How Joe Pera Subverts Adult Swim’s Cynicism
By Michael Burns
We live in a cynical age. As a culture, we’re less inclined than ever to trust institutions, corporations, or the media. While this cynicism manifests brilliantly in shows like Succession or It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, perhaps no network has milked it as effectively and hilariously as Adult Swim. Whether it’s a mad scientist alcoholic exploring the meaninglessness of the multiverse in Rick and Morty, or Eric Andre vomiting during interviews with C-list celebrities willing to do anything for another second of marginal fame, Adult Swim has dominated the realm of cynical comedy for much of the last decade.
This makes it all the more surprising that one of their new shows has all the cynicism of a small child composing a letter to Santa. In Joe Pera Talks with You, the titular comedian plays a fictional version of himself — specifically, a man in his thirties with the cultural preferences of someone over 70 and the naive spirit of someone under 10. If previous Adult Swim shows have pushed the comedic limits of cynicism and surrealism, Joe Pera Talks with You is a case study in the depths of earnestness and humanity.
To give you an idea of just how sincere Joe Pera Talks with You is, all you have to do is look at episode titles like “Joe Pera Takes You to Breakfast,” “Joe Pera Reads You The Church Announcements,” and “Joe Pera Talks to You about Beans.” These titles are not jokes — Pera actually does guide you through the breakfast options at his favorite diner. On first viewing, Joe’s hunched walk and hesitant voice might suggest that the show is setting him up to be the butt of the joke. But that never happens. If anything, the audience can’t help but become more and more charmed by Joe with each episode. And while a comedic lead normally has an entourage of oddball friends their age, Joe’s best friends are his grandma, Nana, and Gene, a neighbor who is at least thirty years his senior.
In one of the most simple episodes of the current season, “Joe Pera Waits with You,” Joe, indeed, waits for his Nana at the hair salon while socializing with some of her friends. But, rather than speaking himself, Joe sits back and listens. This allows him (and the viewer) to pay close attention to this group of mostly non-actors as they discuss their dreams, lives, and mortality. Effectively, it imbues these seemingly-peripheral characters with a genuine dose of humanity.
While the show can be read as an antidote to our culture of cynicism, its unadulterated earnestness actually becomes actively subversive. A good example of this comes with the episode titled “Joe Pera Goes to Dave Wojeck’s Bachelor Party with You,” in which Joe is invited to a bachelor party with some stereotypical dudes who are hoping to capture the energy of The Hangover films in the Michigan forest. Before leaving for the trip, Joe expresses some anxieties about his ability to make friends with people his own age, saying, “If only there was a book called How to Connect with Other Men in Your Mid-Thirties, I would read the whole thing, and then, be the life of the party.” Everything seems set up for a predictable scenario in which Joe is bullied and rejected by a group of guys that likely prefers strip clubs to choir practice.
But instead, it turns into an oddly sweet and vulnerable exploration of male fragility. When Joe interrupts the drinking games to ask if anyone wants to go on a hike with him, he’s not mocked, but instead thanked for the offer. And Carlos, the drunk frat boy type who initially comes off as insufferable, ends the episode in tears as he talks about his mother’s illness. Even Joe’s strikingly-unlikable neighbor, Mike Melsky, reveals that his anger stems from grief over his wife kicking him out. In less than ten minutes, this bachelor party reveals more about humanity than all three Hangover films combined.
While the show has consistently used this earnest tone to find humor in a decidedly non-cynical way, the ninth and tenth episodes push this to a whole new level. In “Joe Pera Has a Surprise for You,” Joe joyfully gifts home-grown beans to his friends and neighbors. He continues to celebrate his successful bean-growing by cashing in a hundred and fifteen dollars worth of change at a Coinstar machine and then hiding the cash in a town two hours away, all so that he can “do a rat race” for his friends.
What starts out as a ridiculous recreation of the regrettable 2001 movie Rat Race is quickly revealed to be one of the most devastatingly beautiful things to hit television in years. After two of his friends set off on the rat race, Joe gets a phone call from the hospital and leaves in a panic. We soon learn that Nana has passed away, and Joe is devastated. The next episode, first titled “Joe Pera Helps you Write” (since revealed to be titled “Joe Pera Helps you Write an Obituary”) finds Joe unable to put his love for his grandmother into words. In the final moments of the episode, his girlfriend, Sarah, finds a plate of leftover meatballs that Nana made for Joe before she passed. The episode closes in silence as Joe prepares and eats the last thing Nana will ever make for him. Best of luck in making it through this two-episode gut-punch without crying, as it explores the type of raw humanity the best playwrights can only dream of.
This fearlessness in affirming and exploring the emotional depths of normal folks from a small Michigan town is what makes this show so special. Rather than criticizing our culture from a detached and cynical position, the show instead celebrates the beautiful mundanity of humanity by taking its characters seriously. At its best, the show encourages the viewer to bring a bit of that naive curiosity and earnestness to their own life. While many of the other shows that have made Adult Swim so successful have satirized everyday American life for comedic effect, Joe Pera Talks with You does the opposite and locates something special in these seemingly normal moments. Plus, you’ll learn a lot about beans.
