Season 2, Episode 1. "A Good Opportunity" No good songs, but a funny opening episode finds Murray fired from the band.
In common with many first season stories, this one is driven by the removal of somebody from the group. This time it is the manager Murray. Murray also gets a great musical number. The lyrics/tune are quite basic (and I can't imagine being in a hurry to add it to my iPod) but the visuals are simply stunning. I've rarely seen New York's skyline so lovingly displayed on screen.
Season 2, Episode 2. "New Cup" Bret buys a new cup, which sends the band's budget spiralling out of control and ends up with Jemaine turning to prostitution.
And it's clever beyond belief all the way. It's also hysterically funny. And the boys unveil two great new songs.
Most FOTC stories revolve around a change in the status quo, which can be a tad repetitive. This time out poverty is the focus of the story. And it works. There's nothing especially dark about anything that happens, the show retains it's gentle style (despite the somewhat depressing story elements) and every scene has laugh-out loud potential. This is a huge step up from the season opener because it doesn't rely on any outlandish events. It's a small, intimate little tale driven exclusively by the characters and the situation that they are in.
Season 2, Episode 3. "The Tough Brets" Bret starts a gang.
The ideas in this series are wonderful: the logistics of playing a gig in a library, for instance. Wonderful, wacky ideas. Brings a wide grin to your face when you watch it. And then there are songs like "I got hurt feelings." Classic. And this is also the one that solidify's the rivalry between New Zealand and Australia and a nifty little cameo from Alan Dale.
Season 2, Episode 4. "Murray Takes it to the Next Level" The band and their manager take things to the next level: friendship. But the managers annoying other friend (Jim) causes problems.
Another wonderful and hilarious episode. Season Two is more of an ensemble show: Mel (Kristen Schaal) gets her own musical number and the story is completely driven by Murray. This says a lot about the strength of the show's concept. It has expanded to be more than a show about two guys in a band, but it is still - essentially - a show about two guys in a band. Because the story is driven by the characterisation of Murray this is definitely one of the strongest episodes.
Plus it features Jim Gaffigan. Another reason to consider it one of the strongest episodes.
Best bits? Murray's friendship chart, and Jim's endless questions. "How many steps in your building?"
Season 2, Episode 5. "Unnatural Love" Jemaine falls in love with... an Australian.
A masterpiece. The best episode, so far, in Season Two, and a serious contender for best ever episode. The songs are wonderful, instant classics, and the comedy is relentless. Sarah Wynter is a revelation. Normally, she plays it classy and beautiful. This time out she aims to be as crass as possible. Consequently, she's impossible to recognise, and simply hysterical.
She just made me in a die-hard fan.
Season 2, Episode 6. "Love is a Weapon of Choice" Bret and Jemaine fall for the same woman.
Again. Oh dear. Yes, there are lots of quirky ideas in this little tale, but - unfortunately - this is too much like earlier episodes. The boys can't always be falling in love with the same woman. Because it won't always be funny.
Season 2, Episode 7. "Prime Minister" The Prime Minister visits.
A superb and very funny episode, but it has little or nothing to do with the band. Indeed Bret is pushed to the background by several much funnier characters played by Brian Sergent and Mary Lynn Rajskub.
Season 2, Episode 8. "New Zealand Town" Hair Gel.
A superb and very funny episode which - almost completely - revolves around the band. There is a subplot about the Prime Minister, which is also very, very funny and has a guest shot from Lucy Lawless, but the main thrust of this outing is what happens to the boys when they discover (and, later, becomes addicts to the effects of) hair gel. Hair gel, you see, makes them 'cool' and gets them to a place where people actually attend their gigs.
I loved this episode not just because it was very funny (and had great songs) but also because it is created around the boys, and they are central to the story/humour.
Season 2, Episode 9. "Wingmen" Bret falls in love.
Again. Oh dear. Why are so many of stories driven by the idea of being love with the babe-of-the-week? Yes, there are quirky ideas in here, and it's a fairly funny episode but they need to stay away from romance for story ideas.
Best gags? Mel teaching the boys how to be stalkers. Lovely.
Season 2, Episode 10. "Evicted" Uh-oh! The last-ever episode?
If this is, indeed, the last episode then the show went out with a bang and earned itself major cult-status immortality forever with it's (sorta) downbeat ending. This episode had some of the cleverest music the show has ever had. Not funny, for once. But all the music was really, really clever. And the song in the middle was dark. I loved it. Can't wait to have that on my iPod.
Great stuff on Mel and her husband in this one, too. Some of the best Mel scenes, ever, and - to my shock - a 'happy ending' to their story.
A wonderful episode all-round.
Flight Of The Conchords season two episode reviews
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Flight Of The Conchords, The Office, House, Buck Rogers In The 25th Century, Law And Order
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Flight Of The Conchords season one episode reviews
Episode 1. "Sally" Very funny. We meet two guys from New Zealand (Jemaine Clement, Bret McKenzie) who have a band, a really bad manager (Rhys Darby) and a crazy fan (Kristen Schaal). This first story shows us what happens when one of the guys starts to date the ex-girlfriend of the other guy. There are several musical numbers, done as fantasy sequences, and there are a lot of laughs. Good show.
Episode 2. "Bret Gives Up The Dream" Not quite as funny as the first one, but this is still a very enjoyable episode. The fantasy musical numbers are superb and the idea that one of the guys might be forced out of the band and replaced by a casette tape is inspired, but a bit slight when used to sustain an entire episode.
Episode 3. "Mugged" Very funny outing in which the two guys get mugged and... one of the guys runs away! Throwing his friend to the wolves, so to speak. Great musical numbers and laugh-out-loud comedy.
