The Audacity may as well take place on a foreign planet sometimes\u2014one where autonomous vehicles are just part of the scenery, and the residents speak a language indecipherable to most humans. But an episode like \u201cVanitas\u201d can bring things back to Earth, showing that just as the tremors that begin in Silicon Valley wind up shaking the entire world, the reality the other 99.9% of us live in still shapes the one Duncan Park calls home.<\/p>\n
And try as the Valley natives might to wall themselves off from the hoi polloi, people who weren\u2019t born and raised in the shadow of the dot com bubble and the Web 2.0 gold rush continue to flock there. Not all of them by choice: \u201cVanitas\u201d advances the storylines of The Audacity\u2019s insiders, but it also gives a wider berth to the outsiders\u2014more than any other episode to date. Through Dr. Webb, Orson, and Tom, we witness the seductive, destructive pull of living near all this power, money, and influence. And through JoAnne and Gary\u2014relative outsiders who\u2019ve been here much longer than the other three\u2014we get a glimpse at the panic that sets in when even the teensiest taste of insiderdom is threatened.<\/p>\n
Cleverly, this facet of the episode sets in in a space and within dynamics that are readily recognizable to the average viewer: a high school. The kids give their stomping ground over to the adults for a portion of \u201cVanitas,\u201d and like so many aspects of contemporary American life (derogatory), their conflicts, jealousies, anxieties, and ruses feel right at home in the classrooms and hallways of Las Altas. Hot popular kids Duncan and Anushka have a quickie in an unused classroom, not knowing that the quiet loner from the robotics team, Martin, is spying on them. When JoAnne gives Duncan the heads up about an imminent ouster at the AI firm Smote, she may as well pass it to him on a folded-up piece of paper. And everyone\u2019s curious and confused about what the new kid, Dr. Webb, did at her old school.<\/p>\n
Las Altas\u2019 principal is the one character who really carries this material with her through the end of the episode. Her trip to Napa to visit a mega-donor with Lili morphs\u2014over the course of a canceled appointment, a trip to the spa, and a boozy dinner\u2014into a slumber party between burgeoning BFFs. (Complete with prank calls!) This in spite of Lili providing an explanation for that puzzled look Dr. Webb gave to her introduction in the premiere, as well as her inability to recall some Harvard haunts earlier in \u201cVanitas.\u201d Turns out Mrs. Park-Hoffsteader meant to offer the Las Altas principal job to a different Black, female educator who spoke at that Aspen conference.<\/p>\n
That racist oopsie could\u2019ve been cause for Dr. Webb to say, \u201cThanks, but no thanks,\u201d but it\u2019s more complicated than that. Her daughter\u2019s enrolled at Las Altas, and that gives her a big leg up for her future admission to Stanford. And so Dr. Webb\u2019s going to have to roll Lili\u2019s drunken mistake into a big fib about not earning all of her degrees at the (highly respected, if not as prestigious) University Of Wisconsin. And to the advantage of The Audacity\u2019s growing web of ruinous secrets, it gives each of them leverage over their newfound friend.<\/p>\n
And even with all the subterfuge and potential for backstabbing this storyline creates, it is a refreshing change of pace to watch Rukiya Bernard and Lucy Punch yuk it up over that dinner while their characters bond over shared experiences that are only tangentially related to tech. It just goes to show you that even the most genuine connections in this world are slightly compromised; it\u2019s also a sign of the Valley sinking its claws into Dr. Webb. The pampering, the free-flowing wine, the camaraderie\u2014that all makes up for hiding her true credentials (which, again, are sterling!) and putting up with pushy parents like Anushka, right? Or, at least, that\u2019s plausibly something that a character in a satire like The Audacity would try to justify to themselves.<\/p>\n
Likewise, whatever morally gray decisions JoAnne will have to make to find the $7 million she needs to buy her home from her late landlord\u2019s daughter. There\u2019s just so much packed into this particular turn: It cranks up the heat on JoAnne, who\u2019s fielding voice mails from Duncan at all hours of the night and just lost a major client after missing Carl\u2019s session last week. (So the \u201cOrson\u2019s stool sample\u201d subplot was worth something in the end.) It also adds a new wrinkle to the themes expressed in Dr. Webb\u2019s storyline, showing the outcome and consequences of giving oneself over too fully to the Silicon Valley fantasy. (And Duncan\u2019s actions with Gnodin this week really emphasize the importance of fantasy and magical thinking to these people.)<\/p>\n
