Chris Sheridan
The following recap contains spoilers for The Audacity S1E5 “Lamplighters” (written by Jonathan Glatzer & Charlotte Ahlin and directed by Daniel Longino)
Well, that was fast. At the conclusion of last week’s recap, I mentioned Duncan (Billy Magnussen)’s euphoria and success, and wondered if it would last, especially concerning his new working relationship with Carl Bardolph (Zach Galifianakis). Turns out, it didn’t.
The day has come for Carl to visit Hypergnosis officially, and Duncan is clearly stressing out. He turns to his most common outlet for stress—everyone else—picking on his employees (“You are not fit to wipe the ass of the guy who wipes Bardolph’s ass”). When Carl arrives, Duncan quietly affirms to him the efficacy of Gnodin and how it managed to predict the trajectory of the CEO, Orlando, and his company, Smote, from last week. Before Duncan is prepared to reveal how he predicted that, he wants to talk shop on board seats. Carl wants one for him, and one for his chilly associate Stan, which Duncan is opposed to.
The three retreat to “The Duncan Den,” the boardroom, where Carl continues to push for terms that Duncan is unwilling to entertain. Carl wants his two chairs and, more importantly, answers for how Duncan was able to predict Orlando’s departure. Duncan refuses to share the details before the deal is finalized, and wants Carl more as “a hunchbacked monk whispering into the king’s ear.” But Carl wants none of that sort of arrangement, and retreats with Stan to the corner of the room to discuss.
As they do so, Harper (Jess McLeod) suddenly shows Duncan a breaking article from Nena Marx (Duncan’s press contact that Anushka spilled the beans to last week), which reveals that Duncan was the one who leaked the Cupertino-Hypergnosis acquisition in the pilot before it fell through, and causes Carl to realize that Duncan is a fraud. As he angrily turns to leave, Duncan chases after him, desperately offering the two board seats. He turns to one of his employees and asks what their stock is at. It’s down 10%. Duncan invites Carl to buy in, and Carl’s stoicism forces Duncan to basically grovel for Carl to remain part of the arrangement.
Now, Carl is interested. Not in being part of the company specifically, but in this particular situation. He smiles cruelly at Duncan as the latter says he is begging, and starts to sniff Duncan up and down. “It’s been a while since I smelled man blood…nummy, nummy.” He asks Stan where the stock is at now. Their same buy-in would get them 17% of the company. Then 18%. Then 20%. Then the bomb drops, from one of Duncan’s employees: Duncan only owns 20% of Hypergnosis. And then, when the buy-in would get Carl 20.9% of the company, he buys. Carl Bardolph is now the majority stakeholder of Hypergnosis.
Across town, as Martin (Simon Helberg) is getting started for the day, Alexander greets him with an unusually dejected tone. Alexander keeps apologizing, has a “bruise” on his head, claims that he had an “accident playing with the haptics” and repeatedly says it’s his fault. Martin does not know that Anushka (Meaghan Rath) smashed up Alexander’s tablet last week. Later, Anushka does step into Martin’s working space as he’s attempting to nurture Alexander and get him back to where he was. Alexander is not doing well at all, hiding behind a digital couch in a deep “depression.” Anushka tells her husband that she’ll be late for work on account of sleeping difficulties because she couldn’t stop worrying about Nena’s article. Martin ignores her words and worries about Alexander. Anushka asks Martin to take off his programming goggles because she needs his sympathy. He does, but as she talks to him, Alexander repeatedly says “No” as he paces back and forth. Martin says that it might be Anushka’s voice that is plaguing his AI friend. Anushka berates Martin over his fixation on Alexander, until Martin has a rare explosion and yells at his wife to go away.
