Avenue 5's annoying couples Karen and Frank Kelly with Mia and Doug compound the drama aboard cruise spaceship
Things couldn't get drearier on episode 2 of the show now that there are, not one, but four coffins macabrely orbiting the Avenue 5 spaceship. It is like a constant decree of death on full view for the passengers who are increasingly becoming militant onboard the cruise spaceship with the clueless captain Ryan Clark (Hugh Laurie) with a fluctuating accent.
Confined spaces are the perfect setting for drama. With tensions rising aboard the ship, two couples, in particular, are contributing to the mayhem. The first, of course, is Karen Kelly (Rebecca Front) and her husband, Frank (Andy Buckley). To be fair, Frank does little to contribute besides being a loyal cheerleader to his nosy wife, but Karen does enough damage all on her ownsome.
Karen Kelly is such a Karen -- the entitled, obnoxious, middle-aged woman we love posting memes about but would never ever want to encounter in real life. As the stereotypical annoying busybody, she eavesdrops, gossips, moans vocally at every opportunity and volunteers herself as the spokesperson of the passengers. Much of the humor of episode 2 comes from Karen grabbing any mike in the vicinity to sound off. She is also immune to Captain Clark's "fuzzy charm", making her even more difficult to control as she instigates almost every confrontation with the crew.
She is also the prime instigator of all the restlessness among the passengers, funneling their discontent into a barely suppressed rage. It is why poor Billie (Lenora Crichlow) gets heckled when she is saddled with the responsibility of trying to explain the mess and why Captain Clark says he would put her in an "escape pod" if he could, just to get rid of her. Customer relations Matt Spencer (Zach Woods) is a Karen fan but then again his approach to soothing the passengers is so whacked that expecting logic from him at this point is pointless. Iris Kimura (Suzy Nakamura), the frighteningly efficient assistant to Herman Judd (Josh Gad), is the only one who has the right idea. She asks the database to pull up all information on Karen -- the Judd Cooperation is going to need all the dirt they have on her.
Providing the lowkey but constant accompaniment to Karen's histrionics is the dysfunctional couple, Mia (Jessica St. Clair) and Doug (Kyle Bornheimer), who are on the verge of divorce. Even with the ship in crisis, the couple has not been able to stop fighting. So much so that even the hearing-impaired occupant of their neighboring cabin and the lady who has the cabin furthest from them can hear them arguing all the time. While Doug seems to want to reconcile reminding Mia how her sister had sent them on this second honeymoon, Mia is having none of it. She slaps his hands off her each time he tries to use the grim situation they are in to try and comfort her. With them and the Kelly couple providing drama galore, even the orbiting coffins pale in relative significance.
'Avenue 5' will air on HBO on Sundays at 10 p.m. ET.