Funeral
Episode 6 of Mr Corman begins with Dax’s funeral. Josh is there to pay his respects, and he tells Dax’s Mum that her son’s final night was a happy one. Unfortunately Josh is forced to relive the incident over and over again, reciting the night’s antics to numerous different family members. Josh eventually bursts outside the house as the stress becomes suffocating. The motif of a sun depicted as an asteroid returns, typifying Josh’s anxiety, while Josh himself finds himself faced with his ex, Megan, after all this time. Anyway, the pair discuss their past and the moments they had together. Josh is obviously still wrapped up in his own self-loathing and as we’ve seen across this season, that is very much in self-destruction mode. The pair show up at Megan’s place, where her parents – Frank and Cheryl – immediately greet Josh and mention how much they’ve missed him. Megan is obviously uncomfortable but Josh takes full advantage of that, leaning into the familiarity of their ties and agreeing to entertain Cheryl for the time being. Well, that is until Cheryl suddenly throws up everywhere. Josh nonchalantly agrees to help clean it up while Megan retreats to her room. Josh completely misreads the situation and tries to kiss her. She doesn’t want to go back, leading to a very awkward silence. As they start talking properly, the pair discuss Josh’s inability to keep living for his dreams. Somewhere along the way he gave up and decided to “settle.” Megan left because of this, thanks in part to Josh’s selfishness and inability to believe in her. His shake of the head and utterance that “I don’t think anyone can do it,” is enough to show just how selfish this man actually is.
The Episode Review
Up until this point Josh has been a pretty unlikable recluse but this episode pushes it one step further. It’s one thig to make a horrible protagonist but it’s another to give him no redeeming features. Every episode thus far has shown Josh wrapped up in his own heady world, but also with numerous loose subplots and strings that have gone absolutely nowhere. What happened to the therapy session? What about the art teacher? Or Caroline? All of this seems to have been completely abandoned for reasons unknown. This episode though turns the attention to Josh and Megan, showing what they once had and how self-absorbed and selfish Josh actually is. That’s not a great position to be in and the show is under no illusions that its main character just isn’t that likable of a guy. Six episodes into this show though and Mr Corman is a series struggling with both an identity and a sense of worth. Hopefully this one can improve over the back-end of episodes but right now it’s hard to see where that inspiration is going to come from.
