Man Seeking Woman “Cactus” Review: Required Viewing for All Men

Why last night’s Man Seeking Woman is required viewing for all men

Most sitcoms treat the nice guy as the hero of his own story. “Cactus” does the opposite. Josh Greenberg, played by Jay Baruchel, has spent the run-up to this episode behaving like a candidate on a campaign trail, stacking up favors for Rosa and waiting for the votes to come in. When they do not, the show lets him write a law about it.

That is the reason last night’s Man Seeking Woman is required viewing for all men, and not only for the ones who have been on the receiving end of the “you’re so great, but” speech. The episode is built on a simple, uncomfortable observation: the ledger a lot of men keep in their heads, with every favor entered as a deposit, is a fantasy that only one party knows exists.

Man Seeking Woman comes from writer Simon Rich, who adapted it from his 2013 book of short stories, The Last Girlfriend on Earth, and the series turns dating anxiety into literal events. Here, an ex-boyfriend can be Jesus Christ and a rejection can happen with the end of the world as a backdrop. Season 2 premiered on January 6, 2016, ran for ten episodes and ended on March 9. “Cactus” was directed by Bill Benz from a script by Marika Sawyer, and it sits in the middle of the run, where the show is at its most confident.

The nice-guy complaint has a long life outside television. It tends to start with a decent impulse, help someone you like, and drift into a transaction in which the other person is expected to respond in kind. The trouble is that she never agreed to the exchange. Josh’s story gives that drift a clean shape: effort in, affection out, and a furious sense of unfairness when the machine does not pay. The episode never mocks the kindness itself. It mocks the invoice.

Recap: the move, the movie and the asteroid

Rosa, played by Rosa Salazar, has just broken up with her boyfriend, who happens to be Jesus Christ. Josh sees an opening and volunteers to help her move out of his place and into her new apartment, a favor that doubles as a bid for brownie points. The two get along. Over boxes and furniture they discover a shared guilty pleasure: Must Love Dogs, the 2005 romantic comedy with John Cusack.

As Josh is about to leave, the movie airs on television and he stays to watch. Midway through, a news alert breaks in to announce that a giant asteroid will hit Earth in seven minutes and end all life. The anchors urge viewers to finally say what they have been holding back, so Josh does. He makes his move, and Rosa recoils.

Her answer is the cruelest kind of kind. She tells him he is great, sweet and funny, and then asks to be his friend, calling friendship the highest level of intimacy. The asteroid is destroyed anyway, the world carries on, and Josh is left with the one thing the apocalypse would have spared him: the rest of the week.

The Nice Law

At lunch with his best friend Mike, played by Eric André, Josh announces what he has concluded: women never date nice guys, and the system ought to correct that. Why shouldn’t you be required to date the person who is nicest to you? Within a scene he is standing in front of a panel of judges, retelling the asteroid story to pitch “The Nice Law.” One judge calls it reasonable, since nice guys deserve a reward, and the panel passes a bill under which a man who is really, really nice to you becomes your boyfriend.

The courtroom scene works because nobody in it hesitates. The judges are as sure of the logic as Josh is, which is how the fantasy tends to feel from the inside.

Chainsaw and the punchline

The law gets its first test within minutes. A homeless man named Chainsaw holds the door open for Josh outside his apartment building, Josh walks past without a word, and Chainsaw follows him in to be acknowledged. Josh thanks him for the kind gesture, and that is all it takes. Under the new statute, Josh now has a boyfriend.

What follows is a scene that is funny and uncomfortable in equal measure. Chainsaw takes the law at its word, unzips his pants, and begins to act on it, Josh yelps, and he tries to argue his way out by explaining that he wrote the rule for a different purpose. Chainsaw keeps handing Josh’s own words back to him: you were nice to me, I like you, that is how it works. Only when Josh says it aloud does the point land. Being nice to Rosa never obligated her to anything, and she is entitled to sleep with whoever she chooses or nobody at all.

“Cactus” at a glance

• Series: Man Seeking Woman, created by Simon Rich, on FXX.
• Episode: Season 2, episode 7 (episode 17 overall), first aired February 17, 2016.
• Credits: Directed by Bill Benz, written by Marika Sawyer.
• Main cast: Jay Baruchel as Josh, Eric André as Mike, Rosa Salazar as Rosa.
• Central joke: a law that forces anyone to date the person who is nicest to them.

“Cactus” review: the verdict

The strongest choice in the episode is the asteroid. Setting the rejection against the end of the world makes the moment absurd, and the news anchors egging Josh on give him the push that real life rarely supplies. Then the script takes the push away. Josh gets his big romantic gesture, it fails, and the planet survives. Nothing in the story rewards him for being brave, which is the lesson of the whole half hour.

Baruchel plays the slide from wounded to entitled to horrified with a nervy energy that never tips into self-pity. Salazar has the harder job, because Rosa must stay likable while delivering a rejection that sounds like a compliment. Her speech is soft, and her refusal is firm.

There is one soft spot. The Chainsaw thread leans on a homeless man as the instrument of Josh’s humiliation, and the scene would have landed just as well with any other stranger who happened to hold the door. It is a small flaw, and the dialogue around it is sharp enough that the episode survives it.

The writing also deserves credit for the order of events. A lesser version would have let Josh learn from Rosa. Here he learns from the worst possible student of his own rule, a man who applies it with total sincerity. That is the logic of the show at work: take a bad idea, follow it to the end, and let the idea do the arguing. Mike, meanwhile, serves as the straight man at lunch, and Eric André gets laughs from how little he needs to say.

The verdict is easy. For anyone who has ever kept score in a friendship, or who knows a person who does, “Cactus” is the best argument the season makes. Watch it if you have been the nice guy, and watch it twice if you have been the friend on the other end of that speech. It is also a rare half hour that gives a hard truth to the men in the audience without scolding them. The jokes do the correcting, and the correction sticks because it arrives as embarrassment, not a sermon. The detail that stays is the movie itself: two people bonding over Must Love Dogs, which is exactly how an ordinary evening becomes a very awkward one.

Sources

• Man Seeking Woman, Wikipedia — cast, season 2 episode list and air dates