Love Episode 3 “Tested” Review
By Joaquin Gonzalez
Grade: C+
Much like “One Long Day” (S1.E2), most of what happens in this third entry seems inessential,
and it doesn’t elicit the amount of laughs necessary to carry a show that’s not really about
anything, in the sense of a dramatic plot.
After having spent all of the previous episode together, the camera follows Gus and Mickey
separately once more as they go back to their workplaces and usual routines the next day.
Unfortunately, what ensues is the beating of a dead horse in terms of character development.
It’s already been established that Mickey is insecure and prone to rash decisions! We get that
Gus is such a doormat that everyone and anyone can have their way with him! The repeated
exposition of those traits, albeit through different situations, is starting to feel like filler; the
stuff that students throw into their essays and papers when they need to reach a certain word
count and run out of good material far short of that goal.
There are positives too, however. Iris Apatow, by now familiar to us for appearing in her
father’s work, is great as Arya, the child star that Gus works with. We get to see a whole new
dimension of her during this episode, which ends with a nice moment between tutor and tutee.
So far, these kinds of introspective moments are where the show has been at it’s best; the
problem is that there haven’t been many of them since the pilot.
To be fair, television series often take a little while to really get going, and maybe this one is
meant to be binge watched, as is popular on its Netflix platform. But right now, “Love” feels like
it doesn’t know what it wants to be. It’s stuck somewhere in between another Apatow rom-
com film and a quirky, loosely serial mini-series like Aziz Ansari’s “Master of None”, without
being as funny as either of those things.
All that said, these issues haven’t caused the past two episodes to be bad; merely pedestrian.
Given Apatow’s pedigree, it’s probably worth it to keep watching to see if “Love” picks up some
steam.