Review: The Paper | Season 1, Episodes 2-4

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If you weren’t following closely, you might be unaware The Paper was not originally going to be a binge release. In a pattern we often see with streaming shows—like Only Murders in the Building this coming week—they were intending to release a batch of the episodes (four, specifically) the first week, with two episodes a week to follow.

While the switch to a binge release has rendered this distribution plan obsolete, I’m using it to structure these reviews, in part because I want to follow their original logic. At a point in time, Peacock thought that it was logical to make the end of “TTT vs. the Blogger” the moment where viewers were asked to wait until the following week to see the story continue, and spend more time with these characters. And while there is at least one major transitional moment in that episode, for the most part these three installments are about moving away from some of the conflict that defined the early episodes into a more stable workplace environment for all parties.

Take, for instance, the tension between Esmeralda and Ned. In “The Five Ws,” Esmeralda actively sets up Ned to fail by prematurely cutting the wire service, and then delays lunch in order to set himself back on his quest to make deadline. The show doesn’t position this as the only barrier to Ned’s success—he does, after all, become his own story by insisting the morgue must have dead bodies, convincing them he was a serial killer. But there’s no question that Esmeralda is an outright antagonist, as made clear in “Buddy and the Dude” when she actively excludes him from a budget meeting where she tries to get Marv to agree to go back to how things were before.

There’s some pleasure in Esmeralda’s bitterness, sure, but it is not a sustainable dynamic if the show intends to run for multiple seasons. This is why “TTT vs. the Blogger” consciously forces the two to team up, as high schooler Wesley targets them both amid his feud with the paper. It’s an important story for bringing the two characters onto the same page, even if Ned is horrified by his actions in retrospect. The story begins with Ned being humbled, his bitterness at Wesley’s success—including having actually covered the fire they missed in the pilot—converging unfortunately with his lack of attention to an important Simpsons joke. But then Esmeralda’s attempt to fix it only puts her in the same position, and while the planting of a fake press release is Ned’s plan, it’s Esmeralda who hits send when he hesitates. Having them at odds makes sense for where the show starts, but we needed to leave this first section of the show at least believing they could occasionally end up on the same page even if their philosophies and methods remain distinct.

Their conflict is directly tied to the health and future of the Truth Teller, and the show has clearly positioned Mare at the core of this question. She’s the only one with any reporting experience, and once “The Five Ws” establishes that everyone else is pretty much incompetent, the actual newspaper piece of the show hinges on her. With a 10-episode season, there isn’t really time for constant depictions of journalism, but that first outing lets the various characters have some time in the field so we can at least imagine that they’re doing their own D- or E-stories while the episodes are playing out. The reveal in “Buddy and the Dude” that Ned’s invented the “Also News” as a way to validate the newbie journalists’ feelings without actually publishing their stories is a clever way to let the comedy of incompetence continue without destroying the “realism” of the paper surviving.

“Buddy and the Dude” gives us our first real “story,” after the attempts at journalism in “The Five Ws” all fall apart and result in a first issue bolstered by multiple chapters of Get Shorty. Mare’s instincts on the mattress story are good, actively referring back to the paper’s history and the place of consumer advocacy within local news traditions. We’ll get to the hijinks of the actual reporting in a second, but the story gets the result they wanted when Marv enjoys the piece and un-fires Ned before realizing he had forgotten to fire him. And while Mare hits a bit of a speed bump on her journalism journey in “TTT vs. the Blogger” when she starts airing out high school audition grievances in her story about the beloved music teacher, she eventually writes the puff piece that she could actually report, and is gifted the Juilliard fraud in return. While it may be hard for Ned to stand behind his confidence of the paper’s success, given the state of the field and the fact that he bullied a high schooler out of jealousy, each episode has at least given us a moment or two where it seemed like actual journalism can and will be happening at the Truth Teller.

Mare is also central to some other important business in these episodes, which is positioning the show within the long history of slow burn sitcom relationships. I actually take Ned at his word that his concern over Mare leaving the Truth Teller for a job in the concierge industry is primarily about her competence, but Esmeralda makes him think about the romantic undertones, and he mildly unravels during their couple roleplay at the mattress store in “Buddy and the Duke” as a result. The show has never actively positioned them in a romantic way, but they’re clearly the two characters most invested in this project, and that’s going to put them into close proximity.

