The Comedians
Season 1 Episode 9 “Damage Control”
Directed by David Mandel
Written by Laura Kittrell
Starring Billy Crystal, Josh Gad, Stephnie Weir, Max Oberg, Megan Ferguson, Denis O’Hare
FX
Air Date: Thursday, June 4th, 2015 10pm

We’ve all been there. At the mall, or the supermarket, we go to park our car and someone has parked over the line, and taken up two spots. Or perhaps, you park first and later find your car damaged by some moron next to you. Now imagine this idiot is your co-worker… worse, your co-star. For Billy Crystal, this is reality.

Time is ticking for The Billy and Josh Show. FX exec Denis (Denis O’Hare) is in the studio during the filming of their final episode. During the monologue, Billy surprises Josh (Josh Gad) with pictures of his poor parking. Josh is not thrilled and embarrassed. Denis doesn’t look happy. He calms Billy a bit by explaining, he doesn’t laugh… until Mitch (Max Oberg) trips and falls and he LOSES it! You can see the panic setting in. They don’t know their timeslot and are receiving very little advertising. Josh decides to break the tension with a wrap party, complete with tequila, a keg, and snacks. Esme (Megan Ferguson) shares her contribution to the party with Josh. When Billy finds Josh stumbling around sniffing costumes, he asks:

Crystal: “What did you eat at the party?”

Gad: “Pringles and drugs.”

Billy drives Josh home and shares a personal story about his dabblings with drugs. Then he gets pulled over. Turns out, it’s the broken tail light given him to him by Josh. The cop recognizes Billy and lets him off with a warning, and some terrible impressions. Wasted Josh misreads the situation and… well, let’s just say he turns it into a scene… a scene caught on the cruiser’s dashboard camera.

Denis sees this as an opportunity. Exploit the incident, and you get buzz and word of mouth going about the show. Soon the guys are doing the talk to show circuit trying to explain their actions. There’s great back and forth between Billy and Josh, and the sketches interwoven are very well done and strategic. One continuous one has Josh as a flailing sleeping passenger on a plane, constantly annoying the poor guy next to him, Billy. One of the themes of this series has been Josh’s refusal to understand boundaries and constantly egging Billy on. Despite that, there continues to be some worthy laughs, and I enjoy watching the two of them play off one another.

The Comedians Episode 9 “Damage Control” premieres Thursday night at 10:00 pm EST on FX.

Video

An embarrassing viral video of Billy and Josh leaks on the internet and the guys deal with the fallout.

Image Gallery