The Last Man on Earth - Double Cheeseburger - Review

It was finally time for Carol to give birth on The Last Man on Earth this past Sunday, and to live up to its reputation, the show did not forget to get weird in "Double Cheeseburger." Let's review.

When Erica (Cleopatra Coleman) gives birth, things get real. She is in pain, she has to push, it's messy, the whole enchilada. When Carol (Kristan Schaal) gives birth, she is not even aware of it. Indeed in "Double Cheeseburger," Carol wakes up one morning to find a baby at her feet. She wakes up Tandy (Will Forte) and they are both amazed to find out Carol delivered their baby girl in her sleep. Of course when she finds out, Erica is not pleased with the news, finding it unfair that the delivery was painless for Carol, as would any other woman who has ever given birth. But soon enough, Carol has cramps and Gail (Mary Steenburgen) finds out that she "has another baby stuck in there." Carol, who somehow let go of all of the stress she was experiencing, decides to take it easy and just wait until the other baby is ready to come out, but Gail is worried.

The Last Man on Earth likes to be weird. It's a show that thrives off pushing boundaries and being irreverent. But the whole "Carol delivers her baby in her sleep, then we find out she actually expected twins and the other one is going to come out HOURS later" is pushing it a tad mush. Suspension of disbelief in TV show is common practice, but when you pause and think about how unrealistic a plot device is, it takes away from the effectiveness of a storyline. It sucks you out of the show and make you wonder, "now wait a minute, are they jumping the shark there?" Sure, it's fun to open the episode with a surprise baby in Carol's bed, or to see her deliver the second one with as much effort in a later scene of the episode, but it still remains odd. It feels like the show decided to double down on the crazy for no reason besides the fact that it seems evident that Carol would have such an atypical kind of labor experience.

Meanwhile, Todd (Mel Rodriguez) is having baby fever in this episode, but keeps saying to anyone who will listen that he doesn't need a baby, all he needs in his life is Melissa (January Jones). She does not believe him, and we don't either. However, "Double Cheeseburger" kinds of shoves that storyline to the side, ending it by making Todd a babysitter for Erica's daughter. We see him spend time with Dawn and attempting to hide it from Melissa, but the episode struggles to give real meaning to this character's arc. In the end, it feels like they opened a door to a story and halfway closed it right away. Moreover, Todd seems to be obsessed with children in this episode, babies in particular, and yet the oldest child in The Last Man on Earth is totally absent in this episode. Where is Jasper? Is nobody checking in on that kid? We don't even see him when Carol introduces Bezequil (yep, that's how she named her first daughter) to the group. Does nobody care about what he is doing? If Todd is so into having children, why doesn't he care for the one the group is actually in charge of?

All in all, "Double Cheeseburger" is a strange and yet fun episode of The Last Man on Earth. It has its sweet moments (like when Carol names her second daughter Mike, after Tandy's brother), and its usual amount of awkwardness (like when Todd is keeping watch over Carol's vagina while she sleeps to make sure she does not give birth in her sleep again). This episode definitely leaned a lot more towards a willingness to be weird than trying to have something to say, but it remained a solid episode of The Last Man on Earth, keeping the Will Forte show entertaining.

That's my take, what did you think of this episode?