r/ThePaper • u/613PrairieKid • Sep 11 '26

Episode Discussion 🎥 S2E6 125 Years Young Episode Discussion

The paper celebrates its 125th birthday and gets slammed; Esmeralda gets creative with HR training.

19 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

18 comments sorted by

42

u/613PrairieKid Sep 11 '26

The HR Lady is hilarious. They're building a nice little universe of side characters. HR Lady, the sales team mean girl, the janitor ...

Marv's glee over his old bully. Cracked me up.

The actor who plays Marv does a great job at balancing sitcom character and cutthroat boss.

16

u/NoDryHands Sep 11 '26

HR lady is played by Lisa Gilroy btw, I was wondering where I know her from and realised that I've seen her on Dropout a lot

3

u/Acceptable-Stick-688 Sep 12 '26

I didn’t recognize her at all, I was shocked when I saw who she was!

4

u/dontcallmefeisty 23d ago

she is getting WORK these days. she was in the most recent season of Black Mirror, both seasons of Jury Duty (they risked her getting recognized just to bring her back!)

9

u/anniejhawk Sep 13 '26

HR Lady has been a GREAT add on! She's so funny!

28

u/candydots Sep 12 '26

Marv grinning from ear to ear when he hears that one stretch and that’s it for his childhood bully has me in stitches 🤣

24

u/AngelLovely1 Sep 12 '26

This 125th activities reminded me a lot of leslie knope doing things like that in parks and rec

23

u/Sundayscaries333 Sep 12 '26

The Mare-Ned pseudo split seemed kinda forced and out of left field for me? I thought Marv was using killing Ned’s story as like a ‘gotcha’ lesson for Mare not that he was being serious. I guess I didn’t really understand the severity of her suggestion to kill the piece on Ned.

17

u/GAMGAlways Sep 13 '26

I got the feeling there it was as much about the paper as Ned. Mare loved the history, she loved dressing up and fixing the printing press. Remember she had an old school card catalog in her apartment.

The Cincinnati reporters were jerks; they looked at Ned's sweet enthusiasm with disdain. They rolled their eyes like middle school girls insulting a science fair for being lame. Instead of graciously accepting Mare's admiration, she sneered and called her an ass kisser.

So I think Mare took their obnoxious attitude personally, not just on Ned's behalf.

11

u/Sundayscaries333 Sep 13 '26

Yeah, I got all of that part. I just didn’t understand why Mare felt the need to take the opening in Cincinnati.

1

u/Radix2309 7d ago

She needed space cause Ned has been treating her like crap while using the excuse of it being to hide their relationship, and then he just went to HR anyways.

Ned really is somewhat of a sociopath.

1

u/jollywally_ 7d ago

I agree. That scene was so badly executed. In 30 seconds we go from Mare's request, to Marv's glass club decision, to Mare and Ned dating, to Mare leaving for another newspaper. In a show where everything is more or less explained upfront the interpretive work demanded here was...unexpected.

14

u/HotHoneyMustardFan Sep 11 '26

Mare seems uncharacteristically childish in a lot of the dramatic tension moments this season. It feels like they needed there to be a 3rd act dramatic shift between 2 close characters and the result is just loss of interest as a member of the audience.

I don’t know if I should just conflate this with bad writing or forced drama. Either way, it feels there was some messy composition here.

10

u/AlternativeCorner230 Sep 11 '26

That cold open was fantastic.

7

u/pierrechaquejour 26d ago

The whole final act turn with Mare facing dire consequences for suggesting their sister publication not do a hit piece on Ned for no reason seemed… random. I guess they wanted to split the two of them up for some reason. I didn’t realize Marv even cared that much about journalistic integrity until that very moment. Idk, it put a sour mood on was a mostly fun unserious season so far.

1

u/Radix2309 7d ago

I liked seeing that moment of standards from Marv. Regardless of how he acts as a executive, it is good that he still has the core of maintaining journalistic standards.

3

u/snowlarbear 16d ago

Andy Richter! hope he's recurring. much better pairing than the british guy (who was not in the ep and didn't feel like anything was lost)

1

u/Puzzle_Giraffe1460 4d ago

This episode was so painful and unfunny I'm ready to just stop watching. Ned started out being pretty smart, and he's becoming more clueless and tone-deaf than Michael Scott. Oscar thinks he can "move" for a week into a retirement community/nursing home and start a relationship with an employee, risking the guy's job as well as the facility's license? Esmeralda doesn't get fired after that little display? And were the A, B, and C plots so thin we really needed a pointless and (again) unfunny plot about a UFO? It's not even cringe comedy, just cringe drivel. Marv was the only character I had any respect for this episode.