America Ferrera returned for an emotional send-off.
Warning: This review contains spoilers for theSuperstoreseries finale.
Has there ever been a worse time to make a data pipe sitcom?
America Ferrera and Lauren Ash in ‘Superstore’.Trae Patton/NBC
“I’ll go to cable!”
Tina Fey’s Liz Lemon had threatened in the30 Rockfinale.
“Where you might swear, and really take time to let moments land!”
An excellent joke, already ancient a couple years later when Fey’sUnbreakable Kimmy Schmidtstreamed on Netflix.
Thursday’s two-part finale sums up the show’s brisk charms and twisted sensibility.
It’s a professional apocalypse and an ode to the rare moments when work is not hell.
But her mission is magnificent, and impossible.
Only the best can survive, and everyone knows Quincy (Cursed Quincy!)
is the Jewel of St. Louis.
To stay open, Amy explains, they have to become “the perfect store.”
Then they find the bag full of feet.
Superstorewas boldly hopeless on a macro level.
Corporate offered crummy maternity leave, and sent ICE after undocumented Mateo (Nico Santos).
Through it all, Jonah (Ben Feldman) agitated for collective bargaining.
And we’re already being replaced by machines that can do our jobs better and faster than us…
So maybe we should just be happy with what we’ve got, y’know?
Because, for most of us, this is as good as it’s ever gonna get.
The dark prophecy came true.
Zephra has big plans for the store.
The impersonal business decision is very personal for Amy.
“I spent half my life here!”
Impending doom doesn’t retcon those years into a golden age.
“No, it’s not,” Amy says.
“It’s aterriblejob.”
It’s awesome to see Ferrera again, after a brief hiatus.
She made Amy an unusual comic creation.
Which would beSuperstore’s first nomination ever, sigh.
Allow a moment, though, to picture what might have been with a few more Amy-less seasons.
More impressively, they transitioned away from any obvious focal character, making room for the larger ensemble.
Maybe they’d be led by new store manager Cheyenne (Nichole Sakura).
Even when NBC announced the cancellation, I figured they’d leave room for eventual revival.
A Cheyenne-centric spin-off remains in development.
But the finalecloses this book by closing the store.
A liquidation sale leaves Cloud 9 barren.
Glenn ponders retirement, and Mateo worries his precarious immigration status renders him unemployable.
Amy returns on closing day: “I wanted to see everybody one last time.”
Glenn locks his onetime protege back into the blue vest.
Her final fake name tag: Vangeline."
There’s a just-right blend of sentimental cynicism, so many emotional send-offs undercut by harsh reality.
I’ll miss how Santos turned Mateo into an incredibly sympathetic gossipy judge-monster.
I laughed every time McKinney said “Jerusha!”
and I laughed every time Justine (Kelly Schumann) did anything at all.
(Was Ash really starting to cry?
Damn it, though, the last five minutes ofSuperstoreworked on me.
I loved the decision to give Garrett the final word.
“If jobs were fun, they wouldn’t pay us to do it,” he says.
Dunn nails these closing lines, never reaching for emotion.
Garrett’s still a cynic, but even a pointless job finds a point after 20 years.
), and flash-forwards (or dreams?)
of a brighter tomorrow.
I worry Jonah’s political ambitions will require him to speak to other humans, never his strong suit.
Our aspirations lately are so modest.
People sitting close together?
Whither this lost utopia????
“Modest” is a word that comes to mind a lot when I think ofSuperstore.
The finale pays off two will-they-or-won’t-they relationships, and justifies show-long serialized paranoia about Cloud 9’s continued existence.
A six-year run with decent ratings is nothing to sniff at.
Superstorenever had the privilege of a false sense of security.
From 2015 to now are some of the worst years.
I will remember Jonah and Amy, in the empty greeting-card aisle, finding something good in the ruins.
“Occasionally there were moments that weren’t so bad,” Garrett says.
One great moment lasted six seasons.
Finale grade: A-Series grade: A
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