Flight Of The Conchords season 2 episode 4 review

4. Murray Takes It To The Next Level‏

“You’re the dick in this scenario, Jemaine. For calling Jim a dick. Yes! How does that feel? A taste of your own dick medicine!”

This line was by far the highlight of a very average episode. I suppose after the two ace episodes that followed a poor start, a duff one was due sooner or later.

In this episode Murray wants to take his friendship with the boys to the next level (hence the title) on his friendship graph. In their band meeting, Murray explains his graph and that he wants the boys to be more than work mates, which is their current standing on the friendship graph, and to be at the same level as his best friend Jim.

The boys seem confused, having not heard of Jim, but decide to entertain Murray’s idea anyway. The matter of gigs is also discussed, the boys express their concerns at the size of venues they’re playing to which Murray replies, “There’s no such thing as small venues, only small bands.” The boys mention a gig at a camper van, which Murray points out, was a sell out. We later see the boys perform Who Likes To Rock The Party? in the elevator of the consulate.

Later, whilst they’re out cycling, the boys are accosted by Mel who presents them with cookies from her ‘fannypack’ (not that one! It’s what the Americans call bum bags!). She proceeds to tell the boys that they were in her dreams and launches into a song called Dreams which was awful.

In an attempt to move to the next level, Murray visits the boys at their apartment. Organised as ever, he comes prepared with a list of things to do that includes having coffee, sharing their feelings and drinking. Finding out that the boys don’t drink or share feelings, he asks what they like to do – Jemaine states that he quite likes to have a sleep.

They end up making a fort and what follows is a montage of the three of them embarking on a number of friend activities such as having a sleep. Now comfortable that the boys have achieved friend status, Murray invites them to a BBQ at his house where they’ll get to meet Jim. Jim’s played by Jim Gaffigan who you may recognise from his role as Doug – Eric, Kelso and Hyde’s boss – in That 70’s Show. Jim’s conversation style is essentially a bombardment of questions.

Following the BBQ, Jim leaves a message on the boys’ answer phone to see if they want to hang out. Out of politeness and against Jemaine’s advice, Bret phones Jim and says that they’re unavailable. When questioned, Bret consults Jemaine for advice to which Jemaine responds with “Because he’s a dick.” Jim hears this and is understandably upset.

At a second gig in the consulate elevator, the boys provide a slowed down version of Who Likes To Rock The Party? Following the performance, Mel thanks Jemaine for something he did in her dream – we don’t find out what this is but Jemaine is disgusted – and states that Bret did something that upset her, which again disgusts Jemaine. Mel feels that she should have an apology for this and Jemaine agrees.

Later the boys join Murray at the martial arts club that he attends and are joined by Mel and Jim, who inflict injuries on the boys for their indiscretions. The injuries they sustained makes playing their lift gig difficult. To make things worse, Murray learns of their comments and uses the line at the top of the article. This, combined with the boys turning his office table into a ping-pong table, plummets them down the ranks on the friendship graph to the level of strangers.

Everything works out for the best though. They all make up and close the episode by singing Friends which details the types of things friends do together. It wasn’t very good.

Really quite a poor episode. Not as bad as episode 1, just not all that great. There were a few laughs here and there but other than the line at the top of the article, nothing overly memorable.

Check out our review of episode 3 here.