Much of "Duke's Chorus", another solid entry for Better Things, is about perspective, and the pre-conceived notions we have about different people. This episode took a premise not dissimilar to a premise of an episode of a more traditional sitcom - two different worldviews collide and the protagonist comes away with a greater understanding of things - and did some pretty interesting things with it.
The episode's main setpiece revolves around Sam, Max, Frankie and Duke going to a Mormon church service. This is a premise that is theoretically rich with surface-level gags -and the episode contains several - and so would fit right in on, say, The Big Bang Theory. But while Sam entered the church with pre-conceived notions and left with some of them shattered, where "Duke's Chorus" surprised me was in its unsympathetic depiction of the Mormon religion, as well as religion in general.
Instead of shattering Sam's notions about religion, this episode instead wisely chose to shatter her notions of one of the members of the church, a woman called Trinity (the outstanding Sarah Baker), who is the mother of a girl Duke goes to school with. Knowing how Mormons view black and gay people, Sam concluded that Trinity must share those views, but towards the end of the episode both women found some common ground, as well as finding a lot of similarities in each other's lives.
Sam is proudly atheist, and lives her life as though it is her only life. She can sleep with who she wants without scrutiny, she can get divorced without her community turning on her, etc. But Trinity doesn't have those luxuries, as she is stifled by her belief system. She and her husband are having problems, but despite the fact that they're both cheating, she is getting all the blame. This, of course, pays off brilliantly in the episode's closing punchline, when Sam finds out Trinity slept with Ned, a black guy.
But, as I said, this episode didn't portray Mormonism in a particularly kind light. Every conversation between Duke and Trinity's daughter was hilarious, with Olivia Edwards portraying Duke's reactions perfectly. And then there's perhaps my favourite moment from the episode, as Trinity's husband Mark looked Max up and down before saying, "Not really dressed for church, are we?". Sam and Max have a typically antagonistic mother-daughter relationship, but here they present a unified front.
Grade: B
Best lines:
"[about CSI] It's based on real-life stories."
"Hi, Defiance."
"Ned is very generous..with his c*ck."
