When Dave joins Max’s gym (An actual exercise gym! The gang can’t believe it either!), I must once again wrestle with my complete and total love of the gay stereotype mash-up that is Derek. Could those canary yellow gym shorts be any shorter? Considering that the show has no problem with letting Max be a lovable schlemiel, I guess a little upper man thigh never hurt anyone. Or maybe I’m just making excuses for it…no! Max and Derek together is like eating sweet eye caramels, particularly their slow-motion treadmill routine! “Actually he owes me $900. Drama!,†Derek chuckles with Dave about Max. “No, seriously how do I get him to pay me?†Maybe I just need to remember that gay men can truly be whatever they want, whether it be lawyers, congressman, murderers, dentists or life coaches for rich people’s pets. It is a real job.
They can also be bullies, as Bobby Moynihan’s burly gym goon Corey demonstrates. “What are you working on? Your upper failures?,†he snarls at a puny weightlifter. After being rudely kick off his….god, I don’t know…arm machine?, Dave tries to reason with Corey, only to meet his white-hot wrath. So of course Max falls in love with Corey immediately. “I love bad boys!,†he whines. “Like Will Smith in Bad Boys! Or even Martin Lawrence in Big Momma’s House!†Returning to the gym once more (mainly because they wouldn’t let him out of his membership contract), Dave steels himself for another verbal onslaught. Gasps Max, “What if Corey sees you and yells at you and it’s too sexy and we fall in love?†What Corey actually does, in fact, is punch Dave in the face after Dave explains to him that was probably bullied as a child for being gay. I mean, I want to punch Dave in the face all the time, but this… um, I…uh. No, it felt right; it felt really right. So course Dave has to fist-fight Corey in front of a crowd of people in workout clothes. “Are you sure want to do this?,†Max asks. “You can always just fake your own death.†Fortunately Dave doesn’t even need the advice provided by former career bully Alex, and hadn’t even started sitting on Corey’s back so he couldn’t breathe before jamming his face in the sand when Derek runs up and crushes Corey’s face with his fist. “You’re like the straight Patrick Henry,†Derek gushes to Dave afterward. Oh, and of course Max immediately in love with Derek. Dare I even hope? Lord, give me drama!
Meanwhile Jane rules over her condo’s homeowner associate with an iron fist. She’s like a more chipper Dr. Claw, but without the cat, because my god, the hair. But can Jane help it if the building just functions better with one absolute leader who accepts no input from any outside sources? “I think you just said the definition of fascism,†Penny points out. Jane’s dark love of power blossoms when the building decides to build a roof garden. Decisions must be made. Terrible decisions, like whether planting elderflowers would attract rats which would then infect the entire building with the hantavirus. “In that one week before we’re all immobilized by disease, we can enjoy those berries,†Jane explains through her Kobe Bryant intensity face. While Brad enjoys all the perks and honey-baked hams that comes with being the First Gentleman of the building, dissent among the residence builds over Jane’s strictness and general insanity. Maybe, Penny suggests, it might help to sleep on it before responding with hostility to people? Or even to a loud cockatiel owned by an inconsiderate neighbor? “The next day I bought that bird a clementine…which it choked on,†Penny chirps. “Problem solved!†As to be expected, a little extra Zs makes Jane a little too relaxed, and her slow slide from implementing a Suggestion Box to ordering lawn gnomes to eating olives off the couch while wearing harem pants begins. Oh, and did I mention the chronic masturbating? “Buzz one out?,†Dave muses as Jane heads up for yet another nap. “That’s a weird way to say snoring.†Luckily Alex knows the way to get her sister back to factory settings, forcing Penny to hold Jane down while she berates her sister with the evidence of her building’s decline. “They’re novelty gazebos, Jane,†she snarls, shaking a fistful of gardening pamphlets. “Novelty.†Even Jane’s rival tenant Michael has returned to her side, hand shaking as he hands her a flyer. “Some is tutoring in our condo,†he whispers, which brings Dictator Jane roaring back from the abyss. “We are not zoned for that!†she howls. “Someone get me new pants. I look like a Turkish whore master.†Ah yes, just another episode worth buzzing one out to.
Penny: Why are you dressed like Josh Brolin from The Goonies?
Max: She noticed!
Brad: I like my bad boys with vaginas.
Max: A lot of the forefathers were gay. You should watch the gay History Channel.
Dave: That’s a thing?
Derek: Yeah, it’s called Bravo.
Max: Go Dave! Punch his shirt off!