Chris Miller & Phil Lord's The Last Man on Earth

If Phil was nonwhite it would make the nonwhite person look like a jackass. If Carol was nonwhite then the only nonwhite would be a control freak and Phil's attempts to ditch her for Melissa would take on a different tone. If Melissa was nonwhite then it would make it the nonwhite person an object of lust. If Todd was nonwhite then Phil's attempts to undermine him would make him seem racist.

In the future I think they should work harder to cast nonwhite actors though.

I mean, Mel Rodriguez is Hispanic.

We don't know about Todd yet, granted, because it's not like no TV show has ever cast a white-looking person and refused to acknowledge the actor's race, but still.

It's been renewed for Season 2.

Watching the new episodes. Phil's sleaziness is starting to get really old. It was funny at first but now it's just annoying.

Well, he finally hit rock bottom on that and seems to have turned a corner. Although it still doesn't come out well for him: he lied until lying absolutely stopped working. Next episode preview seems to bear fruit on that, however, it seems like the new arrivals can see the logic behind him feeling like he had to go with Carol, and acknowledging that they weren't right for each other but had to "get married" under the presumption that they were the last two people in North America.

I still think he and Carol work for each other. They're both... not good people. Carol just does a better job of looking innocent.

Only up to episode where they get married and January Jones shows up at the end so don't know how sane the new folk are but yeah, Phil and Carol are both batshit crazy, just in opposite ways. It's Chaotic Stupid vs Lawful Stupid.

Is this show just going to continue torturing Phil? It gets kind of old.

Idk, now he has company in his misery with Todd, which was nice to see.

Though surely they could have settled for one of them to be called "Phil" and one to be called "Miller." Would have been less humiliating, and the veteran might have gone for it since he'd be used to folks calling him that.

Phil could have just lied about his middle name. It's not like anyone would ever find out.

On another note apparently nonwhite people did survive the apocalypse.

Half of the humor comes from Phil being exceptionally dim, which is odd because he seems to have taken a competence dive since the early episodes where he came up with the "Alive in Tuscon" idea and gave Carol running water for her garden.

I would have figured one of them would have thought of solar power, though. That's like, the only benefit to picking Tuscon.

Of course, any time Phil lies, it inevitably blows up in his face, so it's sorta a no-win situation.

This was a better episode, illustrating that most of them are not that much better people than Phil when it comes down to it, all the horny women scrambling for the hot guy is a nice bit of gender-balance, and it's good to see Phil have a companion in Todd.

Next episode preview suggests that Miller is going to try to force Phil to leave town in the season finale, however.

and it happened. Phil's attempted murder of Todd gets out, new-Phil rightfully judges him to be a threat to the community, kidnaps him and successfully leaves him in the desert, with two days of supplies which Phil squanders in minutes. Carol rescues him, they drive off into the sunrise. Phil has a brother on the International Space Station.

I believe this show can officially be labeled a "dramedy." Things have gotten incredibly dark, thankfully, while still maintaining a ton of laughs. Finally, HECK YEAH, Jason Suedikis! It's an SNL reunion! I can't wait for the second season. This is going to be awesome.

So how are things going to work now? Do we just focus on Phil and Carol's wacky roadtrip antics or are we going to flip between them and the Tucson gang?

I've read some interviews. We haven't seen the last of the Tucson gang. Also, they planned to originally show Tandy's brother in earlier episodes and cut to him doing random space things, but they moved it to this. They hinted that he might come to Earth and some cut drafts where flashbacks show Tandy being jealous of him.

What interviews be these?

I just looked up The Last Man On Earth and clicked on the "News" tab. At least six things popped up.

*9

This only really hit me a little while ago: Phil, in the show, used to be smart and supportive.

I get that his character got so distracted by all the hot women that he completely forgot to help the community like he did in the first episode, but it shows how one dimensional he's become. Before, even if he wasn't crazy about her, Phil still begrudgingly helped her. It was overcoming a small personal conflict. Now he's gone so for as to sabotage others for a bit of recognition and learned utterly nothing every time. He's got zero nuance anymore.

Arrrgghh - that makes me angry! I like this show, but they chipped and chipped at the potential character growth until all he had of Phil, Carol and Melissa was a one-note mess then joined by other one-note personalities.

I didn't see the most recent episode, though. What are the odds that that just fixed everything I'm complaining about here?

edited 11th May '15 8:04:30 AM by Tartra

Here's the thing: Phil was willing to help Carol because she was the only one around. Not because he's a good person, but because he craves human interaction and he can't alienate the only other person in existence. But each subsequent addition to the cul-de-sac means, in theory, he can be pulled out of Carol's orbit, towards more "rational" people. Except he can't, because the "rational" people understand that ditching your wife because you've found better companionship is a dick move. So rather than do the thing everyone wants him to do, which is basically not to be a self-centered dick, he's elected to buddy up to anyone who enters his orbit and fake comradery. For him, effort is a last resort.

I guess what I don't like is that he never hits that sort of last resort again. It seemed to switch to being, 'Crap, I have to seem less scummy by comparison!' (and then he ran out of comparisons to be less scummy than) rather than the 'Ugh, okay, I guess I have to make up for this' angle they looked like they'd be going for in the first episode.

The Dunk the Skunk episode kinda tried it again, but I think even that was a better-by-comparison stunt, only between Phil Now vs. Phil from Five Minutes Ago.

edited 13th May '15 11:20:40 AM by Tartra

There was also him having a heart-to-heart with Melissa.

The thing is you can only make up for things so many times and his mistakes just kept getting bigger and bigger.

Last night's episode was a doozy.

Christ, I'm dense. I just realized that the freaking show was created by Phil Lord and Chris Miller.

I'm disappointed in The Last Man On Earth for killing Lewis, and not just because he was the only LGBT character. I'm not quite sure how to say this without sounding dumb, but I know that this is a show about the apocalypse, but I just don't want every single episode to have something depressing happen. Also, I think it represents a missed opportunity. Lewis could have caught a glimpse of Kristen Wiig's character while flying and kickstarted a new story arc.

edited 12th Mar '17 7:50:35 PM by MiscellaneousSoup