S04.E21: Sandra's Fight/S04.E22: Employee Appreciation Day

[Lois Sandborne]

On 5/17/2019 at 12:41 PM, Suzysite said:

These double episodes have hit a season low in the ratings.  The season has been pretty awful as a whole, but this poor Mateo and fight-the-man union stuff is going the be the final nail in the show's coffin for me.

Bye!

I found the second episode the best of the season. I sometimes forget that America has dramatic roots, but all the heightened panic of trying to hide Mateo, and then trying to sneak him out, let her and Nico and Lauren, and everyone actually, really flex some acting muscle. Even Cheyenne tugged at my heartstrings when she followed Mateo out so forlornly asking if he still wanted his ice cream. And the two of them have been getting on my nerves all friggin season, but they sold the hell out of that scene with Mateo realizing he wouldn't be able to just come back to work like normal even if he did escape.

And still it managed to be funny. The service goat met the raccoon. I loved the exchange of everyone slightly insulted that Mateo had confided in other people. Kelly entertaining one hideous ICE agent with basic bitch tales, and Bo bewildering another. It was a fantastic episode to be able to marry tones and themes so well, and I'm going to spend the summer saying novenas for the world at large to discover this brilliant show (and The Good Place, and B99).

Also, Ugly Betty shout-out; I loved seeing Hilda (Ana Ortiz) in the union episode. Hilda, you can't shut your sister's store down! What would Papi say?

[Kip Hackman]

On 5/17/2019 at 1:41 PM, Suzysite said:

These double episodes have hit a season low in the ratings.  The season has been pretty awful as a whole, but this poor Mateo and fight-the-man union stuff is going the be the final nail in the show's coffin for me.

They hit a season low because NBC stupidly decided to go up against the "Big Bang Theory" series finale (which had its highest rating in the past 3 years), 

See ya. 

[biakbiak]

24 minutes ago, Kip Hackman said:

They hit a season low because NBC stupidly decided to go up against the "Big Bang Theory" series finale (which had its highest rating in the past 3 years), 

See ya. 

It i what it is and since they had already renewed it and very few people tune in until the two episodes. NBC decoded that the ratings didn’t matter and don’t really for Superstore which usually does better woh viewers who dvr/steam it than watch at the scheduled time.

[Kip Hackman]

39 minutes ago, biakbiak said:

NBC decoded that the ratings didn’t matter and don’t really for Superstore which usually does better woh viewers who dvr/steam it than watch at the scheduled time.

 True, but Superstore is NBC's highest rated comedy, regardless,  The tallest midget in the room, so to speak.

I was referring to the fact that this week's episodes were significantly down from the previous weeks.  

[biakbiak]

9 hours ago, Kip Hackman said:

 True, but Superstore is NBC's highest rated comedy, regardless,  The tallest midget in the room, so to speak.

I was referring to the fact that this week's episodes were significantly down from the previous weeks.  

And I was referring to the fact that I find it refreshing that NBC cares enough about the show to not give a shit about the ratings and realize it doesn’t matter and people will find the episode and not hold it against the show. 

Johnny Galecki (clearly joking) also didn’t care! 

[springbarb]

The best part of Kelly distracting that ICE agent was that at the beginning, he was clearly still on the job--his eyes were scanning around, trying to find Mateo. But by the end, he was just staring at her with dead eyes. It worked perfectly for her!

[ItCouldBeWorse]

On 5/18/2019 at 12:57 PM, RoadFullOfPromise said:

I think they were trying to sneak Mateo out with a large group of customers so that his ID couldn’t be checked, right?

But he couldn't have gone back home, as they would have been looking for him there.

On 5/18/2019 at 12:13 PM, fishcakes said:

Best comedic moment: Store Raccoon and Service Goat finally meet.

Yes!

[Kip Hackman]

I don't feel like we're talking enough about the fact that MC Cool Cloud impregnated a human.

[AnimeMania]

2 hours ago, Kip Hackman said:

I don't feel like we're talking enough about the fact that MC Cool Cloud impregnated a human.

Rain clouds are legendary for getting women wet!

[ApathyMonger]

Article from Vox, partly based on a set visit for Sandra's Fight:

https://www.vox.com/culture/2019/5/21/18627101/superstore-review-recap-watch-nbc-hulu

[BravoAddict72]

The funniest part of the episode for me was when Glen was yelling "I thought it was Winter is Coming!" because I am a huge Game Of Thrones fan. 

I have mixed feelings on the episode. I loved the acting, but don't want to get into the politics of it,

[iMonrey]

Quote

I think I have sympathy for Mateo's situation because he didn't knowingly, at least until a few years ago, know that he was doing anything illegal. It wasn't his fault for coming the the US illegally as a child,

Was that ever established? I don't remember Mateo ever explaining the circumstances, I only remember him saying he was undocumented without going into specifics.

[ApathyMonger]

26 minutes ago, iMonrey said:

Was that ever established? I don't remember Mateo ever explaining the circumstances, I only remember him saying he was undocumented without going into specifics.

Yeah, it came up in the 2016 Olympics ep, when they first introduced the storyline. He called up his grandmother and she admitted his documentation was fake, which he didn't know before that.

