Portlandia, Season 5, Episode 7: The Man Show

Put a Cap on It: This episode isn’t based around a particular theme, it’s just a collection of sketches. Well, maybe it’s loosely themed around sexuality? You tell me.

The show opens with a PSA about National Coming Out Day (which is actually October 11), that encourages people to come out as different sexualities including homo-logical (“I seem like I would be gay but I'm not”) and homo-textual (“a couple of same sex flirty texts and dick picks never hurt anyone”).

The story’s main arc follows Doug (Fred), a self-described “stay at home dad, but without kids.” When he and his wife Claire’s (Carrie) Russian maid comes she, mistaking it for the word “feminine,” calls him a feminist. As a result, Doug launches a feminist campaign, burning Carrie’s character’s bras, lobbying her boss to pay her more and starting a support group for male feminists.

Meanwhile:

• Sandra (Carrie) uses a ridesharing site to get to Seattle with Joey (Fred), who pees and orders drinks really weirdly.
• An actress (Greta Gerwig) playing a mermaid consults Candace and Toni from feminist bookstore Women and Women First for Advice
• Peter and Nance’s niece is going off to college with a new car, but it’s naked without stickers. So they give her a bunch, including two of those “Coexist” stickers, “honk if you like music” and “half man half horse”.

Best Bits: It’s already made its rounds on the Internet, but the stuff the dudes at the male feminist meeting take pride in is pretty funny. “I've never hired a geisha,” says Doug. “I've been saying to ladies on the street 'are you a doctor?'” The stuff they regret is just as good. “I used to say hubba hubba,” confesses another.

Duds: The ridesharing bit. For some reason, Fred’s character has a New York accent. Ha? Plus, the whole joke is basically that strangers are weird and that spending time with weirdos is hard. Portlandia is best when it’s timely, and this is an old bit.

Deep Cuts: For their ride up to Seattle, Joey picks Sandra up in front of Vital Body Studio. Located on 42nd, it’s at least twenty blocks from her house which is listed as being on 62nd. But you know what? Getting picked up a ways from your house is probably pretty smart when getting a ride from a stranger. But then, there’s a wide shot of the car going across that bit of 99E where it switches from being McLoughlin to Grand—you can tell ‘cause of those weird spire things. Problem is, judging from the fact that they’re driving away from the Multnomah building, they’re going south. Dude, that’s not the way to Seattle.

Grade: B+ Portlandia spends a lot of time mocking stuff that people know is annoying: organic foods, pretentious bands—the stuff of “Look At This Fucking Hipster” circa 2006. But with this week’s central bit, Doug the Self-Congratulatory Male Feminist, they’re skewered something that’s really annoying and—if anything can be—under-think-pieced. The various ways in which Doug ruins Carrie’s life (he tries to make himself flaccid before sex in the name of feminism) show idealism can be inconsistent with paying the bills and living life. Its an apt lesson for many a Portlander.