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.