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You wouldn't know it to watch the show, which is rich with visual allusions. When Jemaine tries to pick up girls in a coffee shop by ordering a croissant in French, the scene shifts into a video for "Foux Du Fafa," a conversational-French lesson set to '60s Europop and filmed in the grainy color of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. "In the two or three minutes of a music video," McKenzie says, "the world can just explode open. We can get really surreal or abstract, then drop back into the world of the characters." (Michel Gondry, whose videos and films like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind share FOTC's playful aesthetic, guest-directs an episode this season.)
Keeping FOTC grounded are Bret and Jemaine, who depart from the Spinal Tap rock-parody standard with their deadpan manner. They're both straight men, and thus both hilarious when they earnestly deal with absurd situations like trying to write a jingle for women's toothpaste. (As they brainstorm about things that interest women, Jemaine suggests weaving. No, Bret solemnly corrects: "Weaving's a man's game.") HBO grows most of its comedy worldly and edgy; FOTC's naïfs inhabit a world smaller than Carrie Bradshaw's shoe collection, but their show has a refreshing innocence.
Clement and McKenzie considered quitting after Season 1, knowing it would be a tough act to repeat. In the early Season 2 episodes, the strain shows in the songs, which service the plot but aren't as memorable as the old ones. But the scripts are as funny and tightly written as ever, like an episode in which Bret buys a second tea mug, a "$2.79 spending spree" that causes their checks to bounce and sends them into a spiral of poverty.
So will the duo come back for a Season 3? Ask them after this one's over, they say. As long as they keep slacking this well, let's hope they don't quit their day jobs.