We’ve all been there: the moment you realize your crush is even hotter than you thought. If your feelings for that person weren’t already unhinged, they sure are now. This is exactly what happens to Molly when she walks in on Arthur in a post-hike state of undress in her secret office pooping bathroom (everyone has one, don’t pretend) one morning. When she relays the terribly awkward incident to Nicholas, she can’t hide it any longer: She has feelings for Arthur. Big, unhinged, very real feelings.
It brings me endless joy to see that although Nicholas is mean (in a hilarious, endearing way) to pretty much every human, animal, and plant he encounters, his heart knows no bounds when it comes to Molly Wells. He finally tells her about Corsica and how Arthur admitted to having feelings for her. While Molly can’t believe he kept it from her — in his defense, he was sworn to secrecy and also “as a clinical narcissist, [he] honestly just forgot†— the news does add to the already complicated situation. Does he still have feelings for her? How icky would this be since she’s his boss? Would being honest about this ruin their friendship? These are all important questions, but Nicholas doesn’t want to hear any of them. She needs to go for it, and he has the perfect plan to do it organically: They should all go on a work retreat together. The fact that Nicholas came up with this idea because in the sexual-harassment training video HR made them watch, they were told that “a lot of inappropriate things happen on work retreats and they should be avoided†is honestly just so funny, and I will be thinking about it for days. (This episode was written by Anna Salinas.)
The next day, Molly announces that they’re going to Dubai! She has a palace there with 27 rooms and seven pools; it’ll be fabulous. The team is pretty pumped. Even Sofia is on board because, yes, she does, in fact, have the perfect hair to be Princess Jasmine. So it’s settled then … until it’s not.
Just as Molly is checking in on Arthur to make sure he is definitely attending this group excursion, Willa shows up with a basket full of freshly baked blueberry muffins and a cute, down-to-earth vibe that feels so authentic you really can’t hate her for it, even if we are all trying to Molly’s sake. Molly being so unraveled by this other woman is a wonderful development not just because it reveals some of Molly’s vulnerabilities but also because it means we are blessed with the gift that is Maya Rudolph’s face as she is trying to one-up Willa in front of Arthur by informing them that she actually has great reflexes and then wanders into a terrible Australian accent that she cannot get out of. The interaction is so awkward that Molly truly wants to die inside, and we are all Nicholas looking on, unable to stop this car crash.
Molly leans into the dark side of those unhinged levels of feelings and scours Willa’s Instagram for a reason to hate her, but she can’t. “It’s the most down-to-earth, charming thing I’ve ever seen, mother fuck!†Molly doesn’t feel any better by Nicholas’s suggestion that Willa is too tall and that it’s creepy. But if nothing else, my man Nicholas knows how to prop Molly up, and he reminds her who she is. If she still wants to make a move on Arthur, she should — because she’ll win. All I’m saying is, get you an assistant/friend who reminds you that, bitch, you are the game.
Molly decides she needs to be more down-to-earth to compete with Willa, and so she overhauls the work retreat. They’re not going to Dubai anymore. Instead, they’re off to a cabin in San Bernardino. Yes, that San Bernardino. The one where Sofia’s cousin buys his weed. While Molly does piss off the rest of her crew, her plan seems to work: Arthur, our favorite birder, is very into the location change. And that theme — of Molly being laser-focused on winning over Arthur — carries over once they arrive.
The rest of the team goes off on their own adventures: Rhonda immediately strips down to go skinny-dipping in the pond. Howard and Sofia bond over their terrible childhood camp stories. Once Nicholas gets Molly set up in the kitchen with Arthur, he heads off to take some forest nudes with his drone. (The wilderness really makes his ass pop, he says.)
Things in the kitchen start off so well despite the fact that Molly’s knife skills are even worse than Kendall Jenner’s. Their conversation while making chicken pot pies is so easy that you can see how they would make great partners for each other. The tide turns, however, once Willa comes up. The choice to stay on Molly’s face while Arthur goes on and on about how happy he is in this new relationship in the background is such a smart one (this episode was directed by Anna Dokoza). You can see how upset she grows in real time.
You know from the beginning that all of this is headed toward a breaking point. That breaking point turns out to be Arthur’s phone, finally able to get service, going off repeatedly with messages from Willa. Do I fully buy that a mild-mannered, never-wants-to-rock-the-boat kind of guy like Arthur wouldn’t even attempt to silence his phone after it disturbs the group’s dinner? Not really. But I will go along with it to reap the reward that is its aftermath — one of the funniest sequences on this show … one of the funniest sequences on TV, period.
After a flurry of texts signaled by an old-timey car horn, the constant reminder that Arthur is in a happy relationship, and Howard complaining that there aren’t any marshmallows for s’mores, Molly absolutely loses her shit. She screams that she will go to the store on her own to try and salvage this complete waste of a weekend. Nicholas tries to offer to do it for her, but no — she marches outside and gets in their passenger van. Everyone knows this is a horrible idea. Nicholas tries to talk her out of it, reminding her that she is traditionally a terrible driver and that only ugly people drive, so she shouldn’t do it; she’s too pretty to drive. But Molly cannot be stopped. Everyone watches in fear as she attempts a wild three-point turn, violently crashing into things with every move she makes. When she finally finishes and screams at them, “I motherfucking did it, motherfuckers!,†she hits the gas to peel out of the driveway and rams right into a completely naked Rhonda, ass just all over the windshield. Reader, I choked, I was laughing so hard.
Rhonda shakes it off. “It’s not the first time I’ve been hit by a passenger van,†she assures Molly. And yet, there’s really no coming back from a fury-fueled naked car accident — the retreat is over.
Nicholas tries to help Molly nurse her wounds of humiliation back home (“Do you want to look at some of my drone nudes?â€), but really, the only thing that will get her through this is focusing on her work. She heads into the office early the next day and tells Sofia that she wants to do more with Space for Everyone; she wants to take it national. Sofia loves the thought but has to say something to Molly that she probably hasn’t heard in decades, and also something you just know the Loot writers have been sitting on: “You don’t have enough money.â€
Notes From a Group Talk Session
• Oh, no, did I forget? Ainsley winds up missing the news that the retreat is no longer in Dubai because she’s with her grandmother in the hospital as she takes her last breath, and so she buys her own ticket for $8,000 and winds up hanging out in the Dubai airport for days, waiting for Nicholas to get back to her with Molly’s palace address. No one even mentions her save for Nicholas, seeing multiple voice-mails on his phone from a name he pronounces “Ahns-Slay†and assumes it is a drag queen he slept with once.
• Michaela Jaé Rodriguez has some great one-liners in this episode, but my favorite moment of hers here is the reading she gives “No†when Howard asks if she thinks they would’ve been friends at summer camp.
• Howard and Sofia are really having a tough time out in the woods. As Howard notes, “Black people do not belong in cabins. We belong at brunch or luxury vacations in Tulum. We got no business here.â€
• Arthur may claim he’s happy in this new relationship with Willa, but the way he looks repeatedly hurt once Molly starts lashing out at him means there’s still hope his feelings for Molly haven’t completely gone away.
• Arthur’s reaction when he hears they are supposed to go to Dubai: “Out of the country twice in one year? Who am I, Tom Cruise?†This sweet man!
• Rhonda when she asks other team members to join her in the pond: “I’ve been dying to see all of your midsections!â€
• “Remember that hot fireman that I dated? Do you honestly believe that my apartment building just ‘accidentally’ caught on fire? Grow up.â€