'Kidding' Season 2 Episode 7: Jeff is honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award and Deirdre loses her sanity
This article contains spoilers for 'Kidding' Season 2
In Episode 6 we saw a riveting funeral at sea for the late Fil, Mr Pickles from the Philippines, and this episode, titled 'The Acceptance Speech' sees Deirdre Piccirillo (Catherine Keener) deal with the absence of her brother Jeff Piccirillo aka the original Mr Pickles, (Jim Carrey) during the award ceremony that would honor him with a Lifetime Achievement Award.
Jeff is off at an institute that cares for older people who suffer from dementia trying to pick up the dainty pieces left for his life, while his father, Seb (Frank Langella) suffers a minor stroke that has him seeing the past.
In the last episode, Jeff had lost his entire Pickle family and decides to take time for himself and goes AWOL on his entire family. His ex-wife Jill (Judy Greer) does, nor his father seems to care that he hasn't shown up for the ceremony but his sister seemingly has a medical breakdown. In the midst of essentially going insane after being put in the position to handle the Pickles Empire, and losing the ownership of her puppets to her ex-husband, Scott Perera (Bernard White), she decides to put a musical pickle up her vagina. When this starts to ring during the ceremony, she calls her ex-sister-in-law Jill for help. This isn't shocking, it's 'kidding' after all.
The relationship between Deirdre and her father, Seb, is decidedly unhealthy and during a fight where she demands he let her know if he'd rather have had only one child, he momentarily loses the ability to speak. Taking his granddaughter, Maddy Perera (Juliet Morris) with him, he goes to the hospital where he is told that not only had he suffered a minor stroke but he is at risk for a larger one. Seemingly fine, he and his granddaughter pinky promise to keep the news to themselves, but we as viewers are able to see that Seb may have suffered more than he's realized. Catching a glimpse of what he thinks was his ex-wife, he asks the person out to dinner - it isn't his wife, it's an African man.
After Jeff spends the ceremony day at the home of the elderly, he visits a person that opens his eyes to the truth. Making his way to the award ceremony, he starts off his speech with his realization: his family is real, his job's a fantasy.
'Kidding' Season 2 airs on Sundays at 10 pm EST on Showtime.