[North of Eden]

Not sure why they worked so hard to save him.Mateo has been rude and dismissive to every last one of them and even spent a whole episode trying to make Any cry.guess I've got a hard heart..no sympathy from me.

[aradia22]

Ha, I forgot this Sandra. I like them giving the actress more to do.

I actually felt tension this episode. The walk and talk with Amy, Dina, and Jonah had energy but there were also real stakes. 

Ah! Ana Ortiz! This feels like a waste of a cameo, but I'll take it.

Jonah's speech with hard truths about how retail is dying and the staff doesn't really have better options was... wow. Yes, this is the show I came for.

OK, I did enjoy Laurie's cocaine problem coming back in that way. That was a good instance of setting up something early to have it pay off later.

Watching this episode made me realize that part of what's been missing this season is any heavy acting. It's always been a sitcom but it has had its dramatic and sentimental moments too. This season those have mostly been absent. They haven't really written scenes for the actors to show what they're capable of giving.

Why didn't Matteo immediately hide in that tunnel space where Marcus is living?

I get that the ICE agent was supposed to be an ass but actually white people can be here illegally as much as any POC. 

OK, Matteo's obsession with employee of the month meaning his photo is on the wall so ICE knows what he looks like was a great call back. I'm still not over how bad this season has been but I do respect some of the ways they planted seeds early on.

Bo is still an idiot but damn if I didn't laugh at him messing with the guard at the door.

Kelly was hilarious with her guard too. Damn, they wasted her. 

Jerry proposing to Sandra was such a lovely moment in the midst of the chaos.

I wanted to care more about the ending but I didn't. I would have in past seasons. But they made Matteo so relentlessly grating this season. And sure, he's always been mean and superior. But there were breaks. And more than that, the Cloud 9 staff has rarely banded together this season and this was too little too late. I liked seeing it but the momentum was only in this episode. They haven't felt like a family (even a begrudging workplace family thrown together out of necessity) for a while.

[aradia22]

Quote

And yeah, Jonah and Amy have fallen into the classic sitcom cliche of the deflation of chemistry once the "will they/won't they" couple finally gets together. 

I think the actors had chemistry before so I blame the writers. Once again, there's a group of writers who don't think a couple being together is worth writing about. One of the good things that's also a problem is that they haven't had them get into pointless fights. For the most part, they've been behaving as you'd expect them to until the union issue came up. Jonah has been nothing but supportive of Amy and she's also been on his side (not ratting him out to his parents, not getting mad over anything at the quinceanera). But that means they haven't had many conflicts with each other. However, the writers don't seem to know how to properly put them in conflict with anyone else. Part of it is that since becoming a manager, they've made a mess of writing Amy and until recently, Jonah has gone along with everything she's doing so they're in the same mess. But even before that, I think the show knew how to write them as antagonists with unresolved sexual tension but didn't know how to put Amy in conflict with anyone else. I'm guessing part of the problem is they didn't want her to seem unlikable which is why instead almost everyone seems to be heaping abuse on her and she just takes it and/or feels bad. She's become more and more of a pushover. 

tl;dr I don't think the problem is America and Ben not having chemistry. I think it's what the writers are giving them to work with.

[ALenore]

On 5/17/2019 at 2:30 AM, calguy said:

The non-profit Dream American which consulted on this episode was founded by Jose Antonio Vargas who like Mateo is a undocumented immigrant from the Philippines who arrived in the US as child so it's not completely hopeless for Mateo

Thanks for the info.  I just got around to watching this (lots of shows to catch up on).  I thought that Jose Antonio Vargas' story might have had something to do with this.  I remember reading his story when it was first published in the New York Times.  Like Mateo, he was brought in as a child and didn't even know he was illegal until he tried to get a driver's license.   He later became a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist.   

[possibilities]

I think Mateo didn't go into the tunnel where Marcus was living, because they said the agents have dogs and will search for things like tunnels. He had to get out and get away entirely, and disappear somehow.

[Turtle Wexler]

On 5/25/2019 at 5:28 AM, aradia22 said:

OK, I did enjoy Laurie's cocaine problem coming back in that way. That was a good instance of setting up something early to have it pay off later.

Me, too, but I also can't help but wonder whether it will bite Amy in the ass later/ditto the lies about the other store's staff, and whether it should (or shouldn't).  I know, I know, it's a sitcom, but deceptions that have large payoffs/shift shows' trajectories always give me pause.  

[wonderwoman]

cross posted on chicago med:

not sure where to post this, but i have an ota antenna and catch up on roku or the nbc app on my pad. for some reason this episode (aired 5/16) has not been unlocked (although the next one is).  the same is true for the final 2 superstore episodes that aired on the same day.

is anyone else having this problem?

[SmithW6079]

On 5/17/2019 at 1:41 PM, Suzysite said:

They are brave men and women who put their lives on the line every day to uphold the laws of the land.  A fictional character getting hauled off by law enforcement dosn't change that.   He did wrong and will probably get a slap on the wrist, but ICE is in no way "evil". 

After all, they are just following orders.