Kidding Season 2, Episode 7 recap: The Acceptance Speech

Episode 207 of Showtime’s Kidding has Jeff win a major award.

After being accused of “killing the magic” by his son, Will (Cole Allen), Jeff “Pickles” Piccirillo (Jim Carrey) tries to distract himself by helping others in Episode 7 of Kidding. However, he is consistently facing his mixed legacy as a children’s TV show host.

This episode begins with the “Maestro Fermetta” (Dave Holstein) character’s vibrating toy— a delightful prize contained in Best-Os cereal. However, in this flashback sequence, it is greedily being utilized by women who flood to the supermarket to buy it for their selfish desires.

Yes, that becomes a prominent feature in the episode. In the present, though, Deirdre “Didi” Perera (Catherine Keener) is wondering where Jeff is. Will he show up to receive his own lifetime achievement award? Seb (Frank Langella) and Maddy (Juliet Morris) are there (along with Maddy’s pet ax), but Jeff is conspicuously missing. It doesn’t help that Didi is still mad at Seb for being a bad father (it turns out Seb doesn’t respond to her for a medical reason).

Kidding: What’s Jeff up to?

Somewhat inexplicably, the show cuts to two characters, Ray (Michael Fairman) and Wally (Ramon Hilario), arguing in a bar with Jeff as a bartender. It turns out Jeff’s assisting at a dementia treatment facility that re-enacts the 1950s and ’60s. We also meet Louise (Annette O’Toole) who thinks she’s waiting at a bus stop, thanks to the engineered fantasy. Staff member Cornell (Tyler the Creator) refers to it as “compassionate deception,” explaining that reality is the disease and fantasy is the pill.

In many ways, this lines up with how Kidding presents the world.  Jeff engages in fantasy-thinking for a living and the main characters seem to be lost without it.  At the same time, the series suggests people can stray too far, perhaps to a point of never getting back.  These nostalgia-based dementia treatment scenes carry both literal and metaphorical meanings and really play into how the characters have developed thus far.

Kidding: Didi’s unique emergency

At the award ceremony, Didi’s phone goes off after the Chaplain (Frank Birney) mentions the death of Ginoo Pickles (Glenn Thomas Cruz). After this, she heads to the restroom and makes use of the Maestro Fermetta toy. Unfortunately, it ends up getting stuck in the process, which means she has to call Jill (Judy Greer) to help her dislodge the item. Before it falls out, Didi misses her own acceptance speech and Jill accuses her of being the architect of her own catastrophe.

Meanwhile (and elsewhere), Maddy encourages Seb to speak to Louise, who he says looks like his first wife. The two hit it off, even though she apparently has dementia. Later, Louise tells Jeff that failure doesn’t have to follow you if you just “get on the bus.”

This Kidding episode also suggests that Seb will be suffering dementia from his stroke, with his Doctor (Ramiz Monsef) referring to his bloodwork as a “complicated story of love and loss.” On the bright sight, Jeff shows up at his lifetime acceptance award speech

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