‘Avenue 5’ Recap: ‘Are You a Spider, Matt?’

Written by John Edward Betancourt

THIS IS THE EMERGENCY SPOILER ALERT SYSTEM. YOU ARE ADVISED TO READ AT YOUR OWN RISK.

​When a massive crisis arrives in our lives, the kind that seems to go on ad nauseam, there’s one thing that all of us seek out in order to be free of its trappings; a distraction. Because unfortunately, a crisis related routine tends to give us time to overthink, or it makes us feel as though we are in a rut. But a distraction, of any kind, well it can engender hope where there is none and provide us with a wonderful escape from our worries and our troubles and it just so happens, that distraction served as the focal point of the next episode of Avenue 5. Which is a good thing, since tensions aboard the ship are at an all-time high and thankfully, the distraction in question… just so happened to be as funny as possible.
 
Because Frank and Spike and Doug were just admiring the poo ring surrounding the ship one fine evening and came to realize that they probably saw a face within the mess, that looked a lot like Pope John Paul. And once word got out to the rest of the ship that a holy man’s face might be embedded in human fecal matter, well there was no stopping crowds from gathering and paying tribute to his holy poopness. Which was a damn funny distraction to inject into this tale, because it is one that you really didn’t see coming in the slightest and of course, something as simple and as goofy as this, found a way to create all kinds of problems for Mister Judd.
 
For this shrine to stink was on the First Class Deck and a paying customer named Harrison Ames, who just so happened to be a trillionaire, wasn’t cool with having ‘riff-raff’ hang out near his massive suite. Which prompted him to threaten a massive lawsuit against Judd if they didn’t vacate ASAP and his decision to come after Judd, led to some incredibly hilarious moments. Because Ames is Judd’s nemesis, one that knows how to get the best of him, and it was quite incredible to see someone on this ship put Judd in his place on a consistent basis and leave him speechless in the process, despite Matt’s best attempts to teach him some snarky comebacks. 
 
But while Judd’s serving of humble pie was quite delightful to watch in its own right, what truly makes this episode stand out, is that it found a way to explore how distraction can actually be quite helpful. Because Billie was in need of one as well, after discovering the rescue plan was going to be difficult to pull off with a captain that’s never docked a ship, and spending a little time with Jordan and his humor allowed for an epiphany to arrive. One that made her realize there was a good chance she could use good old physics to get the ship back to Earth far quicker than expected and that really was quite the lovely surprise, one that comes with its own inherent risks.
 
Because Captain Clark has far less time now to learn how to dock the ship, meaning it is going to take some hardcore work to get the captain ready for this task and it should be interesting to see what other chaotic complications prevent that from happening. Because this is the Avenue 5 we are talking about here, where nothing goes right. But before we get ahead of ourselves, it’s best we take a moment to celebrate one hilarious episode, one that finally saw Judd be put in his place and one that offered hope to the passengers and crew, if only for a little while. But most importantly, this is an episode that also taught us a supremely important lesson in that, don’t stare a glowing ring of poop for too long when you’re under distress, or you might see some weird s#it. Until next time.

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