The Crazy Ones 1x04: The Breakfast Burrito Club

Sydney is a workaholic and Simon is forcing her to take a vacation to Hawaii.

But they get a call from a client and need to find an advertising idea fast, so she changes her flight, and they all start talking about burritos.

They can't find an idea, so Sydney busts out the Creativity Binder.

But the topic turns to relationships instead of work. Zach likes a girl for the first time. Andrew's back with his ex, who makes him wear cardigans, which he hates. So Simon gets him to burn it to pacify the gods of creativity.

The ensuing sprinkler downpour soaks Sydney and Andrew and they have to change clothes, which leads to Andrew wearing a track suit from a Pringles campaign.

And to him kissing her. She quickly shoves him off, because they're buddies. He thinks he's destroyed everything.

Simon still has no ideas, so he goes back to the diner where he used to work to get his creativity flowing.

He still can't come up with anything, so they give up and try to enjoy the night. Lauren performs some of her poetry, Andrew chats with his girlfriend on the phone, and Zach invites his lady to the diner and realizes he hates her. It's all so magical.

Father and daughter have a talk about how she needs to find a life outside of work so she doesn't wind up like him. She wonders aloud if Andrew cheated on his girlfriend with her, which gives her dad an idea.

And the day is saved.

What I Liked
-Sarah Michelle Gellar draws really good circles.

It's not the most useful talent in the world, but it's still kinda neat.

-The firefighters have to ask Simon if he's sexually aroused by starting fires. That's an excellent question that all men should be asked at some point in their lives.
-After he kisses Sydney, Andrew realizes that he's going to have to call HR on himself. They don't like it when you do that. It's weird.
-Lauren doesn't think either Sydney or Andrew is good enough for one another. That really does happen sometimes.
-"Adultery and breakfast: Together at last." Getting breakfast together when you're having an affair is really hard.

What I Hated
-Simon goes straight to Hitler when talking about people he hasn't met but still hates. That's fine, but it's not funny. There must've been a hundred people they could've listed that would've elicited a laugh.
-The sweater burns ridiculously quickly. Like it was doused in kerosene or something.

Final Thoughts
Robin Williams vacillates a bit between manic and maudlin in this episode. I hope that's in the script and he's not off his meds or something.

They spent this week doing a bit of character development, which is good. We learned that Andrew and Sydney are friends outside of work, Sydney's a workaholic, Simon used to be a fry cook, Lauren's bisexual, and Zach likes women but he doesn't really like women. After four episodes, the characters are getting some solid definition, and in the future their personalities can be a source of humour, rather than just relying on gags.

As for the content of this episode, I liked it reasonably well. The cleansing fire setting off the sprinklers gag has been done before, but they did some good visual stuff, and even managed to rein in Williams' performance a tad.