The Agency‘s first episode introduces Travel & Tours, described as “the last travel agency in NYC,” which is staffed by four inexplicably identical-looking employees, all played by Adults‘ own Paul Baker, Jack Innanen. “Are you all related,” asks businesslike visitor (and Innanen’s Big Mistakes costar) Taylor Ortega, only to be assured that they are not. In the brisk, two-minute episode, Ortega’s corporate rep informs the four disparate travel agents (the French-accented one, the awkward one, the smooth one, and the knife-brandishing “adventure” guy) that they have to modernize their underperforming business or be shut down. To be fair, the corporate memo announcing the same thing arrives via ear-splitting fax.
As for why Banana Republic thinks producing an original online micro-sitcom will help them sell khakis and business casual accessories, who can say. Other brands like Maybelline, Crocs, and Marc Jacobs have all recently recruited recognizable faces for their own microdrama campaigns. And if The Agency, at least in its brief initial episode, doesn’t hit the product placement quite as hard as those others (even though one assumes all the Jack Innanen’s are wearing various BR fashions), the travel-centric nature of the series at least offers up plenty of all-weather wardrobe options for the agency’s as-yet unseen client base.
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