Season 3, Episode 4 (originally aired July 8): “Sexual Healing”
Microsynopsis: Kunal Nayyar as Sanjay, also known as Neil from a Season 2 episode, returns to the bar to make amends as a recovering sex addict. Melanie is quick to forgive, but Steve thinks sex addiction is a sham, believing this to be another sleazy move on Sanjay’s part. The other regulars ask Sanjay for advice in picking up women.
Good: There are some brief moments when Ok Cha and Jack get to interact as husband and wife, and it’s pretty cute. Melanie and Steve reminisce over bad advice they’ve given each other as friends, and that’s pretty sweet. There are a lot of pretty women in the bar this week, a trend I wouldn’t mind seeing more of.
Bad: There is no Susan for the second episode in a row. The Sanjay-sex-addict story is so far out there that it might as well have fairy godmothers and pumpkins turning into chariots. What does it say about a guest-actor’s performance when it’s so over-the-top that it makes Ken Jeong’s appearance earlier this season look stoic?
Hapa moment: Some might pshaw this as a hapa moment, but when Jack and Ok Cha discuss their money the way everyone’s parents discuss money, we get to be reminded that from Steve’s point of view, this is what parents talking like married people look like, even though this may be the first married couple in American TV history to look anything at all like my own parents behaving like married people. It’s kind of a neat thing, and I wonder if non-hapa viewers notice it at all, and I wonder if I’d prefer that they notice it or not notice it. Honestly, I have mixed feelings about it.
Overall: Just a silly, stupid episode with lots of pretty actresses being sexy and one big-name comic actor really hamming it up. Except for one moment when Owen and Ahmed clink mugs after insisting they have no addictions (something that passes for subtle in this episode), there’s not much to laugh at.
Final grade, this episode: D+.
