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HBO Max's Close Enough: A Love Letter to Millennials (VIDEO SCRIPT)
🕑 Added 2020-07-17 20:00:03 +0000 UTC
A new animated series aimed for adults created by the person who made my recently favorite animated series aimed for children and teenagers was just released on a newly released streaming service aimed for...everybody. (Pauses) I’m beginning to sense a pattern...
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Readers, I’m just gonna give you what you want right here and now. JG Quintel’s “Close Enough” on HBO Max is, in fact, worth watching.
And I say this as a fan of his, highly anticipating his next project once he made me cry like a baby in the final episode of Regular Show
Yes, I had my fears that it wasn’t going to live up to expectations. Or worse; it would end up being another Solar Opposites. (shudders)
/But along with his trademark combination of impactful and trippy humor that’s dipped in nostalgia, the subject matter of Close Enough is actually a lot more nuanced than that of Regular Show. And in retrospect, after watching season one for myself, that’s actually a good thing./
Josh and Emily being the protagonists of the show definitely help with that.
They bring a likability and a sense of realism to the show that matches the tone of a lot of modern day relationships aim to be like.
It shows that, no, being best friends with your partner isn’t just a romantic thing you say to them while reciting your vows before saying “I do.” These two are legit Mordecai and Rigby if they were traditional cisgendered humans in love with each other; heterosexual or otherwise.
And what they’re willing to go through is relatable as well.
/They want a better life for themselves and their child. They’re willing to make financial sacrifices for their child. They want her to have every opportunity to succeed, even though they know every person learns in a different and unique way and are willing to nurture both aspects. It’s because of these things that the stories centered around them produce very entertaining episodes with morals and advice to take away from them./
Now, I’ll admit; sometimes the morals that the episodes wanna deliver don’t really translate well. The Golden Gamer adventure that plays halfway through the season is a good example of this.
It’s moral was pretty much not to get so obsessed about your past and your “shoulda coulda woulda’s” to the point where you’re completely ignoring the things that matter and the people who care about you in the present.
/But with the way it was presented itself in my first watching of it, it was almost as if it was trying to say that despite them being your dreams, you need to let them go in order to focus on things that currently have worth to you -- and in Josh’s case, that would be giving up his dream to be a video game designer in order to be with his family by having him destroy his very first game to help symbolize that./
So, as someone who naturally disagrees with that logic because I know from first-hand experience that you can obtain a healthy balance of the two...
/You can understand why it was a bit confusing for me to see that Josh found said balance and was pitching a new game he created in the “Clap Like This” adventure one episode later/
I personally let it slide because those inconsistencies were in fact present in Regular Show, and after watching the latter-mentioned adventure I gained a better understanding of what he was trying to accomplish with Golden Gamer.
Also, considering how their stories played both before and after Golden Gamer, I was already sold on Josh and Emily’s presence in the show.
I can’t really say the same thing about Alex and Bridgette, though.
?Don’t get me wrong; I love how they were introduced to the show.?
But because they were introduced as a gag and without any context afterwards, they were just “Josh and Emily’s roommates they were cool with” to me for the longest time.
/It shouldn’t have taken the season finale to reveal and do something with the fact that Alex was Josh’s best friend since High School and that Bridgette was Emily’s best friend and comedy partner, is all I’m saying./
There’s also the fact that despite Alex and Bridgette’s drama, their solo adventures -- or at least, adventures featuring just the two of them and NOT Josh and Emily -- didn’t really hold my attention.
And while I’m hoping that’s something they fix in season 2 if HBO Max picks this back up, it didn’t stop me from watching and genuinely enjoying the majority of the season and the show as a whole. Especially after seeing the second story in the first episode.
Not only did the Open House angle pleasantly remind me of Tuca and Bertie, but Emily’s reasoning for wanting to attend Open Houses for homes that cost way much more than what she and her family can afford just resonated with me, as someone who regularly tortures himself by going to Trulia every night before bed.
/Add that sense of relatability with her need for escapism and how Quintel incorporates his hybrid of cerebralism and nostalgia in his comedy, and I started to pay the series a bit more attention than I did with the adventure the first episode started off with./
But what made me realize that I was gonna be on board with this show for the long haul was the pre opening scene of the first story in episode 2, Logan’s Run’d.
/Josh and Emily finally have a night to themselves after their daughter Candice leaves to go to a sleepover, and instead of just montaging themselves getting up to Mordecai & Rigby-esque shenanigans, they’re instead montaging running errands./
And as I was watching this play out, the biggest smile crept across my face. Especially when the two started doing their “taxes”
Oh yeah, no; that wasn’t a euphemism. They actually DID do their taxes
It was when I saw that montage and just that episode play out in general that I realized exactly what this show is and who its aimed toward. It's for Millennials; it’s for us.
It’s for everyone who has a skill that they’re good at but society can’t easily market it so you have to take a job you hate.
It’s for everyone who’s either wanted to start a family or already started a family, but has to take precautions in whether or not they feel they can afford to either expand it or actually start one.
It’s for everyone that has to find a healthy balance of achieving your dreams and appreciating the important things that are right there in front of you in a world that has been so ravaged by the generations before you, that finding said balance is as rare as finding a holographic Charizard in the original first edition set of booster packs for the Pokemon Trading Card Game.
And give or take the quality of a few of the stories halfway through the season, Close Enough highlighted all of those highs and lows Millennials have to face in America to the proverbial T
Despite the familiarity in a lot of its gags and delivery, Close Enough isn’t “Regular Show.” Regular Show is the Beavis & Butthead to Close Enough’s “King of the Hill,” and that’s okay. Because that’s what Close Enough is.
It’s King of the Hill for Millennials steeped with JG Quintel’s trademark humor that isn’t constricted to the age requirements of Cartoon Network.
Despite Cartoon Network proudly putting their logo at the end of every segment and episode, despite there being blood and cursing present.
And it's in seeing a more mature tone to the trademark quirky, nostalgic and sometimes cerebral humor we come to know from Quintel thanks to Regular Show, that it amplifies the relatability of Josh and Emily and their struggles of being 30-somethings trying to manage a family and personal goals -- both separately and together -- in a way that helps us see that in said regard, we’re not alone.
/The show may not be PERFECT, but just like us -- both as individuals and a unit -- it’s Close Enough./
And this would be the part of the video where I would offer you a discount code to HBO Max to watch Close Enough for yourself...if they sponsored me.
...Yep.
But, I digress, Readers. Your homework assignment for the day:
If you’ve seen season 1 of Close Enough, let me know in the comment section below what you thought about it.
Or, if you feel like sharing with the rest of the class, another show you feel also represents the current struggles that Gen X’ers or lower have to deal with trying to get by.
Whichever question you decide to answer, I’d love to know your thoughts.
