On Sunday night it was time for another refreshingly ridiculous, yet sometimes poignantly real, episode of the new HBO comedy Flight of the Conchords. In "Bret Gives Up the Dream," the band suffered a problem for many people who have aspirations that hinge on being "discovered" – making ends meet. The Flight of the Conchords may be "New Zealand's fourth most popular folk parody duo," but in America they are still trying to get their big break.
As of the second episode, they are starving artists, literally as the first scene illustrates when Bret comes home with a small sack of groceries and gives Jemaine a free sandwich – "free" meaning that he found it on the street. Jemaine gets up to spit it out, but then swallows it anyway. This is an indication of how dire the money situation is for the Flight of the Conchords as they're willing to eat food off the streets. As Bret says, "We're poor, man."
Murray, their sometimes agent, can't help them out, so Bret finds a job holding signs. This leads to the next conundrum for a struggling artist: Murray finally gets them a gig, but Bret has to turn it down because he has to work. Murray asks how he is supposed to get them gigs if Bret is going to work, but Bret had to get the job because Murray wasn't getting them any gigs. They bicker in circles, ending with Murray firing Bret from the band.
Jemaine is caught up in the middle of it all, first replacing Bret with a tape recording of Bret. This works for a couple of gigs, then Murray fires Jemaine when he accidentally destroys the tape. Jemaine tries to get Bret to help him reform the band, but Bret turns him down saying that he is a different person now. This is when Jemaine accuses Bret of "giving up the dream." Of course, the funny thing is that the main reason Bret was choosing to continue holding signs over being in the band wasn't so much for the money as it was because he thought that the cute fellow sign holder Coco liked signs. When he told her that he wasn't in the band anymore, she was disappointed, because she actually likes bands more than signs. This leads Bret to decide he's back in the band.
There are not as many of the music videos in this episode, though the storyline and dialogue held up much better this time around and didn't need the saves from the songs as much as the pilot episode did. The two videos, "Inner City Pressure" and "Boom King," are still overflowing with straight-faced mockery, and are worthy of heavy rotation on your playlist. The official HBO site has some of the music videos from last week's episode available for embedding. Hopefully these two will be added soon.
Amy J. Johnston, BuddyTV Staff Columnist
Photo courtesy of HBO.com