her side of the story, Sky comes to the realization that Dennis was the killer. Both Sky and his girlfriend, Ashley, knew Dennis, and they were both doubtful of his intentions with Trevor. As Sky and Paula are processing this information, Ashley busts in from the other room, gun trained on Paula. Ashley and Sky are not the brightest crayons in the box, and they appear to be acting more on instinct than any rational train of thought. Sky, for his part, seems very sweet as he tells Ashley not to call Dennis, but Ashley is in pure panic mode. She calls THE GUY WHO KILLED THEIR FRIEND and extorts him for money in exchange for Paula’s location. Oh no, Ashley, that is not smart at all.
Ashley’s impulsive moves cause Paula to panic, too. As the couple tries to tie her to a chair, she grabs blindly for a nail gun, which sends nails flying erratically around the room. In the confusion, Paula is able to subdue Sky by nailing his hand to the ground and then sprays Ashley in the face with the dry shampoo before fleeing the scene. Dennis arrives in record time, knocking on the motel door while Ashley is driving her car around to the front. What follows is a deliciously demented cat-and-mouse game between Sky and Dennis. When Dennis gets to the door, Sky begs him to leave, eventually shooting at the door because he believes Dennis is at the door because he can see his shoes in shadow in the crack at the bottom. Big mistake. Huge. Clever Dennis is not at the door. Instead, he attacks Sky from behind, tossing him to the floor and shoving a can of expanding spray foam into his mouth. This murder is one of the grislier murders I’ve seen on TV in a while, especially because we know that Dennis could have easily dispatched this dude with a gun. Dennis seems to take pleasure in his kills, and his murder of Sky makes him a cam boy serial killer to watch.
Meanwhile, Gonzales and Baxter’s boring paperwork finally pans out as they get a lead on Jeffrey Thorwald’s motel ownership, and they go check it out. What will they find? A blue Sky, and a whole mess of evidence that will likely point back to Paula Sanders.
• Geri has shown some great resourcefulness in the past two episodes. First, she clocks Sky’s cringe ring, leading to Paula’s first good break in the case, and this week she drops her AirPod into Ash and Sky’s car while they wait for Paula to come out of the motel. If a career in journalism doesn’t work out, I could totally see her teaming up with Gonzales to solve crimes.
• Total Scream vibes as Ashley is forced to listen to Dennis kill Sky over the phone while she’s helpless to intervene.
• I adored the scene where Paula asks for a bite of Hazel’s waffle in exchange for letting her drive, and then she chomps into it like a monster, shouting “gas on the right, brake on the left!” as they leave the house. Paula is definitely a fun mom, and it would be a tragedy if Hazel didn’t get to grow up with her at her side.
• I’m not feeling like this show is getting the attention it deserves, and I already desperately want it to be renewed for a second season. It wasn’t billed as a limited series when it debuted, so more seasons are possible! So, I’m giving you all an assignment: Please tell two friends about this show! If boring paperwork can make or break a case, then old-school word of mouth can certainly bring this show the viewership it very much deserves.
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