Matt LeBlanc Shows His Maturity on Episodes, Showtime’s Hollywood-Set Friends
If you thought the first season of Showtime’s Episodes, the showbiz series about a team of British writers adapting their acclaimed comedy for the American audience, poked a lot of fun at star Matt LeBlanc’s former job, just wait until you see what’s to come in season 2! Episodes comes from Jeffrey Klarik and Friends cocreator David Crane, so it is not just the face of LeBlanc that feels familiar. Season 2 of Episodes dives into a number of themes and references that will give you déjà vu. By Danielle Turchiano
“Our goal this season was to go deeper into the characters and certainly explore just how damaged they all are, but hopefully it’s as funny as, or funnier than, last season,” Crane told Snakkle when we caught up with him at the second-season premiere party in Los Angeles.
In keeping in the same vein as Friends, Episodes deals with ramifications from relationships as they overlap between different levels of personal.
ARGUING, BRIBERY, HUGS: HOW BUDDIES GET OVER A SEXUAL FAUX PAS—As you saw at the end of the first season, “Matt” (LeBlanc) slept with Beverly (Tamsin Greig), even though she was still married to his new buddy Sean (Stephen Mangan). When Chandler on Friends kissed Joey’s girlfriend at the time, Chandler attempted to buy back some of Joey’s love through a new living room full of fancy furniture. The world of Episodes deals in higher stakes, though, so Matt’s apology, though still bordering on bribery, is much bigger.
“When we were shooting the beginning of the second season, I was like, ‘Man, I miss acting with them!’ And it’s acknowledged in the writing in a way. My character’s not very pleased with the situation and does what he thinks is best to rectify it,” LeBlanc teased the first few episodes of the new season.
LEBLANC HAS A STALKER—She may not think “Matt” is actually Joey Tribbiani, but she does love him as such, having first met him when she was only 8 years old and he was still starring on Friends. These days, she uses her Facebook “friends” to follow him around, showing up in “How You Doin’” T-shirts, despite his restraining order.
FAT MATT?—Friends had a lot of fun showing LeBlanc as Joey constantly eating. A thousand jokes about how much he could—and often did—pack away were made visually and verbally. Episodes treats the same topic with a bit more care. In the second season, Matt’s insecurities have him stuffing his wardrobe pockets full of snacks on set and digging into a whole cheesecake alone in his kitchen. We can’t deny it, though: A tiny part of us was expecting the scene in the kitchen to end with him accidentally dropping the cake on the floor… and then still eating it anyway. But thankfully Crane and Klarik resisted such overt callbacks.
WILL THEY OR WON’T THEY… GET BACK TOGETHER?—Both Crane and Klarik called Sean and Beverly “the heart of the show,” noting that by the end of the second season, “things are certainly looking good” for them to reunite as a couple. Even LeBlanc had to agree that he was rooting for Sean and Beverly the way he rooted for Ross and Rachel—even when he was in the middle of that relationship too.
“I think that’s kind of the center of the show, the relationship between the three of us. The characters around us are more elaborate this year, but the problem that existed at the end of the first season between Beverly and Sean and Matt needs to be resolved fairly quickly because therein lies the fun of the show,” LeBlanc said.
THE ON-SCREEN FRIENDS REUNION YOU’VE BEEN WAITING FOR!—We won’t spoil which former Friends costar LeBlanc shares screen time with again, but he himself admitted: “I had not seen this person in a long, long time, and it was great to get in there and see a friend again.” No pun intended, we’re sure.
Episodes returns to Showtime on Sundays at 10:30 p.m., starting July 1, 2012.
July 31, 2012 at 3:15 pm, Aliah said:
Everything changed for me with esdiope 5. I loved it. Caveat: I loved it compared to the previous esdiopes, not BSG loved it. I really like the Tamara story line. Maybe because we haven t really met her before she could not be inconsistent. I didn t think she developed too quickly there was no need to dwell on her transformation, it was inevitable. Tami is pure data and she couldn t stay weepy once she understood that. Unlike Zoe who was created by the original Zoe and perfected to be a true copy, Tamara is really an entirely new being. Sure she was supposed to be a copy of Tamara but she clearly can t be. She is more of an accidental creation and therefore more interesting.The board room scene: I loved some of it but some parts were lacking. For one, we didn t see any of Zoe in the robot s behavior. In fact we never do, they keep cutting to Zoe to show us that but it would be way more effective if the robot acted like we were seeing Zoe act. The same goes for the dancing scene it would have been great to see the robot dance instead of Zoe.