'Muppets Now' Episode 3 Review: Miss Piggy and Taye Diggs discover that dining in the dark is a messy affair
This show just keeps getting funnier, as the Muppets remember the one thing they do best: making a big, sloppy mess out of everything in the most enthusiastic way possible. This show's comedy has been improving episode after episode. After throwing everything against the wall, the Muppets have found out what sticks, and apparently, it's unbaked pizza dough. You can't argue with that -- it's science.
This episode, entitled 'Sleep Mode', may just have found its funniest between-segment gag yet, bringing in the Muppets' harshest critics, Statler (Peter Linz) and Waldorf (Dave Goelz) to take their heckling skills to an all-new arena as a focus group for each segment that gets uploaded. Their jokes may be as old as they are, but there's something undeniably hilarious about their exuberant disdain that just makes their barbs all the more funnier.
Having a between-segment gag that actually works does wonders for the show, though each segment absolutely still holds its own. 'Okey Dokey Kookin' features the wonderfully charismatic Chef Roy Choi cooking up some Korean barbecue with an LA twist, with the help of the Swedish Chef (Bill Baretta). The show has been using the Chef for more than one note jokes about garbled Swedish misunderstandings and bad cooking. His petulance at being only allowed to handle the rice as Beverly Plume (Julianne Buescher) flirts relentlessly with the star guest hits the spot better than a bowl of kimchi.
Miss Piggy (Eric Jacobson) continues to try to turn "Lifesty" to "Lifestyle," this week resulting in un the ultra-catchy 'Lifestye-LE: All Together', but while her talk with recurring guest star Linda Cardellini about her relationship problems with thinly veiled threats to Kermit (Matt Vogel) are fun, her dinner in the dark with Taye Diggs is where the best comedy lies. As the two struggle to enjoy a dinner in a special lights-out experience, it's fair to say that a blank screen has never been as entertaining.
No one, however, is having more fun than Dr Bunsen Honeydew (Dave Goelz) and Beaker (David Rudman), as they attempt to learn about velocity by launching pizza, soda, breadsticks, and various raw pizza ingredients at a wall. At one point, Dr Honeydew explicitly asks, "Is there a way to make this more messy?" in his a completely earnest and delighted scientist voice, which may be the most Muppets thing anyone's ever said on the show so far.
The episode rounds off with another segment of 'Pepe's Unbelievable Game Show', hosted by Pepe the King Prawn (Bill Barretta), which continues to be the best part of an already joyful show. Last week's contestants were a weak point of the segment, but that's fortunately changed this episode. Pepe's whimsical style of hosting is infused with so much intense energy that he somehow manages to even turn a contestant's tragic tale of how his dog passed away into a comedic beat, just by how out of place it is in this utterly arbitrary game show.
'The Muppets' seems to have hit its stride, but hopefully not its peak, with another episode that shows just how funny the Muppets can be when they're allowed to be as chaotic as they like. Every performer appears to be having the time of their lives, and that kind of fun just shines through.
The next episode of 'Muppets Now' airs August 21, on Disney+.