Valerie’s biggest win in this episode, though, has nothing to do with her job. After Mark came to her rescue last week, she returns the favor, finally getting him to explain what has been bothering him and what a way forward might be.
This breakthrough happens during a taping of “Finance Dudes,” which makes for a clever bit of staging and the episode’s funniest scene. Mark, it turns out, is very bad at making reality television. He mumbles. He eats and drinks while he talks. He does not know what to do with his hands. And he has no sense of the drama the producers are pushing for, no matter how much Valerie tries to prompt him.
Then the producers throw a curveball. One of the other “F. Dudes” calls to ask about a rumor he heard that Mark got “Me Too’d.” A flustered Mark flees from the cameras, and when Valerie catches up to him, he makes a confession. He didn’t get fired from his old job only because he told a dirty joke. He had a documented history of sleeping with any female underling who flirted back with him. Valerie — always eager to push past anything painful — replies: “Now you know and you do things differently. Isn’t that the point?”
Earlier in the episode, Mark showed Valerie the large back tattoo he got at Burning Man, reading “ANYWHERE ELSE.” He explained that it was a response to his present life, with its constant feelings of personal failure and professional humiliation. After his “Finance Dudes” meltdown, Valerie agrees that his first step toward feeling better about himself is quitting this terrible show.
But she can’t overlook the tattoo, which she has called “a forever reminder that you don’t want to be here.” Similar to how Juna told Valerie not to accept any negative narratives, she tells Mark that he has to stop rejecting everything. He can’t keep saying no to his old life, old friends, old hobbies. He can’t “say no to here,” she adds, with extra urgency.
Then she delivers a few more encouraging words that are really Valerie’s whole motto, and maybe one of the ultimate messages of this series. “Be positive,” she tells Mark. “Because why not?”
To be real
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Jane returns to Valerie’s documentary project the day after Billy fired her, and she brings her own antique camera so she won’t have to use any of NuNet’s equipment. (It is the same camera she used to shoot her Oscar-winning film “The Lesbians of Treblinka.”) Billy begrudgingly accepts her back, explaining her firing was just about “protecting our business.” Jane says she understands. Her business is “protecting humanity.”
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Valerie’s constant chuckling and half-considered pronouncements often make her seem out of touch with what is going on around her. But have you noticed how well she adjusts after making an embarrassing public mistake? Paulie G. made fun of her a couple of episodes ago for not knowing his last name, so when she says goodbye to him, she adds, “Giappino.”
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I also find it revealing that when Mark blanks on the name of his ex-wife — the mother of his daughter! — Valerie is right there with “Mimi.” She says it in the tone of a stepmother who has probably handled a lot of the phone calls about child pickups and drop-offs while her husband was too busy.
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One loose end left untied in this episode: Mark’s old boss has been calling him for some as-yet-unknown reason. Will all end well for him, too?
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Valerie attends a press event for “How’s That?!” and is disappointed to find that the red carpet and the media scrum are both small. Patience explains, “It only has to be big enough to look big in the influencer’s camera.” Such is Hollywood in the 2020s.