But I think it\u2019s some good clockwork plotting, too. The landlord\u2019s death isn\u2019t an outcome of JoAnne\u2019s insider trading and testy arrangement with Duncan, but it is a complication that could drive her deeper into her deal with the devil. And when the secrets she\u2019s feeding him are being passed off as \u201cinformation with insight\u201d generated by Gnodin (a delicious twisting of JoAnne\u2019s \u201cinformation isn\u2019t insight\u201d line), it just entwines their fates further. On top of all that: Somebody has to find a way to pay for Orson\u2019s gut tincture once that dubious four-figure bill comes through.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s hoping the remedy works, because I think the show has gone as far as it can with \u201chas irritable bowels and is painfully shy\u201d as the defining traits of Orson\u2019s character and arc. It at least seems like it\u2019s ready to give Everett Blunck a little more to do: In another fine example of one storyline\u2019s progression impacting another\u2019s, Duncan swiping his missing tungsten cube from the Las Altas trophy case during parent-teacher night lends new urgency to the indirect flirtation between Orson and Tess. Sure, they\u2019re still not speaking to one another yet\u2014outside of Thailey Roberge\u2019s funny reading of \u201cHey, are you like Gary Jr.?\u201d after Tess spots Orson on the way out of her session\u2014but they\u2019ve established their own style of conversation. It\u2019s hard to call anything on The Audacity \u201csweet,\u201d but the image of Gary\u2019s pilfered Freud bust on display in the hallway, coupled with the music of The Divine Comedy, is touching in a cockeyed way that suits the show.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s where Orson\u2019s medical issues ring false for me. Something as ambitious as The Audacity ought to temper its highbrow humor with some lowbrow gags, but the kid getting so nervous about being confronted by his crush that he shits his pants? It\u2019s a shade of juvenile that clashes with the rest of the show\u2014even with all the emotionally stunted giant babies with money<\/a> running around. Ditto the office-supply fight club where Duncan tracks down Carl and bad-news Smote CEO Lee Orlando, who JoAnne conveniently forgot to mention is a Bardolph protege. (No information nor insight going into that Gnodin demo.) We\u2019re in a heightened reality here, but computer mouse nunchucks and a wrist rest cudgel temporarily take \u201cVanitas\u201d to cartoonish heights that aren\u2019t particularly funny or keeping in the more grounded spirit of the world that\u2019s been built around them.<\/p>\n Maybe it\u2019s a signal of absurd escalations on the horizon; Anushka contending with the tubing and wiring choking the Bhattachera-Phister garage is a gag rooted in similar silliness. But that one lands because it\u2019s one of the show\u2019s most levelheaded characters dealing with the bizarre inconveniences of her life. That\u2019s even more pronounced in Tom\u2019s big scene this week, where he righteously rejects Duncan\u2019s data-mining plans for the VA contract. It\u2019s been a rough extended stay for the deputy undersecretary, but this naked display of cynicism from the guy who has a playground slide in his office is the final straw. Jeffrey hangs back in a futile effort to salvage the deal, but Tom\u2019s silent exit from Hypergnosis HQ says it all. He\u2019s sincere in his desire to help people. He can\u2019t do that beside Duncan, someone who\u2019s trying to disprove the test results that labeled him an empathetic person.<\/p>\n This is a Bizarro World, its topsy-turvy rules, law, and etiquette entirely flummoxing to everyday people like Tom. A government contract isn\u2019t a way to create change\u2014it\u2019s a way to make money turn into more money. A grieving daughter\u2019s top priority is selling a house out from under its current residents. Dishonesty is rewarded at every turn, whether it\u2019s Duncan passing off the Orlando gossip he got from JoAnne as something Gnodin predicted, or it\u2019s Dr. Webb lying about where she went to school.<\/p>\n The cruel irony of \u201cVanitas\u201d is that, when you lay it all out like that, the world of The Audacity doesn\u2019t feel all that dissimilar to our own.<\/p>\n Stray observations<\/b><\/p>\n\n