Chris Sheridan
The following recap contains spoilers for The Audacity S1E7 “Foundering” (written by Arthur Phillips & Semi Chellas and directed by Alex Buono).
The penultimate episode of The Audacity Season 1 finds a lot of the threads established so far in the season finally starting to converge in a tangible way. All of that setup is paying off, and it makes for a very satisfying episode.
Today is the day! Tom (Rob Corddry) is seeing his archaic paper files of the VA records being unloaded into the Hypergnosis warehouse to prepare them for their journey into the modern age. The call to their first veteran goes well, but derails quickly as Alexander, heading the call, shows that they do still have quite a few kinks to work out given that Alexander’s AI “personality” still exists as whatever the digital version of a curious adolescent is. Alexander clearly needs work. Anushka (Meaghan Rath), to her credit, stands up for her husband Martin (Simon Helberg) when Carl (Zach Galifianakis) is ready to eject the volatile Alexander. Carl gives her a deadline to fix things.
We know that JoAnne (Sarah Goldberg) is a sh*t therapist, pretty much only in it for the insider trading. In the latest session, she gleans from her patient via leading questions that DNA company MyXY might be changing hands, and afterwards confirms that it’s not a very viable stock. Later, Duncan (Billy Magnussen) is back in JoAnne’s office, asking confrontational questions concerning what she’s doing with the money he gave her and that he apparently still can see. She’s been making investments and withdrawing the profits, which, in his eyes, makes her a “bad partner.” She tells him about MyXY, and advises him to short it since it’s on a downward spiral. A mischievous smile spreads across his face.
Meanwhile, Gary (Paul Adelstein) isn’t having much progress with Tess (Thailey Roberge), who turns up the office’s air purifier so that Orson (Everett Blunck) can’t eavesdrop in the basement. As she leaves, Orson confronts her outside in the front yard, and further proves that he’s just a sh*tty person as he attempts to physically block her from leaving. It comes to a head when he grabs her, and when she breaks away, he ignores Gary’s reprimands and shoves him to the ground.
At PINATA, Harper (Jess McLeod) shows Duncan how their company’s business model of literally doxxing everyone is not a viable long-term plan, but Duncan refuses to listen. He has Harper send him the coordinates to the owner of the “treasure trove” of data in Santa Clara and sets off, but is interrupted by Lili (Lucy Punch), who needs him to attend Jamison (Ava Marie Telek)’s school function. He still has time to go to the monk commune, where he meets with Murphy, the CEO of MyXY, who silently resides in a maze painted on the floor. He gets Murphy to not only break his rules of silence and solidarity, but to sell him MyXY outright.
At the night of the school function, JoAnne is ready to go, but Gary declines to attend. Instead, he uses his time in the empty house to collect a urine sample from Orson’s unflushed toilet. Later, he confronts Orson: first, about the money Orson has stolen from him for the tincture, and that he will repay him. Second, he forces Orson to surrender the tincture, which he has found to contain a massive dose of steroids. When Orson demands the tincture back and stands up to confront Gary, the latter also stands up and is significantly taller than his stepson, causing Orson to stand down. At least we have an explanation as to why Orson has been such a cringey dipsh*t in the latter half of the season.
Carl sits down with Martin, and connects with him on their shared teenage years of getting into university early. He eventually convinces Martin that Alexander isn’t as effective at therapy as Martin wants him to be, and to retool Alexander into an “older” mindset. Following the conversation, Martin asks Alexander if he’d like to go on a “journey.” Alexander asks Martin if that is what he would want, and before Martin answers, states that he’d rather not. Still, Martin reboots him, and this time, the “older and more mature” Alexander is much more effective, especially in dealing with an alcoholic veteran who is a danger to himself. Alexander is ready to get shown off.
Duncan is taking a call in the office concerning PINATA and MyXY, with Harper standing next to him. We only hear Duncan’s side of the conversation, but it leads to Duncan suggesting a demo at the “main stage,” to which Harper frantically shakes their head. But it’s too late, and Duncan has committed himself to an interview with Nena. He and Harper run through some of the options of what he could say during the interview, but none of them are good, mostly focusing on disrupting the entire tech sector with more or fewer steps depending on which option he chooses. After Harper leaves, Duncan takes a moment to calm himself down, but it doesn’t help much.
Duncan returns home, and opens up to Lili about how he feels like everyone is rooting for him to fail, and how he needs to share this with her before their potential divorce. The phone rings: it’s Cupertino, with Tim Kwan (Curtis Lum) calling to express Cupertino’s displeasure at PINATA acquiring MyXY. Duncan doesn’t care, despite Tim’s threats, and hangs up in a very satisfying scene that reinforces his ironclad confidence that has gotten him this far. Risky? Probably. Effective? Somehow, absolutely.
To close the episode, Duncan returns to JoAnne at her request, and she suggests that he back out of the interview with Nena. She regrets even mentioning MyXY to Duncan: human DNA is sacred, and PINATA commercializing it is violating that. She asks him to put a pause on this whole thing, but Duncan refuses. To back down would be to admit he did something wrong, which he hasn’t. JoAnne asks him why he has to do this now, and he tells her because it would steal Anushka’s thunder.
Duncan pauses a moment: he smells Anushka on the pillow he’s holding, and immediately assumes betrayal from JoAnne. He furiously asks what Anushka told her about him, bearing down on JoAnne to the point where she starts to panic. She fumbles for her gun case, but the gun isn’t there. She yells at Duncan that they are not partners, and he agrees before storming out.
One big thing I noticed about “Foundering” is that I really didn’t feel the length of the episode. Don’t get me wrong, I have been immensely enjoying the show so far, but each hour “felt” like an hour with just how much was going on. This week was a lot breezier and better paced than it has in prior weeks. That, along with the reliably compelling and entertaining drama/dark comedy, made “Foundering” one of the best of the season.
Next week is the finale…
