Karen (Rebecca Front) is reduced to an eye-rolling despot deposed by her husband’s muted zealotry. Mia’s (Jessica St. Clair) fling with the acting navigator is basically unnecessary filler which doesn’t even bother her estranged husband Frank Kelly (Andy Buckley). There is some pleasure in hearing Captain Ryan Clark (Hugh Laurie) explain what joy is to Iris (Suzy Nakamura), who is apparently too young to remember it. The ship’s virtual golf course is vaguely funny. Players can swing like a young Judy Garland and send the ball somewhere over the rainbow or put like an old drug addicted Garland. It’s so pathetic, Herman Judd (Josh Gad) tees off in red shoes.
The head of Judd Corporation shrinks in the face of fear and finally gets walloped but we don’t really care. He hasn’t earned any emotional investment. We don’t particularly like him so getting to see him get his ass kicked verbally should be more rewarding. But it’s nothing more than a pissing match between two rich people.
Harrison Ames is a $3 trillion man who openly calls his fellow travelers 10th class passengers and poor. He’s a caricature tailor made to hate, which usually works wonders in an Armando Iannucci series, where insults become individual works of art. But Ames’ wit is limited calling Judd “Fudd,” and not even having the commitment to reference a mansion or a yacht. He does get in some weird violent sexual innuendo threats but is really only threatening because he is reputed to be litigious, and a lawsuit would scuttle the rescue.
Comebacks are more important than solutions on the ship and Judd spends most of the episode trying to come up with good ones. Matt (Zach Woods) turns out to be so talented at it he inadvertently reveals Judd was chemically castrated by his own body. Pressure is what creates diamonds and Ames has the crew in a Kung Fu grip. Captain Ryan, who is served with divorce proceedings by an onboard attorney, tries to mine a dinner-at-the-captain’s table for some legal appeasement and is denied because he’s uninteresting.
Billy is basically Avenue 5‘s Scotty and, like Star Trek‘s enterprising engineer, she attempts to flout the law of physics. The ship will have to be docked in three years and it takes five years to learn how to do it. The Captain, who has the only imprints to work it, is only an actor, and has no years of training and no chance of learning in time. She is supportive for less than a minute before she abandons any pretense. The captain doesn’t deserve to be propped up. Neither does the comedian, who actually does catch Billy’s fleeting attention, although not her funny bone.