The Last Man on Earth: Season 1, Episodes 7-8: She Drives Me Crazy/Mooovin In
Jealousy. Phil Miller is insane with jealousy and the best part about it, is that it’s his own fault. Had he not overdone his sex ritual with Melissa, he would have definitely gotten what he wanted and they would have never even known Todd existed. He would have gone to Mexico for good from his own words. Now there’s nothing he can do about Todd and Melissa having constant sex within earshot. One can only image the level of regret he feels every time he hears their sex song “She Drives Me Crazy” by the Fine Young Cannibals.
He is just so bad at accepting consequences and going with the flow. He wants what he wants and has no earthly idea of how to get any of it. I’m curious about seeing what his past was like before the virus that wiped everyone out. I’m pretty sure he was a bit of a tactless loser. It makes one wonder if he wants to go back to being alone and doing everything he wanted. I honestly questioned whether or not he would simply leave to find his own place away from everyone. At least that way, the show would get back to the premise its title promises.
The scene where he tried to get rid of Todd was very entertaining. Under all of his selfishness and inanity he is still a decent percent after all. Either that or he was smart enough to realize Todd’s disappearance would instantly be blamed on him, possibly making things even worse for him. His one-on-one with Melissa and being forced to clean out his “toilet pool” were more or less icing on the old crap cake.
The second episode made that even worse for him. He found a cow, which was a completely life altering event, but Todd’s idea of keeping it alive for a steady supply of milk easily trumped his idea to kill it immediately for meat. Of course, as always, Phil tries to oversell his point and claims to be lactose intolerant, thus excluding himself from enjoying all of the fresh dairy with everyone else.
Todd is really an amazingly good person who does everything for everyone and loves Phil as a best friend. He’s a bit oblivious, but he is quite literally the nicest man on Earth. Melissa completely sees through every ounce of BS Phil shoots in their direction, seeming like the only person who actually knows him. It’s funny to see her constantly call him out and shoot looks of disbelief at his every poorly conceived attempt at manipulation.
Carol’s crazy seems to be more tolerable with the building of their little community. Clearly she’s much better at manipulation than her husband, when you consider the end of the episode. After constantly nagging him about moving in together, she gets her way with a very simple plan. The only problem now is: The cow is now upstairs and unable to get down so how will they feed it and clean up after it?
This episode didn’t have as much of a cliffhanger as the first few, but I think it’s found its audience and doesn’t really need to anymore. It’s losing freshness a little and becoming a somewhat formulaic with “everything being against Phil,” but I’m still very interested in seeing where it goes.
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Jonathan Thomas Jones is a speculative fiction author and founder of geekhavenreviews.com. He has been passionate about all things geek for his entire life. See more about him at jonathanthomasjones.com and follow him on twitter @jtgloryjones.