Still, there’s a rote quality to the whole affair, and none of the asexual stuff—like the discussion of the twin bed—really landed for me. The show leaves the door open in the end, with Mare kind of rolling her eyes at the “Buddy and the Duke” framing and fistbump that Ned uses to create distance, but to me their relationship is much more about the shared responsibility they’re taking on. Ned is betting everything on Mare being about to produce the stories to keep the paper afloat, and Mare is betting everything on Ned being the leader to turn her work into something that resonates. That could end up bringing them together, sure, but that isn’t something that feels right for either character at this interval.

This is probably why the show commits to Detrick and Nicole in the way they do in “TTT vs. the Blogger.” It’s the first story where you can feel the tension of only having ten episodes to work with, because this happens at a breakneck pace. Nicole wanted nothing to do with him in the pilot, but over the course of these three episodes they go all the way to an intense makeout session in the post-credits scene. Ramona Young and Melvin Gregg have a nice, easy chemistry, and we do get to see the “work” here: he shows some grace by letting her take back her admission of dating a married man, and then shows some self-awareness after the intensity of the hand-widdled bird is evident. But the problem is that it wholly defines them by their connection—they aren’t two characters we understand coming together romantically, they’re two characters who are understood only by their romantic relationship. I’m not against the idea, but there’s no weight to it, and you’re reminded how little runway they have to work with as they try to play the greatest hits from The Office and so many shows like it.

Speaking of The Office, though, these three episodes also serve as the integration of Oscar Martinez into the plot of The Paper, and this is a story that seems better paced. I appreciate that the Sudoku story happens mostly in the background of “The Five Ws,” before pulling back to reveal Oscar’s excited call to Stanley at episode’s end. And while Oscar doesn’t actively go to bat for Ned in the budget meeting in “Buddy and the Dude,” he does pull out the details about Ken’s warehouse apartment, offering enough cover to keep the Truth Teller going. So by the time we get to “TTT vs. the Blogger,” it makes sense that Oscar would start indulging his very real love of “arts and leisure,” even if it means sitting through a gender-flipped Mean Girls with a pretty weak performance of “Apex Predator.”

Oscar’s story isn’t the core of the show, but it has the show at its most meta, including some continued chyron bullying when he lies about his age. It’s a mode The Office resisted for a very long time, but one that fits the focus on “the team coming together” in these early episodes. The way Oscar tries to draw a line between being part of the paper and being part of the documentary isn’t exactly a deep story, but it’s been signposted well as a background story in these episodes. We can discuss whether or not that time would have been better spent fleshing out new characters—Adelola and Adam feel particularly unserved after getting a bit more of a spotlight with the “Doggin’” story—but it’s working as a source of comedy and character at this stage in the season.

If this had been the point where the show stopped after its first week, I would argue it more or less works. I’m more invested in the Truth Teller, have a good sense of the central characters I’m meant to care about, and there’s a bit of interest in the supporting cast to make me curious to see more. Has there been a truly great episode that takes all these component parts and puts them together? No. But this is a competently made show that mostly earns its inspirational speeches about journalism, and which I’m looking forward to seeing grow in the episodes to come (limited as those might be).

Stray observations

• I don’t think I have a handle on Ned, which is something I’ll definitely be exploring more as we get into these reviews. Gleeson’s performance is fine, and I don’t think the show is doing a bad job of exploring his vulnerabilities within a broader competence, but what he does for the show as a comedy remains a bit vague.
• I appreciate the production design of Esmeralda’s office overburdened by all the stuff she was forced to move from her larger office. The way all the clutter overwhelms her talking heads is particularly fun.
• Travis’ drone gives us the romantic reveal of Detrick and Nicole—helping bypass the logic they’d kiss like that with cameras on them—but he’s otherwise kind of floating. The friendship he’s trying to strike up with Detrick is something, I suppose, but not a lot to go on here.
• I get that the joke is Barry is an addled alcoholic, but I don’t know if that’s really a sustainable character in this format? It’s just one joke told over and over.
• The little moment of Ned reading the “MOBMIAB” note and immediately understanding it was a nice one.
• Honestly, it’s kind of shocking to me that Ned didn’t think about letting student journalists volunteer their time to write stories after their visit to the office. I’d be against this on principle, but they’re obviously more competent journalists than anyone but Mare.
• The “Pig” headline that Adelola made an error with is a fine visual joke, but how did it get through editorial? Isn’t that Ned’s mistake now?
• I know it’s the joke, but I simply don’t believe that a local news blogger would ever have more subscribers than the actual population of the city in question?
• One of the central tensions in my coverage of The Office for The A.V. Club was people who just wanted me to list my favorite jokes, and the thematic interest of these reviews is definitely veering away from that. So if you had a favorite joke, leave it in the comments.