Scott Pilgrim Takes Off

Whatever Season 1 Episode 4 Editor’s Rating 4 stars ****

Scott Pilgrim Takes Off

Whatever Season 1 Episode 4 Editor’s Rating 4 stars ****

Of the cast members in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, Chris Evans became the biggest box-office name in the 13 years after the movie, serving as one of the foundational pillars of the MCU’s first decade. He was cast as Lucas Lee because Edgar Wright was looking for a superhero actor, and Evans played the Human Torch in the first two Fantastic Four films. Still, no one could have expected that he would take his career to stratospheric heights as Captain America. That massive fame adds an extratextual layer to Evans’s performance as Lucas Lee in Scott Pilgrim Takes Off, with Evans playing against the Steve Rogers type as a meathead jerk that doesn’t care about anything — even the downward trajectory of his stardom.

“Whatever!” opens by emphasizing Lucas’s wealth, waking up in his mansion and opening his curtains to reveal his majestic estate while classical music plays in the background. He sleeps in front of a giant portrait of himself, flanked by spiral staircases on both sides. A golden statue of him stands atop a fountain, surrounded by a skating half-pipe. He walks into a circular display room full of skateboards — each one with its own unique deck art — grabs one off the wall and stares handsomely at nothing, mugging for cameras that don’t exist.

The vibe shifts once Lucas hops on his skateboard and rides into the morning sun, prompting the start of “United States of Whatever,” Liam Lynch’s 2002 comedy rock track. The song is a perfect distillation of Lucas’s worldview: The verses are aggressively dismissive of everyone the singer comes into contact with, and the chorus has the singer proudly proclaiming his ownership of the world around him. It plays as he skates around Glendale, California, starting at his home before soaring off to skate on the side of buildings and jump on top of buses. The animation does really cool things with Lucas’s elastic body as he skates, presenting him from dynamic angles that accentuate the badassery of his effortless movement.

The song continues as Lucas hops off his board, gets a facial and mani-pedi, and throws a pool party for people that he probably feels whatever about. He’s living the high life, but is it all that good if you’re ambivalent about everything you do, everywhere you go, and everyone you meet? Lucas should really start caring, because once the music stops, he gets a phone call from his agent (Kirby Howell-Baptiste) telling him that the stardom he loves so much is about to slip through his grasp. During this split-screen conversation, the thin black line dividing them moves left to right depending on who is dominating, giving them more screen space while the other is crammed over to one side. It adds a lot of humor to the conversation, highlighting how this show’s eagerness to play with visual elements enriches the dialogue.

Bryan Lee O’Malley and BenDavid Grabinski go meta in “Whatever!”, taking us to the set of a new movie imagining a world where Scott Pilgrim defeated Matthew Patel. Written by Young Neil and directed by Edgar Wrong, Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life features Lucas Lee and Envy Adams as Scott and Ramona, and the script somehow knows the exact details of Scott’s days leading up to his fight, like the conversation Scott and Wallace have in bed after Scott sees Ramona in his dream.

Johnny Simmons might be giving my favorite voice performance of the series as Young Neil, who says everything with a whispery quality that is both awestruck and bewildered. He’s incredibly stupid but assumes an air of authority because of his role on set, which gives him the best one-liners of the episode. Wallace Wells is on the opposite side of the competence spectrum. He steps into the spotlight when he heckles the “notorious heterosexual” cast to play him, impressing the director with his confidence and earning himself the role instead. This plot point could be seen as an acknowledgment that the Scott Pilgrim adaptations cast a straight man to play Wallace, but Kieran Culkin’s charmingly arrogant performance really does fit like a glove.

With his career in a tailspin, Lucas has to take the part of Scott Pilgrim because he has no other options, but it ultimately puts him where he needs to be to resolve his issues with Ramona. Scott Pilgrim Takes Off is largely about Ramona and her exes finding closure, which only happens by talking to each other. As Lucas tells Ramona, the exes aren’t actually evil — it’s just branding — and with Roxy and Lucas, the series moves away from the good-versus-evil binary and into a muddier morality that is much more interesting.

While Ramona questions Lucas about Scott’s disappearance, the two of them are ambushed by the ninja paparazzi that we saw trailing Envy at Scott’s funeral. Ramona tosses Lucas his skateboard and triggers the episode’s big fight: Lucas Lee versus the paparazzi. Lucas gets on his board and races around the lot, taking out endlessly multiplying hordes of paparazzi. While there are some exciting moments, like the skateboard corkscrew, the action pales in comparison to the last episode’s stunning rental-store showdown and the skateboard sequence at the top of this episode. The studio backlot environment isn’t as visually engaging as the Glendale setting, and the animation on the paparazzi is so chaotic that it becomes muddy.

Lucas defeats the paparazzi but shatters his skateboard in the process, bringing back memories of his first fall and his doomed relationship with Ramona. As much as he wants to look back at that time with anger, she reminds him that she always took care of him when he would hurt himself. She hurt Lucas by leaving him for another guy, but that pain drove him to be the best skater, highest-paid actor, and biggest star. Lucas realizes that he should be thanking Ramona, which is a much healthier perspective when looking back at a bygone relationship.

Once Lucas sorts out his baggage with Ramona, he can pursue a new dream. He’s been the skater-actor-star, and now it’s time to find out what he wants to be when he’s not compelled by resentment for his ex. It’s great that his career is over; he was whatever about it anyway. Ramona eliminates Lucas as a suspect, but before she leaves the studio, she sees her third ex, Todd Ingram, teleport through a vegan portal to audition for the role of Scott Pilgrim. It’s a portal that looks a lot like the one Scott was pulled into. Ramona has a new suspect, and we get to spend more time on the movie set!

Precious Little Thoughts

• Ramona’s hair change: jade on the top, chartreuse on the bottom!

• We get two very fun Ramona reaction shots at the film studio. When she sees Envy Adams playing her, a giant “CLANG” sound effect appears above her, and she shatters like glass, leaving a hole in the screen. When the actor playing Wallace creeps on her, a giant “KLONG” sound effect melts on top of her and covers her in orange goo.

• It’s a big episode for dynamic-duo cameos: Simon Pegg and Nick Frost voice security guards at Torontowood Studios, and Bowen Yang and Matt Rogers play two gossips on TV.

• Robot-01 getting humiliated is a great recurring gag. In this episode, Young Neil crashes into him with a golf cart on the studio lot.

• “They’re about to roll the camera. Not like a bowling ball. The camera doesn’t roll at all. You learn a lot on a movie set.”

• “Yes, our lead character is flawed.”

• “Did you know in the U.S., these are called Mario Karts?”

• “You can always wish upon a star! The star being me.”

• “It’s like I’m a show that’s no longer on the air. I’m a … damn, I wish there was a word for it.”

• “Wow, that’s a fast garbage can.”

Scott Pilgrim Takes Off Recap: When You Wish Upon a Star