Chris Sheridan
The following recap contains spoilers for The Audacity S1E6, “Sandbox” (written by Semi Chellas & Arthur Phillips and directed by Daniel Gray Longino).
The Audacity, as we have seen so far, has a lot of sh*tty people. Like, almost all of them. And S1E6 (“Sandbox”) finds some of them being even more sh*tty than they usually are, which, since they’re usually pretty awful, means they’re really f*cking awful this week. Let’s just say if you were hoping for any redemption arcs, you’re going to have to keep hoping.
We open on a war reenactment, headed by Carl Bardolph (Zach Galifianakis), who hilariously directs the demises of the soldier actors around him, including one man gassing himself and screaming in actual agony. Anushka (Meaghan Rath) shows up to remind Carl of a meeting and to, in his words, “f*ck up the verisimilitude.”
Anushka returns home to find Duncan (Billy Magnussen) waiting for her, bearing a gift. It’s a large truffle, to which Anushka barely reacts. She shares the news that she is the new CEO of Hypergnosis, and while Duncan pretends to be unfazed, it’s clear that he is devastated. He, as he is wont to do, keeps things focused on himself, surmising that Carl has tapped her as CEO to faze him. He recovers, and not only proposes that he and Anushka be co-CEOs, but that they resume their relationship. Anushka rejects him on both. Duncan declares that otherwise, it’s war. Anushka agrees. Our introduction to the title card is Duncan violently throwing the truffle into Anushka’s face.
JoAnne (Sarah Goldberg) is stressfully calculating the finances concerning retaining their house, and goes to Gary (Paul Adelstein), proposing cashing out his 401k for the down payment on the house. He’s not in favor of it, and she selfishly explodes on him, slamming the door before heading back to her session with Duncan. During the session, Duncan talks about Anushka taking the role of CEO from him, and likens it to a childhood memory of a playground bully stealing his hat his grandparent made for him. JoAnne suggests that he can just “buy a new hat.”
Anushka has a new vision for Hypergnosis, one that dials back on the overwhelming data collection for corporate monetary gain and focuses on how that data collection can help. This does not go over well with vehicle company Torren, who are more interested in utilizing their customers’ data for sales and profit, rather than the user’s benefit as Anushka envisions. Needless to say, Anushka’s pitch crashes and burns. Following the meeting, Carl pulls Anushka aside and scolds her for her lack of focus on profit and growth. She needs to think more like Duncan did and actually sell.
Duncan is in his home office, repeatedly failing to score on his basketball hoop, when Harper makes a surprise appearance. They want to get away from Hypergnosis and work for Duncan instead, since their forte is collecting and analyzing data and Anushka seeks to move away from that. And since Harper is the best at what they do, Duncan need not look elsewhere. Of course, the icing on the cake is that hiring Harper would get under Anushka’s skin. The pair immediately get to work, meeting with the Torren executives and delivering an absolute powerhouse presentation, giving them exactly what they want to hear, and leading to the formation of a new endeavor called PINATA (no tilde), which, at a high subscription tier, offers users the opportunity to see the data of everyone else. Troubling? No doubt. Endlessly palatable and profitable to Torren and others? Oh, absolutely.
Tom (Rob Corddry) is devastated over repeated partnership rejections, as well as his business partner/crush Jeffery (Andrew Bushell) leaving for another prospect. He’s at a bar in the middle of the day, drunkenly singing to a sparse audience, before Anushka shows up with a proposition to join her to support veterans under her new vision. It’s a pretty good pitch, and when Tom mentions how much he liked Alexander and how beneficial he could be, Anushka appears to reluctantly agree.
Of course, there’s that tiny little thing that Martin has figured out that Anushka is the one responsible for Alexander’s recent behavior after unearthing video of Anushka smashing up the tablet. He confronts Anushka and she gives him a half-hearted apology. Martin mentions his abusive ex and his children (Tess and yes, Alexander), and how he will not allow another situation like that. Before she can get too defensive, Martin tells her to either get help, or get a lawyer.
Now that Orson and Tess are officially actually talking, she challenges him to start listening in on JoAnne’s patients with her. One of them is Anushka. As Tess listens to her stepmother open up about how much of a mess Tess is, and how Martin has given up on her in favor of an AI, Tess can barely hide her emotions. Of course, Orson, being a horny little idiot that watched too many incel videos, tries to kiss Tess. And then he quickly tries again two more times after she pushes him away! God damn it Orson! You stupid f*cking—gaah! Why would you do this?? I guess the “why” is the show writers, as they do, (intentionally) injecting the worst possible decisions into their characters, but this had a “yeesh” factor that was off the charts. Orson will be lucky if Tess wants anything to do with him ever again.
Anushka is back at a board meeting with Hypergnosis, leading with her government contract, to Carl’s displeasure. Carl cuts her off and insists that she lead with growth and profit, as he had advised previously, instead of helping others. When Tom speaks up, Carl is barely listening, until Tom mentions that he is a veteran. Carl immediately perks up, suddenly showing a clear respect and interest in Tom and what he has to say. Between Tom and Anushka, Carl is definitely starting to listen, and he’s very ready to get veterans the help they need, including therapy from Alexander and Gnodin’s ability to identify veterans at risk.
And then Duncan shows up.
This scene was painful, to say the least. Duncan offers to bring PINATA’s new clients to Hypergnosis if they reinstate him as CEO with his majority shares, to silence. He then turns to Tom, repeatedly disparaging the veteran for his age, until Carl literally throws himself across the table to get at Duncan. Carl bellows for an impromptu vote to remove Duncan from the board, and they all agree. When Tom grabs Duncan and yells for security, Duncan throws him into a table and leaves before Carl can lay him out. Anushka asks Stan if she was brought in as bait for Duncan, and he replies that that’s no longer pertinent.
JoAnne is still using her patients’ sessions to conduct insider trading, and with that and the money Duncan gave her, she finally has enough to make a down payment to secure her house. She excitedly calls Beth to seal the deal, but is devastated to find out that someone has beat her to the punch with an all-cash offer. She’s barely even processing what Duncan is saying to her in their session, where Duncan opens up about realizing that his “true self” is that he is a truly bad person. He’s a puppeteer, he says: he does what others can’t, and everyone else hates him for it but if no one does what he does, it all falls apart. As he gets up to leave, he mentions that he saw JoAnne’s house was for sale. She realizes that Duncan was the buyer, and he tells her that he did it for her, as long as she can continue being his therapist, his…oracle. “Hey, maybe I’m not such a bad guy after all!”
All right, so this is where we are at: Duncan is now even more of an asshole than ever. Like, irredeemably so at this point, which will make things interesting when (and if) the show tries to give him some semblance of redemption. Carl is a little more sympathetic with his devotion to Tom’s veteran status. I think Anushka is genuine in her altruistic approach to reshaping Hypergnosis, but I think she might take some less-than-savory paths to her vision if it means spiting Duncan. Finally, we’re where I’ve always been the most interested: Duncan and JoAnne. Now that JoAnne is beholden to Duncan given that he owns her house and, by extension, her, their dynamic continues to shift, and I remain deeply curious as to how it will proceed.
Two episodes left.
