‘Kidding’ Episode 3 Recap: “Every Pain Needs A Name”

Three episodes into Kidding and we’re still getting a handle on just who these characters are. This episode finds even more great work from Jim Carrey as Jeff Pickles, the volatile but sweet force at Kidding‘s center, but now we’re starting to get more of a taste of who else exists in Mr. Pickles’ immediate orbit.

“Every Pain Needs a Name,” is the first episode helmed by Jake Schreier (the previous two had Michel Gondry behind the camera), and provides the deepest look yet at Didi and Seb (Catherine Keener and Frank Langella), in addition to the main story following Jeff Pickles.

Langella continues to be the best actor on the show not named Jim Carrey, and the chemistry that those two share is off the charts. We isolate Jeff from Didi and Seb, in this episode, after the elder Piccirillo shows his son a sampling of the fanmail he’s received through the years. Langella reading the notes is simply divine:

“Dear Mr. Pickles,” he reads in his warm, ever-even heeled tone. “What a rare, sublime kindness you bestow upon the world. Attached please find a photograph of my clitoris.”

Having earlier failed to track Jill (Judy Greer, who only has a single off-camera line in this episode) down in the hospital —there hitting it off with Vivian (Ginger Gonzaga), a terminally ill cancer patient who teaches him about the hot and heavy nature of Grey’s Anatomy— Jeff eventually decides to give dating a go. He ends up meeting Shaina (Riki Lindhome), a woman with a personal connection to Mr. Pickles’ Puppet Time. In what would easily be the Michel Gondry Brilliance Of The Week™ if he actually directed the episode, Schreier masterfully uses a time lapse to show Shaina’s evolution from a no-holds-barred junkie into a strong, well put-together adult– all with Mr. Pickles’ calm, inspiring words in the background. It’s a striking sequence, and clearly done with Gondry’s unique style in mind.

Last week we heard Seb dramatically call for Tara Lipinski —the world-famous figure skater, though I wasn’t quite sure if that name was intentional— and now we get the first inkling of what his plan is. Seb has had just enough of his son’s unpredictability, and is ready to cut the cord. Not only does he plan to make Mr Pickles’ Puppet Time into an animated show with an impressionist taking over as the titular character, but also to bring that same show to ice arenas around the country, the Olympic skater starring with a giant Mr. Pickles mold atop her head.

Seb’s obsession with the profitability that comes along with branding his products is obviously something that is going to make for a larger conflict with the overwhelmingly pure worldview of his son, who continually just wants to do what’s right and follow his conscience. We’ll see where this story goes in the weeks to come.

The episode ends with a touch of intimacy — or an utter lacktherof. As Didi continues to bury the situation with her husband in an attempt to maintain her daughter’s well-being (the entire episode dealt with some sort of infantile screaming side effect caused by “trauma”), Will lucks out with a kiss from the lone female member of his wrecking crew. Jeff decides that Shaina isn’t what he’s looking for, declining her invitation to accompany her up to her apartment.

As he returns home, Mr. Pickles finds a very intoxicated student in his hallway, and nurses her back to health in his own home. She comes to, and quickly makes an advance on him, which he just as quickly declines. “Aren’t you tired of always doing the right thing?” she asks. Mr. Pickles heard her loud and clear and decides that the chemistry he felt —that we all felt— with Vivian, is worth pursuing.

Some additional thoughts:

• It’s fun to continually get little reminders of just how famous Mr. Pickles really is. What at first seemed like an innocuous ’80s reference to Nancy Reagan quickly gains a wrinkle when Jeff reminds Will: “Your brother put Peanut Butter in her shoes?”
• It’s not the only Reagan reference this week — Will also is told by one of his dirtbag friends of a rumor that his father had a secret moniker: “The Beirut Butcher,” from a time when he was in the war, and was secretly awarded by Reagan himself. This seems like a far-fetched story that dummy potheads would make up and spread, but also… TV writers don’t typically sprinkle things like this in for no reason. My eyebrow is raised.
• I love the dynamic when any combination of Carrey, Keener, and Langella are together on screen. It’s not the utter dysfunction of the Bluths in Arrested Development, or the twisty, meshed, melodrama of something like This is Us. Their dynamic feels much more real — they can get frustrated with one another, and you know the Seb-Jeff conflict is only going to elevate — but beneath it all, they really, truly seem to care about each other.

Evan Romano is a Brooklyn-based freelance writer. He was previously an editor for Brooklyn Magazine, where he once sat in a Las Vegas diner with Hannibal Buress. Follow him on Twitter at @EvanRomano and check his work out here.

Watch Kidding Episode 3 ("Every Pain Needs A Name") on Showtime Anytime