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Portlandia: Season 2 Finale

By Michael Farah · March 12, 2012

Just when you think you've got this show figured out—quirky characters, relatable situations, heightened emotions—it delivers something completely different. The season two finale of Portlandia was the comedy show equivalent of a comic book crossover, taking characters usually independent of each other and putting them together to frolic in the same narrative playground.

Prior to this episode, Portlandia had established a unique rhythm to how sketches proceeded within individual shows and how shows proceeded (or often repeated) within the season. Unfortunately, this rhythm has made the laughs somewhat more safe, a potential liability for envelope-pushing comedy. The safety of the familiar often replaces the jolt of surprise as shows progress (Exhibit A: The Simpsons). However, with the structure-busting mini-movie of a finale, Portlandia proves it’s still got some curveballs to throw.

In the comic book world, crossovers occur when characters from different worlds come together to fight an evil that no one do-gooder can defeat alone. In true Portlandia fashion, the premise (and scene) of this worlds-colliding event is brunch. Of course. Brunch—specifically, a new place to eat brunch—is very much the type of familiar situation that this show revels in deconstructing. Everyone's been to brunch, and everybody knows the ridiculous lengths some go to for a Sunday morning/early afternoon meal at the hippest place in town.

Unlike many episodes, the finale begins at the beginning. Our two neurotic heroes, Peter (Fred Armisen) and Nance (Carrie Brownstein), are gathered around their Sunday morning coffee when they find an article about Fisherman's Porch, a hot new brunch place serving marionberry pancakes. Instead of the mandolin festival idea that Peter briefly entertains, Nance, in a fit of spontaneity, suggests they leave for brunch right then. Peter hems and haws, complaining about parking and other issues, until Nance derides his indecisiveness. The game is on.

We then move directly to another pair: the eponymous Fred and Carrie. Fred receives a call from the mayor (a consistently excellent Kyle MacLachlan) at 6:37am inviting him and Carrie to brunch. Wait, no hip, sleepy Portlandia title sequence? No hip montage between sketches? No and no. When the light, whimsical music kicks in as brunchers arrive at Fisherman's Porch, suspicion is aroused. The brunch line grows past the feminist bookstore and things are starting to look special for this episode. As the camera pulls back to take in the whole line, we get one bold title card with the name of the episode: Brunch Village.

Peter and Nance are about an hour and a half into the line when the hostess asks for their name. Following a testy exchange where they are denied every needling request, they decide to look over the menu. Peter goes indecisive again, which is a huge turnoff to Nance (my wife would agree). She storms off in anger. We then cut to the mayor calling Fred and Carrie (who are farther back in line) to explain that he's been detained at the bridge. They implore him to hurry. Finally, we cut to Toni (Brownstein) and Candace (Armisen)—our resident feminist curmudgeons—arriving to a line blocking their Women & Women First bookstore. A profanity-laced tirade, involving the oral exchange of boiling hot tea, ensues.

And things only get weirder. Ed Begley Jr. shows up as a coffee shop owner trying to tempt people away from the line to eat at his place. Next, Nance gets absconded by Steve Jones (of Sex Pistols fame), who delivers her to his maniacal, vaudevillian boss, played with a French accent and crazy eyes by Tim Robbins. The mayor checks in again, this time from a kayak, and we then cut back to the bookstore, where the ladies open a fire hose on the line… and announce a sale directly after. Does any of this make a lick of sense? No, but it's charming in its insanity.

The episode really dials it up to 11 when Peter attempts to look for Nance (using a magic marker caricature, no less). A little kid, who serves as the episode’s snarky "through character" àla C-3PO and R2-D2, points Peter to the back of the line. Cut to a post-apocalyptic settlement of the Mad Max variety, where black leather and bikers rule. Meanwhile, Ed Begley Jr.'s shopkeeper uses a hipster disguise and circular logic (is there any other kind on this show?) to trick Fred and Carrie into sitting down at his coffee shop.

At the back of the line, Peter tries to negotiate with unyielding bodyguards while Nance is tortured by being forced to eat very un-brunch-like Pop-Tarts. Just then, Peter's name is announced for the table, and he gathers his latent decisiveness to save Nance and get to the front of the line. The bodysurfing montage that follows features the only physical crossover of any of the characters, as Fred and Carrie help float Peter and Nance to the front, where a sickly sweet ending makes us happy and nauseous all at once. As we fast forward to the restaurant closing, the mayor finally shows up to Fred and Carrie surveying the post-line wasteland. Of course, the mayor was inviting them to Ed Begley Jr.'s place after all, not Fisherman's Porch.

Thus ends a truly epic, uniquely skewed finale to Portlandia. Brunch Village shows that Fred and Carrie's comic sensibilities can support a cohesive narrative structure, rather than a random assortment of sketches. Not every moment was laugh-out-loud funny, but with the addition of a larger story and setting, the audience is more invested from beginning to end. Ultimately, it did what the best Portlandia sketches and episodes have done: take a familiar premise and push it into myriad absurd directions. While not as hysterical as the best sketches (such as the Battlestar Galactica one early on this season), the finale proves that there's plenty of gas left in this comedy machine.