Zack invites Reed to come play basketball with him and some of his friends. Reed agrees, but it turns out that Zack’s friends are just kids. Reed doesn’t want to play anymore, but Zack convinces him to help out, as they’re down a player. ..
Reed initially struggles in the game. But when the kids start to tease him, he steps it up. In his excitement, however, he accidentally slams a basketball into the youngest kid’s face and breaks his nose. ..
A girl gets the incident on video and posts it to social media alleging that Reed is antisemitic. Reed tries to steal her phone, but this is caught on camera by another girl. ..
Zack and the girls agree to a deal: Zack will take them to prom, and they won’t leak the videos.
Hannah, meanwhile, struggles to keep Clay from messing up his lines. And Gordon can’t keep the writers’ room from devolving into chaos. Bree keeps interrupting others with ideas of how to make her character look good.
Eventually, Hannah and Gordon decide to switch jobs. But Hannah doesn’t have an easy time with Bree either. When she makes it clear that Bree isn’t helping, the actress leaves. ..
Selma tells Bree that if she wants to make it in a writers’ room, she has to lose the vanity, be extremely funny, and make others notice her talent.
Bree decides to go back in. Instead of making a vain suggestion, she pitches an actual joke. Hannah and the other writers love it, and Bree gets a taste of what it’s like being a writer.
Gordon tries using a “tough love’ approach with Clay to help him get through his line. But nothing works.
Eventually, he asks Clay how his drinking has gotten worse than it used to be. Clay says that drinking used to help him through it, but now he’s trying to stay sober. ..
Gordon has an idea. He goes up to Clay, hugs him tight, and asks him to read his line. Clay reads it without a hitch. He’s finally done–but he takes a while longer to let go of Gordon.
After a long day’s work, Hannah and Gordon congratulate themselves on their jobs.
The Episode Review
Keegan Michael-Key delivers a comical, slapstick performance in a rather odd basketball game. Other than that, there’s not much to invest one in this episode of Reboot.
The episode “The One with the Baby Shower” was disappointing because it focused too much on Hannah and Gordon and not enough on Bree and Clay. Their characters were undeveloped and their goals were unclear, which made the episode feel superficial. ..
There is an equivalence drawn between the actions of Hannah and Gordon. Whereas Hannah does nothing to encourage Bree (why didn’t writers have her go out to talk to the actress instead of Selma?), Gordon at least provides some sense of comfort for Clay. ..
