The rise of Reggie Dinkins is going to come in fits and starts commensurate with his impulsive drive to follow each shiny new path to quick redemption. Earlier episodes have done an admirable job of cramming a promising ensemble, the parceled-out backstory of his career, and the traditional weekly sitcom structure into coherent wholes. And in a more roomy, 30 Rock-esque season, The Fall And Rise Of Reggie Dinkins would have space to include a goofy gambit-of-the-week episode like this one, where Reggie and Monica, inspired by old home movies, decide to resurrect Reggie’s youth football camp. Here, though, a self-contained caper feels rushed and a little sweaty. Worse yet, “You May Hug Your Hero” isn’t all that funny.
There’s a runner throughout the episode where Bobby Moynihan’s Rusty keeps offering up accurately prosaic summations of everyone’s motivations. (Reggie initially wants to use the camp to bolster his comeback chances. Monica aims to keep things pure to recapture the couple’s 2004 idealism in helping kids.) Having your show’s wacky side character go meta only works if it feels less like a necessary storytelling crutch, however.
A funny side quest needs a villain, and Reggie Dinkins has one in the form of former NFL rival-turned-Michael Strahan-esque media darling Jerry Basmati (Craig Robinson). A Bible-quoting practiced camera hog like Jerry has, to Reggie’s way of thinking, stolen what’s rightfully his. Jerry’s in the Hall Of Fame, has a cushy New Jersey morning-show gig alongside “a blond lady named Kylie or Kelly or something,” and is still married to the annoyingly performative woman he was with in his playing days (Tisha Basmati, played with amusingly squeaky insincerity by Heidi Gardner).
It’s especially galling since Reggie routinely owned defensive player Jerry throughout their college and pro careers, a domination culminating in…“the crotchdown.” Presented by Rusty via handy action figures (the NFL’s position on game footage is still, as Arthur confides, “a hard no”), the play in question saw Reggie failing at a Saquon Barkley-style hurdle maneuver, which resulted in him shoulder-riding the staggered Jerry backwards into the end zone. (Arthur has received the league’s permission to say “Super Bowl,” as long as there’s a bowl of soup in the shot.)
As welcome and devilishly charming as Robinson is, Jerry Basmati’s inevitable treachery, like the episode, is too pat. Essentially, he’s jealous. There’s an amusing hand wave toward Jerry’s quick turn to the dark side, with Robinson making Jerry’s matter-of-factness part of the joke. “Hey Reg, here’s the thing: I still hate you and I’m trying to blow up your spot,” Jerry smirks delightedly as he wheels in his own flashy football camp apparatus to steal Reggie’s thunder. But the abruptness would work better in an episode that wasn’t all similarly perfunctory.
On that theme, for an episode whose final twist hinges on the whole documentary angle, Arthur Tobin doesn’t figure in at all. Instead, Daniel Radcliffe gets to be as adorable as Arthur is sort of sleazy as the character plays up his Oscar cred to eventually win the fleeting, back-of-the-van romantic attentions of a dishy postal worker. That Radcliffe has a tingly chemistry with that person (played by none other than Megan Thee Stallion), working his stammering British game on a woman a full head taller doesn’t hide the fact that Arthur is essentially irrelevant here.
Monica does better with her B-story, as her insistence on taking the Obama-like high road even when confronted with Tisha’s continued campaign of passive aggressive fake friendliness gives her and Precious Way’s Brina another chance to bond. I let out a sigh of relief when the series immediately veered away from any sort of female rivalry subplot. There’s a no-nonsense pragmatism driving both very different women that makes their blessedly unstereotypical relationship work.
This week we get another glimpse of Monica’s lifelong investment in Reggie Dinkins’ success. She is confronted by Brina (who’s all for going scorched earth) for keeping a tight smile in the face of Tisha’s cutting insincerity. Brina scorns Monica’s repeated Obama high roading by asking, “What has goin’ high ever got anybody? Mitch McConnell ran all over y’all.”
