Grid Effect

Sunday night’s Extras was probably my favorite of the short series. It revolved heavily around Stephen Merchant, who very well might be funnier than Gervais as Andy’s bumbling agent. This isn’t meant to be disparaging towards Gervais, who had his own moments (particularly the dinner scene), but Merchant’s comedic timing was impeccable in the conversation with the midget, the television interview and when he was trying to avoid calling the producer for the knock off Harry Potter film.

We should get him together with Dakota Fanning

The plot was fairly simple, Andy gets offered a bit movie role in a new fantasy movie starring Daniel Radcliffe (The kid from the Harry Potter franchise). The midget has a average sized fiance whom everyone questions, Radcliffe is a horny teenager who’s afraid of his mother and Andy, tired of food on set, wants to eat at a “proper resturant” where he unknowingly offends a mother and her mentally handicapped son by asking the waitress to ask the mother and her child to “keep it down”. Andy had his back to their table and the kid had his back to them so it was unbeknownst to him that the kid was disabled.

Anyhow, through a series of misunderstandings, Andy ends up kicked off the film after the midget attacks him and Andy accidentally knocks him out. In addition, he had been ripped to shreds in the tabloids for hating the mentally challenged, where the story had been (obviously) blown out of proportion.

But like I said the episode belonged to Merchant who had several choice lines:

(Taps midget on top of his head to draw his attention) “Could I fit in your house?”

“Andy didn’t know the kid was…mentally deranged. You couldn’t tell if some kid was a mongloid by staring at the back of his head.” -On some British talk show, supposedly defending his client.

“Do you think the producers would buy my TV?” -Merchant trying to sell his television after him and Andy agree it is to big for his apartment.

By the end of the episode, Andy is believed by his peers to dislike the mentally handicapped and midgets all through the fault of his agent and Maggie (who led the midgets wife to believe that Andy thought he could steal her from him solely for being “normal height”). There are only six episodes in this second season, so I assume this is the tipping point that will lead to Andy being an extra again by the time season three is underway.