Watching a television pilot can be a lot like going on a first date. It starts off awkward. The jokes aren’t landing, the timing’s all wrong. Maybe you drink a little more than usual hoping some good ol’ social lubricant can provide the situation with the sheen that it’s so desperately lacking. But you’re an optimist, a Pollyanna, a firm believer in the better angels of our nature. Just give it another chance, you think, and surely things will get better.
I suppose this could be read as an attempt to mock Taylor Swift and her legion of zealots rather than a jab at the hearing impaired, but it doesn’t land that way. The joke is more reminiscent of the shitty little boy on the playground who makes fun of the kids in special ed. And frankly even if it had worked, a takedown of Swift hardly feels like fresh social criticism. Either way you look at it, the gag is low-hanging fruit.
Like racism, homosexuality and homophobia are fair game. But I’m surprised that Murphy seems so intent on taking us back to a J. Edgar Hoover-level of paranoia about the insidious threat of gays in society. A bearded, bomb-wielding Bolshevik would feel only slightly more anachronistic.