There’s a fruitful undercurrent to Monica’s story contained there. While there’s no suggestion that she actually loved her high-school sweetheart, Monica’s been steering her erratic but talented man according to her own guiding star of prosperity and security. Divorce may have collapsed one aspect of her dream of Dinkins family generational wealth and respect, but, as she tells Brina, quoting Beyoncé: “Always stay gracious. Your revenge is your paper.”
Which is why the episode’s third-act swerve into a big youth-camp showdown doesn’t really work. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciated that Reggie’s ragtag gaggle of dandelion-blowing inside kids get creamed no matter how many contradictory pep talks they get. But the way Reggie and Monica swap their initial stances is another way “You May Hug Your Hero” just doesn’t pay off.
Monica, finally broken by Tisha’s Southern-fried condescension, urges no mercy on the bewildered kids. Reggie, who’d been just previously berating the players for not responding to his “win one for the Gipper” hard-assery (one kid helpfully reminds Reggie about Ronald Reagan’s crappiness on AIDS, crack, and mental health) does an abrupt about-face to the high road. With Jerry’s wager to publicly call for Reggie’s HOF candidacy ringing in his ears (should his team score one measly point), Reggie attempts to inspire his unpromising kids with some sound football strategy. (“That didn’t work at all!,” Reggie notes angrily at the immediately revealed 98-0 final score.)
There is a lot to like here. Tracy Morgan’s delivery in the following post-game exchange is inimitable: “So, how my ass taste?” “Bad!” The returning joke where a frustrated Tisha admits that telling Monica that she never ages was intended to suggest she’s a vampire is a good callback. And that Rusty thinks that Arthur’s documentary is also intended to solve his uncle’s murder adds yet another shade to Rusty’s wild-card status. But “You May Hug Your Hero” is the sort of episode where the pieces of a better show remain unsatisfyingly jumbled. The payoff that Reggie’s sincere speech to his defeated kids is picked up by Jerry’s A.M. New Jersey cameras for the feel-good redemption story Reggie and Monica were hoping for would have been more affecting if the rush to get there wasn’t so haphazard.
Stray observations
- • “Jerry Basmati” just doesn’t scan as funny as intended. Okay, Jerry Rice, I get it. But Robinson’s glad-handed snake doesn’t map onto the former 49er legend any further than that.
- • Not to make excuses, but the crotchdown really was the sort of thing to scar a guy. According to Jerry, the sight of Reggie straddling his face for a TD was the first-ever meme, on the cover of MAD magazine, and the inspiration for a popular unlicensed Halloween costume (under the name “Crotch Football Man.”)
- • Another of Jerry’s gripes: Reggie’s Saturday Night Live hosting stint (alongside musical guest Hoobastank) was “a season low point.”
- • Jerry’s assertion that his camp is all about teaching kids the game is undermined when they beat a Reggie-faced tackling dummy with baseball bats.
- • According to Reggie, his flashback straightened hair had people coming up to him on the street to call him “André 1000.”
- • “Tucker Carlson called. He wants to meet a Black person.” “Hard pass.”
- • Responding to Rusty’s objection that it’s impossible to score “just one point,” Jerry brings up the nearly impossible “safety on a two-point conversion” rule.
- • “It’s gonna make yours look like a Taco Bell next to an Outback Steakhouse.” “Is one of those supposed to be better than the other?”
- • Monica is so bad at trash talk that she turns into Brick Tamland.
- • But her business acumen is on point: “I got in early on Ozempic after they made those pizzas where the crust is churros.”
- • Reggie Dinkins continues to swipe jokes from the Fey-iverse. One of Reggie’s players asking “What are those really big grasses?” about the trees circling the football field is straight out of Knuckle Beach.
- • The quiet moment when Reggie’s televised speech to the kids plays in his living room was genuinely sweet.
Dennis Perkins is a contributor to The A.V. Club.
Keep scrolling for more great stories.