The Studio Recap: Back to One!
“I’ll bet there’s a lot of execs that suck on set, but not me,” Matt tells Sal as they approach a location being used for a new movie directed by Sarah Polley and Greta Lee in the opening moments of “The Oner.” Matt then spends the rest of the episode, well, sucking on the set in every way imaginable and some that no one has probably ever imagined before. It’s a bad time for Matt to be a bumbler and nuisance. Polley’s shooting an ambitious single-take shot — a oner — at magic hour. She has maybe two chances to get it before she loses the light and loses her star to scheduling issues. Everything has to go right, but nothing does, and it’s pretty much all Matt’s fault.
Meanwhile, the episode itself takes the form of a oner, following Matt and Sal as they arrive by car with plans to chill in the backdrop while Polley works her magic. (It’s Matt’s favorite part of the job, he says, watching the script come to life.) Sure, he has some ideas. For instance, he loves a bookend. So does the episode. Matt’s first transgression, parking his car where it doesn’t belong near the beginning of the episode, has dire consequences near the episode’s end. It’s a meta touch in an outing filled with meta touches, not the least being all the talk about how hard it is to do a complicated shot that catches magic hour while the episode itself has to do the same thing. (This ups an already high level of difficulty established by a premiere that took the form of a string of oners, an approach continued in future episodes.) But it’s such a nerve-racking and funny episode that it’s easy to ignore all the self-awareness, or at least not think about it until later. It’s a tight comedic episode that doubles as an epic disaster movie.
It doesn’t have to be that way. Part of what makes the episode so effective is the way it keeps giving Matt off-ramps he refuses to take as he careens toward disaster, starting with an unnecessary wardrobe change. Sal’s casual attire makes him feel insecure. He doesn’t want to look like a suit, so why is he wearing a suit? Patty gives him the business for his attire, too, and Matt focuses on this instead of what he should focus on: Both Sal and Patty warn him to lay low and not offer ideas. “There’s zero margin for error on this shot,” Patty warns him and Matt being there is “just as distracting as when Bob Evans would show up with a magnum of Dom and an eight ball.”
As it turns out Sal and Patty have conspired in an attempt to keep Matt away from the set, sensing there would be trouble. Polley didn’t want him there either, but she needs Matt to sign off on a budget increase so she can use the Rolling Stones’ “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” over the scene so she’s eager to accommodate him. Maybe, Patty and Sal figure, they can confine Matt to his own video village? Because this has to work. Lee is flying to London to work on a Christopher Nolan film about Jack the Ripper. (“Spoiler alert: He’s a she.”) Once the sun goes down, they’ve missed their last chance.
Matt’s arrival on the set has a butterfly effect, creating ripples of chaos. Polley’s on edge. Lee, Patty tells Sal, needs to be kept away from Matt because she wants to butter him up so she can use the corporate jet. Even the casual clothes he chooses to change into will have consequences down the line. There’s another thing, too: It seems to be going really well without him there. Polley’s in command of the set and the rehearsals make the shot look like it will be incredible. Even Matt is struck dumb in admiration until the arrival of Doug (Thomas Barbusca), a helpful PA who mistakes him for an extra and breaks his concentration. Then Matt orders a coffee and, after Polley opens the door for feedback, shares an idea for the shot with Polley, specifically restoring the image of Lee’s character smoking a joint to the beginning of the scene. These developments, too, will have consequences, both immediately and down the line.
Take one: The joint goes out. Cut.
Take two: This goes smoothly apart from the video and audio feeds to the video village cutting out. Matt, having escaped from the private video village, gets so panicky about this that he distracts Lee. That gives them another chance, assuming they can replace Party Guy No. 2’s wardrobe. The problem: Matt’s wearing Party Guy No. 2’s wardrobe change. With no time to spare (and a blackmail threat from Patty hanging over him), Sal has to level with Matt. Patty doesn’t want him there and Polley doesn’t want him there either. Matt seems resigned to leave until Lee shows up and covers him in praise for his approach and his brilliant ideas. She loves a bookend too! (She also, as predicted, wants to use the studio’s private jet.)
Take three: Matt walks into the shot. Then, attempting to save the day, he flees and injures himself as Polley’s frustration mounts.
Take four: All goes well (apart from the medic who won’t leave Matt alone) until the shot’s final moments, in which Lee’s character is set to nurse her heartbreak as she drives away. And she would, too, were it not for a classic convertible with the vanity plate “STD HEAD.” Recognizing, at least, that he’s the problem (but only after noting it stands for “studio head”), Matt rushes to move his car but can’t because he changed out of his suit. Keys retrieved, he drives off as the sun sets. The episode (with some help from the Rolling Stones) ends as it began. It’s a bookend! But there’s an unfortunate postscript: a text from the set lets Sal know they didn’t get the shot.
A brilliant and exhausting half-hour of television, “The Oner” digs into Matt’s character to discover new depths of insecurity. That this insecurity is tied to a commitment to making good movies makes him sympathetic, but it can’t undo the damage he does. He’s not an egomaniac, but he’s not ego-less, either. He thrills at the idea of his suggestion ending up in a movie and loves the attention and flattery Lee lavishes on him. But mostly he’s incapable of getting out of his own way and, consequently, gets in the way of others.
Rogen effectively plays his mounting panic in the midst of an episode that’s precisely engineered at every level, from the mounting problems Matt causes to the extremely impressive feat of pulling it all off in one shot as the sun sets, an accomplishment that eludes Polley within the episode itself. Scripted by co-creator Peter Huyck and directed by Rogen and Evan Goldberg, “The Oner” sets a high bar for the series with just its second episode.
And … Cut!
• “Oners are so stupid. It’s just the director jacking off while making everyone else’s lives miserable,” Sal claims. “Audiences do not care about this shit.” Arriving in the middle of an episode about a oner that’s shot as a oner (that’s part of a oner-heavy series), there’s a certain amount of irony here, but he’s not entirely wrong. Oners do often play as indulgent. Matt counters with Birdman as an example of a oner being used in the service of great art, but your mileage may vary on that. If nothing else, it’s safe to say that a oner can go either way.
• “The man had a package like a caramel-leather sofa. Rest in peace,” Patty says of Ray Liotta in the second episode in a row referencing the late actor’s genitalia. O’Hara may not get all of this series’ best lines, but she certainly gets her share.
• Polley might be the episode’s supporting MVP. She’s more focused on directing than acting these days, but she hasn’t lost her touch, nesting genuine affection for Matt when she first agrees to hear his feedback with the calculating desire to get the rights to the song she wants. When she explodes at the end it’s like watching a tea kettle that’s been warming up all episode finally sound off.