'Central Park' Episode 5 Preview: Paige has no leads to uncover Bitsy's plot, Molly must make it up to Brendan
Apple TV+’s new animated musical comedy series ‘Central Park’, created by Loren Bouchard, Josh Gad, and Nora Smith, has taken a simple trope and elevated it to a somewhat gripping story full of vibrant characters and fun songs. The series follows the Tillerman family that lives inside Central Park in New York City. Owen (Leslie Odom Jr.), the park manager, and Paige (Kathryn Hahn), his journalist wife, and their kids Molly (Kristen Bell) and Cole (Tituss Burgess), who lead an otherwise blissful life, suddenly find themselves thrown into an uncontrollable chain of events.
Bitsy Brandenham (Stanley Tucci), a pint-sized, evil, old hotel heiress, wants to destroy the park and build condominiums there instead. But the process is not as simple as she may wish for. Her plans to sabotage the park thus have had to be intricate and complicated.
It started with her pressuring the mayor to pressure a city councilman to refuse park funding. That was followed by Bitsy sowing discord between the park’s benefactors and the mayoral office. What's more, she also pressured the mayor to make the park’s garbage disposal system fail. Her plan, essentially was, for people to no longer like the New York City fixture.
But her plans, at least as far as the garbage was concerned, was averted by a determined Owen. And as for the rest of her plan, Paige was on it. So, what can we expect from the next episode?
So far, Paige only knows that the mayor is involved in this mess. In episode 3, Paige managed to corner the mayor during a food fight at a fancy soiree. But she did not get a satisfactory answer from him: he said that he directed the council member to say no because “we can do better”.
In the following episode, she was too sick with the flu to function. But what now? How will she find out where to head next now that the mayor proved to be a dead-end? It would seem that she is out of leads to follow. And without a story, her boss would definitely not be happy. After all, he did not have much faith in Paige, to begin with.
In terms of subplots, there is also the story of Molly getting further ahead with her romantic interest: Eugene Cordero’s Brendan, a boy who flies kites in the park. Molly’s crush on the boy is more than visible as she draws superhero scenarios with him in her notebook. And in fact, in episode 3, she kisses him. Unfortunately, things turn south from there. Molly had just eaten peanut butter ice cream, and Brendan was allergic to nuts. He ran away from there, panicking, after giving himself an EpiPen shot.
Molly, who is already socially awkward, was further embarrassed when her kiss and its subsequent effects became the talk of her school. While no one knew who the two characters in this tale were, Molly became more and more mortified with every passing moment. And none of this was helped by the fact that Brendan had not returned any of her dozens of text messages.
Ultimately, she realizes that Brendan’s phone was with her, and so he couldn’t have responded to them. But what will happen now? Will she be able to make things up to him? In her head, Brendan was angry with her for giving him an allergic reaction. But in all likeliness, that’s just her anxiety exaggerating things.
So, we have three things to look forward to in the upcoming episode: One, what will Bitsy’s next move be? Two, how will Paige follow the story? And three, what will happen when Molly finally meets Brendan?
New episodes of ‘Central Park’ air every Friday on Apple TV+.