God Friended Me Episode 3
It was a nice day. Cue in the cheerful soundtrack. Miles drops into this seat, ready to record another Millennium Prophet podcast and he takes a good look at the numbers. He’s stunned to discover he lost half of his listeners.
You interview the Pope or something?
This was a nice twist thrown in at the third episode of the season. You expect from a feel-good drama that Miles would get an increased number of listeners. Instead, he loses his audience thanks to the God account.
I thought the show would continue with its altruistic storylines and sunny endings. So to throw a wrench into Miles’s plans was a bit of fun.
God likes tacos?
As the episode progressed though, we get the same jokes as in previous episodes. The God account ‘liked’ tacos, in particular, a taco truck in the Brooklyn Bridge Park. As Rakesh tries to track down the account he suggested Miles check out the taco truck. And promptly—because this show is trying to shuffle some romance into the deck to cover its bases—Miles invites Cara.
I go where the stories take me.
Cue in the usual “We’re just friends” protestations from both of them. Cara tells her friend she’s sticking around because of the story. Their boss also came in, hinting a senior position opening in Features and Cara looked to be a good fit.
The episode moves to the “friend recommendation of the week.” Miles, Cara and Rakesh—I’m referring to them as the Scooby gang this day forward—were eating tacos and puzzling over who it could be. Rakesh suggested ‘poking’ the God account to see if anyone reacts (by the way, the product name dropping stopped being cute).
No more God account screwing stuff up.
No sooner did Miles ‘poke’ said account, his wallet gets stolen. A kid snatched Miles’ wallet off the table and took off. The gang gave chase, but to no avail. Miles suspected the kid is working for the God account in some way because yes, there is a growing conspiracy against him, oh no. Cara noted they could find out by using the newest friend recommendation: Ray Nicolette also happened to be a PI.
I’m gonna need a little retainer in lieu of the truth.
Ray was a retired NYPD cop turned PI. He regarded Miles and Cara’s explanation as to why they want to hire Ray with a dubious interest. He’s a skeptic but also willing to see the case through whe he later found out why Miles and Cara hired him.
Once again, the friend recommendation was the standout. I was far more interested in that than in the dip in Miles’s listeners, Rakesh’s fear he was falling into the ‘friend-zone.’ Ali (who I thought was going to be the most stable of the bunch) angsting over the fact she was moving (and she meant ‘already moved’) in with her girlfriend of two years. Oh, and Cara is suddenly angsting over staying with Miles for the story or as a potential love interest.
So, our choices are arguing or deafening silence.
The new problems—or in Rakesh’s case, ongoing—felt hastily thrown into the mix. Maybe it was the timing, but it felt like all the sudden. Ali the peacekeeper has problems talking to her reverend father and Cara now found herself with mixed motives on why she was staying with Miles. While it’s interesting the show now delved closer into the characters, the new wrinkles in our characters felt abrupt. If there were a hint of Ali’s misgivings, or Cara’s ambitions before this, this new kernel of information would have felt organic.
Miles’s frustrations with the God account is also wearing thin. He complained it’s ruining his life. Mind you, Miles was the one who turned down the podcast job in the first place. Miles goes around the same cycle every week: resist, reclaim his life and then resolve someone else’s left. Every week there are a few scenes of him trying to shake the God account off like a bad tie, but ultimately, his curiosity and all-around good nature of his, lured him back into the lives of others.
One of those relationships we all hope for.
Speaking of which, Ray’s lonely life after the loss of his wife felt more fleshed out than Rakesh’s woes about landing in Jaya’s ‘friend-zone.’ The thief, Isaac Delgado, and his plight held my interest. How Isaac and Ray intersected later had a good payoff. But in the middle of it all, we had an eye-roll-worthy scene of Rakesh’s karaoke-slash-love-declaration that earned a squeal and a hug from Jaya. And a conveniently set up of a family dinner with Miles, Ali and Arthur that ended up in a blow-up and Ali’s ill-timed confession.
Ray’s story with Isaac felt more interesting and more layered than Ali’s worry about telling her father she had moved in with her girlfriend. The random threads ultimately connected Ray with the kid due to Ray’s dead wife was a great twist. Miles as the reluctant good Samaritan was predictable but good to see.
And that’s fine if that’s what the show plans on concentrating: the evolution of Miles Finer. I would be intrigued to see how accepting Miles becomes down the road.
The season so far…
The show lacked focus for me. There were too many little side stories cluttering up the main figure in every episode. Granted, every week the show dripped with positivity and maybe I’m too much of a cynic to swallow this much saccharine. Everyone got a happy ending; Arthur and Miles seemed to repair their relationship bit by bit (after a blow-up first). Ray now has Isaac Delgado in his care, although I question the legality of that.
It would be nice if they pick what kind of show they want to be. All the cute side stories while revolving around the featured friend recommendation of the week weren’t fitting and slowed the pace.
Ultimately, the episode was light-hearted fare. And if anything, God Friended Me does deliver that consistently: feel good, warm-fuzzies where everyone walked away with a puppy (not literally).
The main cast and rotating friend-recommendations were fun to watch. However, everything else thrown in there didn’t cobble together well to be entertaining. The show seemed to love to have random bits come together. The only thing was: it hasn’t. Not for me.
All this kumbaya and hey-stranger-I’m just gonna-follow-you-around-yay must be appealing to some, though. Maybe I should just embrace this show as a collection of scenes every week instead of one cohesive story. Like Ray told Miles: “if all this account wants you to do is help people, what’s it matter who’s behind it?”
Maybe I shouldn’t care each episode is going in a jerky pace. Or that Cara suddenly feeling conflicted felt hastily contrived. Or that I still have zero care about Rakesh and Jaya. And frankly, I can think of one (maybe all) mini-arcs that could be lifted off the episode with little repercussions.
But hey, at least this week, we had tacos.
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