A winning cast, but unconvincing plots
The show: Friends From College, Season 1, Episode 7 The moment: The bro meeting
Lisa Turner (Cobie Smulders) is in-house counsel (handling mainly sexual harassment issues) for a testosterone-poisoned investment firm. Raucous male traders are gathered around a conference table. “I know we’re excited about our annual meeting in the Cayman Islands,” Lisa begins.
“I’m really excited,” Brett (Ike Barinholtz), the head trader, says. He mimes masturbating by thumping under the table.
“Mrs. Turner, Brett’s stroking it,” a trader says, grinning.
“Yes, I can see that,” Lisa replies, as if speaking to a toddler. “There have been incidents in the past, so I’m legally required to go over guidelines . . .”
All the men begin thumping under the table. One holdout, Paul, tries to stop them. “Everyone come on Paul!” Brett cries. The men pretend to ejaculate on Paul. Lisa walks away.
This series, about a sextet of Harvard chums reuniting in New York City 20 years later, is puzzling. The cast is appealing: Keegan-Michael Key plays Smulders’ husband; their pals include Annie Parisse (a standout as a record company publicist in Vinyl) and Fred Savage.
It has sharp scenes like the one above, a frank poke at a toxic corporate culture. Smulders also has an arc about fertility treatments (episode 4) that doesn’t flinch from the loneliness, boredom and anxiety.
But too many of the plots are unconvincing, including a 20-year affair that’s a) still smoking hot and b) no one has ever suspected. And too much of the action depends upon someone suddenly doing something out of character.
That’s not revelatory comic drama. That’s just a cheat. Friends From College streams on Netflix. Johanna Schneller is a media connoisseur who zeroes in on pop-culture moments. She usually appears Monday through Thursday.