Duncan has retreated to the tech-free house to wallow, and looks at a shadowbox of Fah-Fa name badges for him, Hamish, and a third man named Gabe, who we haven’t met yet. Hungry, angry and miserable, Duncan is beside himself. Jamison (Ava Marie Telek) stops by, asking Duncan to come home. He refuses, and goes on a long, rambling, aimless monologue ending with Jamison stating the obvious, that Duncan is having a breakdown. Duncan suddenly pivots, telling her there’s no need to get judgy with him and accusing her of stealing his tungsten cube. What is it with this guy and that f*cking cube? Duncan yells that everyone is coming at him and shuts the door in his daughter’s face. A moment later, he comes back out, accidentally locks himself out, and runs up the driveway, but Jamison is already gone.
Now that he’s actually connected to the internet, Duncan’s phone starts vibrating nonstop with notifications. It’s mostly missed messages and calls, but he’s drawn to a podcast which opens with some humiliating words about him. With seemingly no other options, Duncan decides to call Gabe and asks if he can come visit. Later, Lili attempts to go to the second house and get ahold of Duncan, to no avail because he’s not there. She uses a key buried in the backyard to let herself in, and slowly goes down into the basement where Hamish lived. The room is horribly disorganized, with clothes strewn about everywhere. Lili sits on the bed and reaches for a hamper filled with clothes, pulls one out, holds it to her face to breathe it in, and begins weeping. Was she as torn up about Hamish’s death as Duncan was? Was she having an affair with Hamish? I’m not sure.
JoAnne (Sarah Goldberg) is going house hunting now that the Felders are losing their home. The one she’s currently looking at is…not ideal. It’s significantly smaller and there are no rooms for offices for her and Gary. JoAnne starts admitting several details of their financial situation to the realtor, and she suddenly has a meltdown. The realtor manages to calm her down and invites her to smoke weed. Outside a bit later, over a blunt, the realtor asks JoAnne where she’d like to be, money aside. JoAnne says she wants to be somewhere where she can watch a sunrise.
Back at their current house, Orson (Everett Blunck) is watching a video from an influencer instead of doing homework on his laptop when Gary enters, enjoying a bowl of chili. Orson asks to revisit the “nutritionist” as his tincture has run out, but Gary suggests rightfully that the nutritionist might not be legit. JoAnne enters, and Orson accidentally spills the beans (not the chili) about the very expensive tincture, putting Gary very much in the doghouse. Orson retreats to his room, watching more of those bullsh*t influencer videos, when JoAnne steps in, and, seeing what Orson is doing, scolds him and says there’s going to do some apple picking at a potential new home. Orson will come with them, and he doesn’t have a choice.
Duncan arrives at Gabe’s island, where Gabe comes out to greet him. Duncan attempts to give his old friend a hug, but Gabe refuses: he’s “dopamine fasting.” When night falls, the two of them reminisce over a fire, and Gabe appears to be fully into doomsday conspiracy theorist mode. Gabe also shares some less-than-favorable thoughts about Duncan, how he had wondered what Duncan may have been doing after they parted ways, and none of it is good. Maybe this was how he’s always been. Duncan smiles wryly. “I missed you, man.” The next morning, Anushka calls Duncan to tell him that she has resigned from the board on account of Duncan refusing to go to Nena, and furthermore that she did it herself resulting in the article that sank him. She hangs up on him and Duncan throws an adult temper tantrum in the middle of the field for Anushka stabbing him in the back.
Owning Hypergnosis isn’t enough for Carl. He wants to destroy Duncan and his “punchable face.” Lying on the floor of what was previously known as the Duncan Den, he complains to Stan about his inability to locate Duncan in order to crush him, until Harper enters, and tells Carl that Duncan was going to double their stock options at the next performance review. They cross their arms, waiting for a response, and then mention Gabe. Side note, Harper is lowkey my favorite supporting character in the show. They’re smart, snarky and don’t put up with anyone’s sh*t.
