After three laugh-out-loud episodes, The Studio settles into itself
“Good artists borrow; great artists steal.”—Pablo Picasso
For almost any other comedy, the fourth episode of The Studio would be a standout. It has sharp guest performances, a clever structure, and even something relevant to say about the changing landscape on which movies are made in the 2020s. And yet the first three chapters of The Studio were so laugh-out-loud funny and visually striking that there’s a sense that this is the episode in which Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg’s show settles into itself a little bit. They can’t all be all-timers. And this is still a funny half-hour of television, proof perhaps that The Studio will be one of the smartest shows of 2025.
“The Missing Reel” is about exactly that: a missing reel of film from the shoot of Olivia Wilde’s Rolling Blackout, a Chinatown knockoff starring Zac Efron. Ten reels were put in the truck for processing the night before and nine made it to the facility. The missing reel not only had an elaborate third-act shoot-out but it also contained the cameo from Wilde that Matt suggested. And you have to love the pattern of Matt having one really good idea surrounded by a bunch of bad ones. After all, a baseball player who hits one home run and then strikes out the next three at bats can still be an all-star.
Matt and Sal panic because it’s Matt who pushed for Rolling Blackout to be shot on film in the first place, and if they have to report the reel missing, it will raise insurance rates and could even put future projects that want to be shot on film in jeopardy. Matt proudly considers himself the executive who is “singlehandedly keeping film alive,” so finding this missing reel becomes personal.
With the stakes set, “The Missing Reel” becomes a self-contained noir of its own without losing its own personality. Worse shows would have just turned a switch over to full parody, but The Studio embeds a few of the tropes into the episode without going broad with them. Matt needs a Sam Spade-esque outfit because he’s got bad hair dye and wants to disguise it. Instead of a cheesy voiceover, he speaks into his voice-memo app like his therapist suggested. It’s all very clever.
What about the case itself? Clues start to add up. Olivia Wilde smells like booze, which Sal is remarkably proficient at identifying, noting that it wasn’t your traditional Tito’s-the-night-before smell. Matt finds an envelope of cash in Efron’s trailer. Did he pay to have the reel stolen? Or was he planning to do so? He also posted a photo just after they wrapped, when the reels were loaded, and there’s someone suspicious in it with an identifiable tattoo.
It all reaches a comedic peak at the infamous Chateau Marmont, the place where all the most famous people in the world stay and play when they’re in Hollywood. When Matt and Sal follow a lead to the Marmont, Matt ends up sneaking through the kitchen, pretending to be room service to get to Efron’s room. That’s where he discovers Sal! And a party! It turns out the cash was for the wrap party that Matt was too cheap to pay for.
As they consider their dead end, they spot the tattoo on someone at the bar, only to realize that a dozen or so extras had the same fake ink. And guess who else did? Olivia Wilde, for her cameo. And that smell? The rubbing alcohol to take it off. It was the director herself.
Sal and Matt go to confront her, and Wilde gives a fun monologue about how the reshoot needed to be bigger, but Matt was too cheap to approve it, so she planned to just get rid of the reel and force his hand. One can almost feel the traumatizing Hollywood experience—Google the production of Don’t Worry Darling—in Wilde yelling “Fine is not good enough!” She saved the reel because her guest turn in the movie was reportedly the best in her career (and her guest turn in this show is her best work in a long time). That’s fun. She totally freaks out, opens the film to expose it, and the reel rolls down a Hollywood hill. “Pretty, isn’t it?”
Clearly, “The Missing Reel” works. Rogen, Barinholtz, Efron, and Wilde are all funny, but is it weird to already miss the other players? Kathryn Hahn, Catherine O’Hara, and Chase Sui Wonders were so good in last week’s episode that one can already feel their absence. Again, The Studio isn’t going to hit a home run every single time, and this is far from bad TV. Any inkling of a comedown is just a sign of how good this program has been so far.
Stray observations
- • For one of the best films set at the Chateau Marmont, go watch Sofia Coppola’s excellent Somewhere, starring Stephen Dorff and Elle Fanning as a father/daughter duo who are living at the Hollywood palace.
- • There are fun in-universe details surfacing in The Studio like a billboard for a fictional film as they drive to the Marmont called Open. It appears to have been directed by Zoë Kravitz and notched three Golden Globe nominations!
- • There’s a line about Wilde going “full Fincher,” insisting on 40 takes of Zac Efron putting on a hat. Want a good Fincher story? He notoriously shot the opening scene of Rooney Mara and Jesse Eisenberg in The Social Network a whopping 99 times.
- • Here’s a cool cameo: The sassy projectionist in the first season is Alan Barinholtz, Ike’s dad. (He was also the judge in Jury Duty if he looks familiar.)
- • With turns by Sarah Polley, Ron Howard, and Olivia Wilde, Rogen has practically turned his show into an ode to actor-directors like himself.
- • He also loves reunions! Past collaborators like Nicholas Stoller (Neighbors), Sarah Polley (Take This Waltz), Charlize Theron (Long Shot), and Zac Efron (Neighbors again) have all popped in. And Danny McBride better show up soon.