With Selfie nearing its abrupt end, it’s no surprise how disjointed parts of “Perestroika” feel. Individually, each plot actually works quite well, isolating Henry and Eliza to deal with the emotional fallout of “Imperfect Harmony”–together. However, the two stories intertwine at weird moments and as a result, gives the episode an inconsistent tone. And the show clearly knows the end is near; in the last two minutes, Selfie takes off racing again, pushing Eliza back into a relationship with Freddy to conveniently set up a dramatic final two episodes.
The real conflict of “Perestroika” (named after the Russian Communist Party’s ‘restructuring’ policy under Gorbachev in the 1980s) isn’t really with Eliza, whose problem is she just doesn’t open her mail, leading her to secretly live in Henry’s office. No, the real emotional fight of this episode comes with Henry, who seems torn between his feelings for Julia and Eliza, and a script that doesn’t want to let him act with any conviction either way. Although John Cho’s always-terrific performance is able to give some levity to Henry’s struggle to engage with his own feelings, a lot of “Perestroika” feels concocted to shield his true feelings: after clearly wanting to help Eliza out, he backs away from her after inviting her to his home, choosing to stay in a hotel and lie to Eliza about breaking up with Julie.
This decision places Henry in a holding pattern for the entire episode: until Eliza figures out that Henry is hiding from her, the episode’s really just a lot of Eliza hijinks and hilarious dialogue (the reasons for her rent increase re: her plumbing ‘issues’ is fantastic), which is welcome, but not the most rewarding material. And once “Perestroika” gets to the moment it was waiting for, it backs away; Henry gives into his reluctance to commit to something unstructured, and Eliza gives into Freddy’s simple kindness, and decides to go full-in relationship with him. Again.
A disappointing turn? Yes, but only because it doesn’t go far enough to set up the obvious: Freddy’s non-character proves problematic again when he shows up in Eliza’s bed, says nice stuff to her (even though she just dumped him), and all of a sudden, she’s abandoned her promised pursuit of Henry (“at any cost”, if I remember correctly?)? I see where this is going: either she’s sneakily trying to force him to express his emotions, or he’s just going to express his emotions in next week’s penultimate episode: since Freddy’s never been established as anything meaningful on the show (save for the one dinner scene with his family a couple weeks ago), it’s hard to believe Selfie is really committing to this with two episodes left.
In delaying the inevitable in interesting ways (or at least disguising it), “Perestroika” isn’t as consistently entertaining or rewarding as the last two episodes, despite its continuous string of great one-liners (“You keep calling him Mr. Old Man – it’s Mr. Oldmen”, as well as Henry Potter, the business magician). Perhaps a simple shift of focus from Eliza to Henry was all this episode needed: it would’ve allowed the episode to avoid an unnecessary Freddy/Eliza reunion, maybe with a Julia relapse or a crisis of faith for Henry at work forcing him to start taking risks in his personal life. However, it was not to be – and as mixed as the results may be, “Perestroika” maintains just enough momentum (thanks to great cast chemistry, despite the absence of Saperstein this week) to keep things interesting heading into the final pair of episodes, even as it appears to be heading towards a predictable resolution.
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Great, balanced write-up, as usual. The end to this one could not have been more frustrating, but at least the whole episode had consistent laughs along the way. The Eliza/Julia stare-down was amazing, and Karen Gillan had one of her cutest moments in the show with her strangely adorable delivery of “at participating stores”. It’s easy to forget that she’s not an American.
Here’s hoping that the next two episodes blow our doors off.
-Arvis