‘Kidding’ Episode 4 Recap: “Bye, Mom”

Catherine Keener hasn’t had a ton to do in the first three episodes of Kidding, playing third fiddle to Jim Carrey and Frank Langella, and maintaining a B-plot revolving her family life. In”Bye, Mom,” (Kidding Episode 4) Keener is given her biggest opportunity to shine so, as DiDi navigates from one confrontation (or lack thereof) to another.

Her big moments come at two very specific junctures: first, we see her situation with her husband, Scott, finally begin to come to a head. After he comes home from a failed rendezvous with the piano teacher, it’s clear that something is up; that would prove correct, as he later attempted the beginnings of a coming out speech while the two were in bed. The overhead shot in this moment from Jake Schreier (directing his second episode) perfectly captures Keener’s deadpan, blank face — she knows what’s coming, and as she’s shown a propensity to do thus far, simply doesn’t want to hear it.”Name a happy child of divorce,” she tells Scott, shutting him down in his tracks, again shelving this conversation for a later date.

Not long after, DiDi, having been coaxed into creating the Mr. Pickles puppet head for Seb’s planned Mr. Pickles’ Puppet Time Ice Capades show, has her big confrontation with Jeff, when he walks in on her creating the giant head in his image. “I don’t know how to protect you anymore, and maybe I shouldn’t,” she says. “Maybe that’s how I help.”

Jeff puts DiDi’s puppet head on, and recites a story of a tale as old as time, yes, that’s right, the story of RoboCop. It’s one of a handful of very creepy Mr. Pickles moments that we get this week, as Carrey continues his excellent work. Little by little, he’s riding the very fine line of being with it and decidedly not with it.

Jeff, meanwhile, has finally found someone else he’s romantically interested in aside from his estranged wife, Jill, in the form of the terminally ill cancer patient Vivian. Seb supports him, Jill supports him, and everything seems to be on the right track — until he doesn’t quickly get a response to his text message (sent from an archaic flip phone) suggesting that the two should meet up again. It must be a problem with his phone. It must be a problem with her phone. It must be something, right?

After Jeff takes Will on a trip to the cell phone store to look into just why he hasn’t received a reply text yet, he has to tell his son about the second number on his plan — the number that he pays for that belongs to Denny, the driver of the truck that killed Phil. Jill finds out about this through Will, and is rightfully upset with Jeff’s decision to help the person who, while obviously not intentionally, has been a root of the grief and pain that their family has suffered over the last year. She explodes on Jeff, telling him to enter the real world: Denny isn’t really injured, Will isn’t going to stop smoking pot, and Vivian isn’t texting him back because she doesn’t like him.

Jim Carrey does the Jim Carrey thing here, and goes through about four different moods and feelings over the course of this scene. From sweet, caring, and hopeful (as he talks about how the accident wasn’t Denny’s fault, how he is forced to walk with a cane now, and how he has a daughter he has to care for, and furthermore how it wasn’t Jill’s fault) to deeply sad and empathetic when Jill is yelling at him. For just a fleeting moment, after Jill mentions Vivian, Carrey’s face slips from sad into an almost scary, unhinged rage.

It disappears a moment later, as Vivian responds: she’d love to hang out again.

Some additional thoughts:

• I like the way a few short scenes at the end add to the world-building of the episode. Denny is, indeed, very injured. Walking with a cane, he need his daughter’s help to walk up the stairs into his own home. It lets us know that in this universe, Jeff’s bright optimism isn’t always totally off-base.
• Also in this universe, a barrel-bedsheet parachute going over a waterfall apparently works like a charm.
• “How much longer do you think we have?” “As a species?” Protect Frank Langella at all costs.
• We hear from Will’s dummy stoner friend once again about his conspiracy theory that Mr. Pickles has killed over 100 people. He responds, and it’s very, very creepy. I guess he has killed a lot of people? Is this a Dick Whitman type thing? I do not love this wrinkle that they’re slowly adding, and think the show doesn’t need this sort of twist. The real, human elements work way better.
• Jill’s point about the reality of being married to a ‘Mr. Pickles‘ type of person is extremely interesting. Exploring the humanity of someone stuck in the shadow of a beloved, larger-than-life character (Mrs. Claus to Santa is the one she makes) is fascinating by itself, but the additional snag of that dynamic dealing with extreme tragedy just makes it ever more worth exploring.
• Justin Kirk is back with some killer humor as Peter, AKA “Big P”: “Just the other night I was thinking to myself, are there any ladies I know who would be a good match for Jeff?” he ponders out loud. “And literally nobody came to mind.”

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 4 ("Bye, Mom") on Showtime Anytime