April Binges Part 2: Company Retreat, Twenty Twenty Six, The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins

I have been watching a lot of comedies this month and binged my way through two, while reaching the very satisfying finale of another one I had been watching week-to-week. Now they are all available to give you a giggle and some respite from reality. Dive in!

Company Retreat: This is from the creators of Jury Duty, but obviously you cannot just keep faking jury duty all the time, so this time, creators Gene Stupnitsky and Lee Eisenberg decided to hire an unsuspecting man named Anthony as a temp for a fake company called Rockin' Grandma's Hot Sauce. Anthony joins the company and gets to know the wacky staff, and a week later, he is whisked away on their annual company retreat. He thinks the camera crew are just there to film a documentary about small businesses, but little does he know there's a whole operation behind-the-scenes that are filming him at every turn and trying to see what he will do in increasingly chaotic situations.

Much like Ronald in Jury Duty, I don't know how the show's producers managed to find such a gem of a man, but it's wonderful to watch Anthony just roll with the punches and make some deep and meaningful connections with these strangers. Things fall apart real fast, but Anthony, the good-natured temp, is always ready with a smile and some calming words to help defuse the situation and get his zany colleagues back on track. They even capture a moment when he says that everything is so nuts that you couldn't write a script to match it, which the show's writers obviously got a real kick out of.

The penultimate episode is where Anthony really gets to shine as the hero, making a grand gesture to help save this company and the people he has come to love over the course of such a short time. And then in the final eighth episode, we get the grand reveal where the show's producers walk him through just what has been going on for the past two weeks and we get some insights into the production design and rehearsal process that took place months before filming. It's such a massively creative endeavor, and it's insane to think that it requires everything running on rails - sometimes they don't, and we get treated to some moments when the actors had to quickly cover up a mistake, or the moments when they simply couldn't stop laughing. It's a very funny show, but mostly it's an extraordinarily heartfelt show that reminds us that there are still some very good humans out there in the world.

Twenty Twenty Six: I had no idea that creator John Morton was doing this show until I randomly saw a YouTube ad for it and discovered all six episodes were now available to binge. Which I proceeded to do in a heartbeat. Hugh Bonneville is back as Ian Fletcher, the man that we got to meet in Twenty Twelve, when he was helping to plan the 2012 London Summer Olympics, and W1A when he was trying to help re-brand the BBC. This time, he's in Miami, trying to help organize the 2026 FIFA World Cup (the show has to bleep "FIFA" anytime a character says it, which makes for an amusing running gag).

Much like those other shows, Ian finds himself amidst a group of weirdos, all of whom are trying to promote their agendas, and simply cannot answer a single question with a straight answer. There's the Zurich liaison, Eric (Alexis Michalik), who is absolutely no help in a crisis; the Sustainability champion (and potential love interest), Sarah (Chelsea Crisp), who is passionately pushing initiatives to make the games more environmentally-friendly but fighting a losing battle; Gabriela (Jimena Larraguivel), a Mexican woman who is heading up Optics and Narrative and wants every match to be held in her home country; Nick (Paulo Costanzo), the extremely volatile Business and Legal head, who is as New York as they come; Owen (Stephen Kunken) the head of Logistics, who doesn't seem to realize that's his job; and then Phil (Nick Blood) a Mancunian who loves David Beckham but otherwise doesn't know what's going on. And of course, they all have to deal with the social media team, who know nothing about football, but are going to try to market the hell out of it anyway.

The only other character who is back from the other shows is Will (Hugh Skinner), as Ian's bumbling assistant. Here, he continues to be thoroughly lost but still failing upwards, and it's fun to see how his every mistake turns into a potential win for this hapless team. Every episode features yet another bizarre crisis that requires quick decision-making and strategic problem-solving, which are of course, anathema to this group. And yet, they always manage to pull something out of the hat at the eleventh hour and save the day in some extremely improbable fashion. Each episode is only a half hour long, but I could watch these people talk in their strange double-speak for hours, saying absolutely nothing but talking a mile a minute anyway. It's truly the best of British humor, and while I don't care about the World Cup at all, I'm so grateful for it just because it allowed me to get another season of this absolute chaos.

The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins: Created by Robert Carlock and Sam Means, this is exactly the show you want if you've been missing the zany stylings of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt or 30 Rock. Also, like Kimmy Schmidt, you may find yourself singing the theme song (composed by Jack Grabow) every single time you turn it on. 

Tracy Morgan stars as Reggie Dinkins, a famous football player who became infamous once he was caught gambling and was ignominiously kicked out of the NFL. Now, an Oscar-winning documentarian, Arthur (Daniel Radcliffe, in an incredibly delicious comic role), has arrived to film Reggie and his life, in the hopes of rehabilitating his image. Arthur himself has had a fall from grace after he was fired from directing a superhero blockbuster. He has a lot to prove, but a documentary about Reggie Dinkins may not be the best way to do that. Meanwhile, Reggie's support system consists of his ex-wife Monica (Erika Alexander), who is still his manager and is very close to him as they co-parent their teenage son Carmelo (Jalyn Hall); his best friend Rusty (Bobby Moynihan), who was his former teammate and is a very lovable doofus; and his fiancée Brina (Precious Way), a young entrepreneur who is always hustling to find a new side hustle, and fits right into the madness.

This is a show that is incredibly joke-dense. Forget the actual plot and storylines, half of the time you will find yourself dying of laughter at side gags involving fake TV shows like FDNY: Chicago, where New York firefighters go to Chicago to fight fires but keep forgetting the time difference or losing their hoses at O'Hare. If that sounds like the spectacularly dumb but hilarious comedy you're into, then buckle up, because this show has ten episodes of the stuff to deliver. All of the actors are having a great time, and who knew Tracy Morgan and Daniel Radcliffe were the comedy duo we had all been missing in our lives?! The show also has a tremendous amount of heart and is so good-natured. Everyone on this show loves and supports each other, even if they are the most ridiculous people on the planet, and every time you watch an episode, you are bound to laugh out loud at least once and then leave with a big smile on your face.