Episode four opens on Jordan walking down a hallway toward a very small door, with a rainbow pouring through a skylight and landing right on it. He opens it and peers in. The sign on the wall reads “Emerald Equity Management.”
Inside is a small office, since the door was small, and one man wrapping up a phone call. He is played by Haley Joel Osment, credited as “Brady the Leprechaun.” He greets Jordan and explains he’s the only one working since it’s Saturday. Jordan asks if there’s gold. Brady says he trades gold, among other assets, but he can’t just give it away. He’s busy, but he invites Jordan in anyway. Quick “The Terrors” credit, no Steve Buscemi this time, and Jordan bumps his head on the ceiling on the way in.
Title card:
Brady asks if Jordan is an investor. Jordan has a 401(k). Brady doesn’t handle retail investors, only the institutional side. Jordan apologizes for asking about gold, Brady apologizes for being snippy, and then they settle into the actual terror: small talk. Brady is fasting, and black coffee helps. Jordan hates cream and sugar too. They agree on that. Then they run out of things to say, and the silence just sits there.
Then we’re back in the theater with Jordan watching, and there he is. Hi, Steve. For a minute there we were worried. Welcome back.
Sex Ed
Jordan is a teacher now. Nicholas, the principal, played by Gregg Turkington, comes into his classroom and asks if Jordan can cover for Miss Stiles for a couple of weeks. “Bio, right?” Not bio. Sex ed. Jordan zones out while Nicholas keeps explaining, then snaps back with “Oh… principal, my principal, no problem.” His reasoning: he’s had sex before, so he can teach sex ed.
At home that night, he talks it through with an AI chatbot named Daisy. First he asks it to draft a sick-day letter to the principal. Then he asks about changing careers. Then he pivots back to having it tell the principal he’s fine, since he’s had sex before. Then come the real questions: where the condom goes, and why it goes on a banana. His last question is “Will I be okay?” Daisy answers, “Maybe…” He shrugs it off.
The next morning, students walk into his classroom, and the first one screams. The camera pans over to Mr. Mendoza with a condom pulled over his head. He rips it off and plays it cool. “This AI is crazy.”
Back in the leprechaun’s office, Jordan has made himself at home on the desk of the next cubicle over. He needs to check on a dinner reservation he made with his girlfriend and signs in with Google. Brady asks whether he thinks his company monitors his computer. Then he asks whether Jordan has ever been to that restaurant. More silence.
The Act of Forgetting
The big sketch of the night takes place in a lab. Jordan, as a veteran named Jacob, sits on a medical table while a technician types beside him. The doctor, whose name tag reads J. Hanley, M.D., is played by Thomas Lennon. Jacob wants to know two things: whether this treatment can really cure his PTSD, and whether it’s free. Both, since he’s a veteran. The doctor asks him to lie back and take him all the way back.
The lights flicker and we’re in the flashback. Jacob (DeCastro, per his uniform) is playing cards with his best friend Chris Miller, who insists Jeff Bezos and J.K. Simmons are cousins. Jacob is arguing the point when the explosions and gunfire hit. Back on the table, he describes watching Miller go down and trying to hold his neck together with his bare hands.
So, the doctor fits Jacob with a cap full of nodes and wires to target that memory and soften it. Same scene, same dialogue, a little farther away. The gunfire hits, and nothing happens. Then Miller asks Jacob if he wants a blowjob. Jacob looks around. Miller insists it’s great. Jacob snaps out of it, and the doctor agrees that should not have happened. Even the technician looks creeped out.
Try again. This time a soldier named Sherwood sits up from a nearby cot, announces robotically that she is standing by to keep everyone safe, and salutes. On the table, Jacob is smiling (This is not going to go well). The doctor types, and the offer comes back, now from Sherwood too. Then Miller asks if Jacob wants to watch the two of them go at it, with a warning: “It’s loud, and a lot of liquid comes out.” Jacob snaps out of it…
“WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?!”
The doctor apologizes. He’s got it figured out now. One more time. Sherwood stands by, the explosions hit, Miller goes down, Sherwood tells him to stay with her and that he’s going to be okay, and the offers start up again anyway. The doctor types faster. “Maybe not.” He bangs on the keyboard while Miller moves on to asking about Jacob’s teeth, and Jacob is done.
As Jacob signs the release form, the doctor notices he’s left-handed. Which means the cap was on backwards the whole time. Whoops.
The Tag
Back in the rainbow hallway, Buscemi stands at the far end. “Thanks for watching. Here are the credits.”
The stinger returns to the leprechaun’s office, where Brady asks if Jordan ever gets a text from a friend that just says “Hey.” Jordan finds it annoying. Brady agrees. “Like they just want to trap you and ask for a favor or whatever.” His friend is thinking about getting a dumb phone. Brady starts lifting a kettlebell. Another awkward pause, and that’s the episode.
Where it leaves us
Four episodes in, the show keeps finding new ways to make a situation more uncomfortable, and it’s getting funnier for it. Small Talk is barely a sketch, just two people with nothing to say, and that’s the joke. The Act of Forgetting starts as a real PTSD story and gets derailed so thoroughly that the punchline is a cap on backwards. Having Osment, Turkington and Lennon in the same episode doesn’t hurt either.
Where to watch: New episodes air Sundays at midnight on Adult Swim. Online, all four episodes on adultswim.com now require a TV provider login, and the free YouTube upload of episode one has been made private. No word yet on HBO Max. You can also buy episodes on Amazon, Apple TV and Fandango at Home.
Episode five airs tonight at midnight.
