As much as I love No Tomorrow‘s spirit and charm, I can’t deny how wildly inconsistent the series has been throughout its freshman run so far. There have been some episodes that I’ve absolutely loved, while others have left me scratching my head as to what exactly the writers were thinking. No Tomorrow‘s characters, specifically Xavier, have been written so differently from episode to episode that it makes wonder which version of them is going to show up every week, and that robs the series of what I loved most about it: the relationship between Evie and Xavier.
And really, the main problem here is Xavier, whose live-in-the-moment attitude is attractive and appealing to pretty much everyone, including the audience, but not when it complicates the lives of those he apparently cares most about. In this week’s episode, he joins the CyberMart team as a way to remain closer to Evie, and it’s a sweet gesture, one that pays off mightily for her and Deirdre when it’s revealed that his encouragement of his fellow workers (having them bring the fun part of their outside lives into work, whether that be roller blading, baking, or even playing board games) has resulted in increased productivity. However, as soon as Deirdre tries to (somewhat unreasonably) add to warehouse employees’ workload, Xavier is the first one to rally them to strike, even though he has to know, at least on some level, how this will make things even more stressful for Evie at work.
The strike continues in annoying and obnoxious fashion for most of the episode. Sure, No Tomorrow gives us another moment of Joshua Sasse getting to use his wonderful singing voice, as Xavier leads the workers in a terrible rendition of “She’ll Be Coming Round the Mountain” after Evie cuts the warehouse’s power so that they can’t play music, but it all just comes off as over-the-top nonsense, especially since Xavier only took his job at the CyberMart began as an excuse to spend more time with Evie. Instead, all he’s doing is creating more chaos at the workplace and thus putting more pressure on Evie, as she not only tries to balance two jobs at once but also find a solution that will end the strike.
Ultimately, Evie comes up with a plan after having a pretty hilarious dream involving Socrates the rat, who has her envision what it would be like if he and she switched places. She then implements that idea by having Deirdre and Peggy temporarily switch roles so that the two of them can fully understand the challenges that each of their jobs possesses, and it, fortunately, leads to Deirdre and the CyberMart workers agreeing on new rules and regulations that resolve the strike.
But even after Evie does all of that, what I remember most from “No Rest for the Weary” is that she calls Xavier out on being selfish, even going as far as to refer to him as “the most selfish human being,” and I have to agree with her. Although the two of them make up by episode’s end and go zorbing together in the closing scene, I can’t shake off Xavier’s selfish actions as easily as Evie can. For much of No Tomorrow‘s first season, I thought Xavier pushing people to their goals and dreams was inspiring and even at times pretty selfless. However, as his behavior in this week’s episode and in “No Holds Barred” proves, you never know exactly what kind of guy Xavier is going to be when you tune in to No Tomorrow, and just like this episode’s strike, that’s a problem that the show has to fix sooner rather than later.
Other thoughts:
- Unfortunately, Kareema’s relationship drama with Sofia is also thrown into this episode, as Rohan discovers that his green-card fiancée is sexting with someone else and breaks up with her. Rohan dumping Sofia forces her to have to leave the country and head to Venezuela, but Kareema is able to stop her by proposing to her, after Evie suggests that the two of them get married instead. With everything else going on in this episode, Kareem’s storyline feels pretty half-baked, from the fact that we don’t get any actual conflict between her and her brother to her declaration of love for Sofia coming far too quickly (the two of them have only had a handful of scenes together). There’s still potential with their romance, but I’m far less excited about it now than I was after it was first introduced in “No Debts Remain Unpaid.”
- All the drama from the strike also causes Deirdre to break up with Hank, as she tells him that he was a good friend to his fellow workers during the incident but not a good boyfriend to her. Seeing as Hank and Deirdre’s weird and wacky romances was one of No Tomorrow‘s greatest sources of comedy, I’m pretty bummed about this development. However, it does fit with Deirdre’s character that she would take Hank’s professional decision as a more personal attack against her, so it does make sense on some level, even if I’m not a fan of this development.
- Deirdre also gives Hank Evie’s old job of quality control manager after Evie tells her that she will no longer be doing both that and CyberHugs.
- Timothy covers the strike at CyberMart in an attempt to land a new, high-profile writing job. He gets the position after his video hits over 500,000 viewers. Good for Timothy, I guess? I really didn’t need this storyline to be in this episode.
- Xavier is able to sell the design for his “nap sacks” for seemingly lots of money, which allows him to (thankfully) quit his job at CyberMart.
- “You look paler than that girl from iZombie. And she’s a zombie.” Nice work there, No Tomorrow writers. As a huge iZombie fan, I loved that reference.
What did everyone else think about this week’s episode of No Tomorrow? Do you agree with me that the show has been inconsistent throughout its first season? Comment below and let me know.
[Photo credit: Liane Hentscher/The CW]
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