‘Too Much’ Episode 2 Recap: “Pity Woman”

Jessica Salmon is having the England experience of her dreams. I mean, I’m assuming: Knowing what little we know of Too Much‘s primary protagonist Jessica so far, it seems safe to say her dreams are kind of a mess, too. Just don’t tell her that — she does not like the m-word, especially when applied to women, as she will scream at you when storming out of dinner her first day of her new job. No messes here!

But seriously, look at what’s happened to her: She meets and seduces a beautiful rock singer her first night in the country! Sure, there were some hiccups along the way, like him stringing her along for a few hours and then shutting her down cold, or her accidentally lighting herself on fire. But he came back, didn’t he? They had sex despite the burn incident, right? And hey, healthcare is free in the U.K. regardless! Everything’s coming up Jessica, no pun intended!

Sort of, anyway. Her guy, Felix, may look great and sound great, he may be charming and personable, he may have whisked her out of the hospital and swept her off her feet while also taking care of her creepy little dog, he may take his shirt off on camera to the wonderment of the show’s male-favoring audience, but he’s what could euphemistically be called a “fixer-upper” at best. More bluntly, he’s a womanizer — a serial girlfriend-getter who dates multiple women at once for months on end because he can’t bear breaking up with the ones he loses interest in, which is all of them. According to his roommate Auggie (Prasanna Puwanarajah), a combination activist/divorced-guy, every single new woman Felix meets gets a big, portentous, lovestruck “I think I met someone” out of him, only for the relationship to go nowhere in the end.

Case in point: Linnea (Adwoa Aboah), his gorgeous professional-dominatrix girlfriend. Clearly dealing with some insecurities of her own — she sucks her thumb when she sleeps for crying out loud — she responds to Felix’s Auggie-inspired attempt to break up with her by tying him to the bed, giving him a boner, and tickling him with a feather. But it’s no use, she realizes, as she despondently tosses the feather aside with a peevish “I hate this plume.” 

“You don’t like me,” she says, crumbling. “No one likes me!”

“I bet your mom likes you,” Felix, uh, reassures her. If this is the kind of grace under pressure Jessica can expect from her new man moving forward, they’re both in for a pretty rude awakening.

At least Jessica has her new office-mates to…um…well, at least she has her new office-mates. These include Jonno (the great Richard E. Grant), their smiley, condescending boss; Josie (Daisy Bevan), his decidedly un-smiley assistant; Kim (Janciza Bravo), a truly splendid creation whose unpredictable witticism and unflappable belief in her own radiance are matched only by her incredible 1980s throwback styling; and Boss (Leo Reich), Kim’s pink-haired, motormouthed, extravagantly gay assistant (technically; Boss feels like he’s his own boss, clearly). 

Though Kim and Boss are entertained, and frankly stunned, when Jessica tells them she met a guy on her first night in-country, they want to make sure she plays the field, and that she gets a taste of their own sparkling nightlife. So they invite her out to dinner with a few beautiful people, including foreign-born footballer Pawel (Tomasz Wlosok). At first, Jessica plays along, flirting with Pawel so simultaneously flagrantly and awkwardly that she introduces the possibility of anal sex within approximately 90 seconds of sitting down at the table. 

Embarrassed, Jessica retreats to the ladies’ room, where Kim (a fellow American ex-pat; like seemingly every single character on the show, she’s where she’s at in her life right now because of a horrific breakup) finds her recording one of her poison-pen video letters to Wendy Jones, her ex’s glamorous fiancée. But Wendy’s not even glamorous in a way Jessica can resent, since she grew up in foster care after being taken away from her addict parents or something, and everything she has she made herself. (Literally: She makes her own clothes.) “You’re doing an excellent job of keeping it locked-in in public,” Kim can only marvel when confronted with the depth of Jessica’s dysfunction.

But that doesn’t last long either. Returning to the table, she reacts with understandable vitriol to Pawel mocking her as a “mess.” Shouldn’t a guy who’s going around trying to fuck everything that moves while he’s got a wife and twin children at home also be classified as messy, she pointedly asks him? 

As for her? “I know who I am and I know what I want,” she proclaims falsely as she gets up to leave. She didn’t choose chaos, she tells them — “Chaos chose me, because I’m fucking irresistible!” she yells, storming off.

Everyone at dinner agrees she’s amazing.

Anyway, she “u up?”s Felix when she gets home, but instead of having sex again (at least not that we see), they lie on her bed together and listen to a mix CD he made her as the credits start roll. Awww.

All told, this is a very promising episode. As Kim and Boss, Bravo and Reich waltz onto the screen as if Too Much is a show about them, not Jessica — the exact right energy for these characters, who are clearly the stars of the shows running perpetually in their own minds. Meanwhile, I love the way writer-director Lena Dunham gradually but unmistakably reveals that Felix, for all his kindness and warmth, is kind of a cad. For all that Jessica’s first two days in London have resembled one of her beloved Brit romances, she’s got a rockier road ahead of her than she realizes. I’m looking forward to watching her (and Megan Stalter, who’s a delight) rant and rave her way down it.

Sean T. Collins (@theseantcollins) writes about TV for Rolling Stone, Vulture, The New York Times, and anyplace that will have him, really. He and his family live on Long Island.