Joe Pera Talks With You - Episodes 3.3 & 3.4 “Joe Pera Shows You His Second Fridge” and "Joe Pera Listens To Your Drunk Story"
Written by Dan Licata, Katie Dolan and Jo Firestone
Directed by Marty Schousboe

by Alex Rudolph, Staff Writer

Joe Pera doesn't show us much of his second fridge. On noting that many people with extra fridges primarily use them to store alcohol, Joe opens the fridge and discovers his beer has been stolen by some unruly teens. A second title card flashes on the screen, and we're jerked into a new topic. We need to talk about the youth of America.

In my last review, I mentioned, as everybody who talks about Joe Pera Talks With You does, about the show's deliberate pace. When the new title card smashes in, I cracked up. In a show like this, a sudden moment will always get to me. Joe and his team do a great job conceiving of seasons as a whole, and that means you don't get one sudden moment per episode, but a couple per season.

What's interesting, by the time we hit the third episode of this season, is how many shifts we've had. In episode two, Sarah comes to Joe in a panic about society's impending collapse and he immediately drops the theme at hand to help her deal with her anxiety. In episode four, we return to season three's overarching theme-- chairs and sitting-- and then listen to Sarah describe a night out.

This has happened before, most notably in the season two episode that sees Joe's Rat Race-themed scavenger hunt interrupted with the news of his grandmother's death, but it's happened sparingly. And so as much as sitting and remaining sedentary is a stated theme this year, we're seeing characters adapt on the fly. For a show so intent on stillness, Joe Pera Talks With You is pretty notably keeping everybody moving.

I think that's beautiful. More than Joe adapting to Sarah's life, I related to Sarah's episode four nervousness over attending an acquaintance's friend's Wine Wednesday party. She doesn't know anybody and calls Joe from her car before going inside. Joe reminds her that she wanted to try new things.

I've been Sarah for a long time. In college, I threw up on a friend's lawn after pulling an all-nighter and then drinking too much Southern Comfort on an empty stomach and about 36 hours of no sleep. That was the last time I got obscenely drunk. I am more often Joe Pera than I am Sarah, coping with stress by trying to evacuate my own brain. I still get it, though-- that need to connect while simultaneously not having the confidence to do so. I know Joe relates to that in real life, too-- he just released a whole book about collecting your thoughts in the bathroom during a stressful event. My copy is waiting for me at one of Philadelphia's fine independent bookstores. I also saw Joe workshop the book live a few years ago. And this whole concept is a big reason Joe Pera's work connects with so many of us. He's both worried about the world and an effective guide through that worry.

It's also important to note that the name "Brandon Orlando" is absolutely perfect.