Episode 4. "Yoko" Much goodness in this one. Sutton Foster returns as Coko. Who is now Bret's girlfriend, which leads to disharmony in the band. Foster makes Coko utterly sweet and patient, which perfectly contrasts with the lunacy of the band members fighting over her. She seems like a normal person who just happens to be caught up in the chaos, so the audience feels sympathy for her as she suffers.
Episode 5. "Sally Returns" When I started watching this show I assumed the episodes would be more self-contained. Wrong! It's almost a serial, really. A very funny serial, mind you. Bret's ongoing relationship continues to cause friction. Things only get worse when Jemaine starts dating the girl from Episode 1 again. Bret's ex. The ex he is still madly in love with. Of course, this leads the boys to start competing for her affections. Much to the annoyance of Bret's current girlfriend (the wonderful Sutton Foster). Amid the comedy there's some superb musical numbers, including the sublime Business Time (about making love every Wednesday).
Episode 6. "Bowie" My favourite episode so far. With Coco and Sally out of the picture, the boys are single again and we get a completely self-contained episode. The band gets a shot at making some serious money, but Bret is having some body image issues (Murray, the manager, remarks that he's too small). There are several truly hilarious sequences. My favourite is the band meeting to discuss a new photo for band promotion where they discuss the pros and cons of using a photo that doesn't actually include the band but is still a nice photo of people having fun at a party. Murray has mistakenly circled two people in the photo because he thought they were, in fact, Bret and Jemaine. While not as good as last week's Business Time, the show has a great musical number called Bret, You Got It Going On. And a fake David Bowie appears several times (walking on the walls in one dream sequence).
Episode 7. "Drive By" highlights an ugly world. The world of rampant discrimination against New Zealanders. Yes. I said "rampant discrimination against New Zealanders". I mean, who knew? But, there you go. It's very real. Apparently. They can't buy fruit from stands on the street and they are forced to sit at the back of the bus. And on it goes. Ugly, indeed.
This may be the most insane episode yet of Flight of the Conchords. And I say that while fully conscious of the fact that "David Bowie" was walking on the walls in the previous episode. However, in that instance, we were still in the real world. Or, at least, close to it. With this episode, FotC dives full tilt into Crazy World. And it's a blast. The episode, sadly, has no cool songs up to the standard of previous outings, but it has some truly sublime gags.
Episode 8. "Girlfriends" Once again, the show delivers it's best-ever episode. Bret and Jemaine enter the dating scene at the same time, with predicably un-predicable results (and two great new songs). It's hard to pick out a comedy highlight. Eliza Coupe (soon to star on Scrubs) is hilarious as Bret's sex-mad girlfriend. Bret, like most men, is reticent to enter into sexual relations. Understandable. But there's just no stopping her. She uses him, abuses him and then lies to him to ditch him (she says she's shipping out to the war as a sniper!!). June Raphael is just as awesome as Jemaine's lady. Jemaine envies the active sex life that Bret is leading but is somewhat inept when it comes to starting one for himself and his girlfriend. His best attempt is surely his "I don't want to have sex with you" line. Raphael is priceless in this scene. Bewildered and annoyed and impatient in equal measure.
Murray, meanwhile, meets the brother of Quincy Jones and does some major band business: He buys a stereo system.
Every scene is superb. Worthy of instant rewatching. And the songs are fantastic, too. One is entirely made up of random, but popular, French phrases. Genius.
Episode 9. "What Goes On Tour" I think Murray (the band manager) is my favourite character. He gets to appear in every scene here, as he takes the band on tour. He funds the (ill-fated) tour himself, which leads to a series to hilarious phone conversations with his nagging wife. Murray's ineptitude and rose-tinted vision of what the guys are doing is simply hilarious. So are the series of random disasters that befall the guys on their (not at all) epic journey through some tiny, empty venues.
Episode 10. The band acquire some "New Fans" in this episode. Murray remarks that they have tripled the fan base and - as a consequence - will need to buy two more t-shirts. It's another wonderful episode. Mel, the existing fan, gets a lot of screen-time in this episode and her background is fleshed out somewhat. The songs are cool and it's hard to pick a comedy highlight, although the part where they boys are offered a threesome with one fan is especially hilarious. They debate what to do for ages, before trying to flee her appartment by climbing out the bathroom window. Unfortunately it's an interior window and it leads back to her living room!
Episode 11. "The Actor" is such a funny episode I had aches and pains (from laughing) when it was all over. Murray is depressed because he is such a bad manager and cannot get the boys a recording contract. The boys, meanwhile, meet an actor and ask him to phone Murray, pretend to be a record company executive and tell him to keep on trying, cos he's sure to land a contract eventually. They figure this will cheer their friend up. Lovely sentiments. Unfortunately, the actor gets carried away and convinces Murray that the band have just been signed to a 2 million dollar contract with Sony. Helpless to stop it, the boys meekly carry on with the lie as Murray digs them deeper and deeper into debt, in a effort to fit into the rock and roll lifestyle.
It's one of the funniest things I have ever seen.
Episode 12. "The Third Conchord" Brilliant ending to a brilliant first season. The real genius of this show is the way it managed to wring so much comedy from two basic plots: Someone leaves the band, or someone has a girlfriend. These two elements are at the core of nearly every story from this first season, which makes sense given the characters' general ennui. These guys kinda amble through life, not really trying very hard about anything. (Except, of course, in the majestic musical sequences where they come alive.) In this wonderful outing, there is more band disharmony (but this time for a novel new reason) and several stand-out i-want-to-rewind-and-watch-that-again scenes.
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Battlestar Galactica, The Office, Scrubs, Flight Of The Conchords, Moonlight, Reaper
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