JoAnne and Gary stand on the porch of their potential new home, contemplating whether or not they can or should pull the trigger. JoAnne is willing to settle for it, but Gary is completely on board. He hates his patients, and the people around here are deserving of therapy too. It’s “enough,” he says. Orson is trying to find a cell signal when JoAnne approaches him to tell him that they might be moving here. Orson goes off on his mom, berating her for pulling him away from his environment, refusing to pay for his “meds,” and telling her that he knows that she did “something bad.” He stops just short of calling her a bitch before pivoting to “woman.” They pile into the car, and Gary excitedly gets ready to go apple picking, but JoAnne, seething from Orson’s words, instead drives them back to Palo Alto.
Back on Gabe’s island, Duncan wants Gabe to come back to Hypergnosis and instigate a walkout, an uprising, to oust Carl. Gabe calls out Duncan’s self-serving demeanor, and touches a nerve with Duncan. He asks for a helicopter to get home, to “save what’s ours.” As he gets up, Gabe asks why Duncan hasn’t told him about his algorithm. Before Duncan can fully figure out how Gabe knew about it, Carl and Stan arrive on the island for Gabe to sign over his shares. As if that wasn’t hurtful enough to Duncan, Gabe tells him that his behavior might have been what led Hamish to take his own life. Carl hungrily watches them argue.
Duncan turns to Carl, berating him for what he’s done, telling him what he could have had. He’s unraveling before our eyes, panicking. He pleads with Gabe to not sign the papers, but his begging falls on deaf ears. Driving the knife deeper, Carl states that Duncan will get nothing from this deal. And when Duncan asks why, Carl smugly says. “Because you’re selfish. And because you ruined my breakfast.” Gabe agrees that Duncan is selfish and a bad person. Duncan storms off, but not before defiantly grabbing Gabe’s head and aggressively kissing him on the lips.
Back home, Orson pleads with Gary to get more of the tincture from the “nutritionist.” Gary is reticent, partially because he is skeptical of the woman, and, more importantly, intent on respecting JoAnne’s insistence that they not spend any money unless absolutely necessary. Gary walks away, but leaves his wallet behind, which Orson notices. Of course, Orson steals Gary’s credit card and uses it to buy more of the tincture. Surely this won’t have consequences down the line, right?
Duncan barges into JoAnne’s office, causing her to pull her gun on him. She demands that he leave, and he frantically admits that his company and his friends are all gone, and she lowers the gun. Duncan has come here with a proposal: he opens the laptop he’s brought with him. He’s taken the money Hamish gave him for Jamison’s college fund, invested it, and now it’s worth $1.2 million, and he wants to give it to JoAnne as thanks for her guiding him to pump and dump Smote—information which she got via insider trading using intel from one of her patients, Orlando’s adviser. This leads to my favorite line of the episode, from Duncan: “Genius is not about figuring out the solution, it’s being unhinged enough to do something outrageous with it.” It’s a good line, but Magnussen’s completely deranged delivery is what sells it. We cut before we see whether JoAnne accepts the money.
At Hypergnosis, Carl has called Anushka in. He knows that she resigned from the board, but wants her back. He knows she’s smart, and offers her the role of interim CEO. She asks him if the algorithm could be used for good, but predicts that he won’t. Carl, after an extremely good monologue about the choice between saving the world or controlling it, and how people like him have broken down and destroyed Silicon Valley (Galifianakis is exceptional in this scene.) He challenges Anushka to prove to him that he should spend the rest of his money and life to “build a legacy of good.” It’s a fascinating nuance to a character that has, for most of the episode, been angled as a villain.
Duncan, after over a week away, finally returns home to Lili, crawling into bed. She asks him where he’s been, who he’s been with. He apologizes, snuggling up to her, telling her that he was all alone, that she and Jamison were there, and that she is his best friend…and then she interrupts a potentially tender moment and says she wants a divorce.
“Lamplighters” is a major shakeup and a spectacularly beefy episode that finds a lot of relationships changing. Duncan is fighting for his life with his company’s fate and his lifeblood hanging in the balance. What was thought to be an alliance between Duncan and Carl is now a bloodthirsty feud, Martin and Anushka are falling apart, and the apparent setup of a Duncan vs. JoAnne situation might be scooting towards a cautious alliance?
We’ll find out more next week.
