I get that Not Suitable for Work is supposed to be funny. Comedy is baked into almost every storyline. But this episode tested my patience more than my sense of humor. Between Josh acting like a complete tool and the extended shellfish allergy sequences, I spent more time annoyed than laughing.
Davis’s life-threatening shellfish allergy becomes a major factor at AJ’s dinner party—the one that started as a simple thank-you dinner and somehow evolved into a relationship minefield. As usual, the real problem isn’t the dinner. It’s communication. Or rather, the complete lack of it.
DO I TELL HIM?
For a brief moment, I thought Josh might actually redeem himself. He knows Davis is completely gone for AJ, and part of him seems to want to do the right thing. But I still think Josh mostly enjoys being wanted and has no idea what to do when someone actually gives him attention.
The complication, of course, is that AJ and Josh slept together years ago. Which raises the question: if your best friend once hooked up with the person you’re crushing on, would you want to know? Personally, I wouldn’t. So I’m firmly on Kel’s side when she tells Josh to keep his mouth shut.
A lot of the time, people tell secrets to make themselves feel better, not the person receiving them. Sometimes honesty is necessary. Sometimes it’s just emotional housekeeping disguised as honesty. Of course, this is television, so secrets are basically a renewable energy source.
The bigger issue is Davis. He’d absolutely take the news personally and convince himself Josh ruined his chances, whether that’s true or not.
What continues to make Davis one of the show’s most lovable characters is his optimism. New York has a reputation for turning people cynical, exhausted, and slightly aggressive toward tourists. Somehow, Davis has become even more empathetic. He still believes in fairy tales, and in a show full of people making questionable decisions, that’s surprisingly refreshing.
YARN BARN
I will continue to die on the hill that AJ has a crush on Bill. Do I understand it? No. Do I need to? Also no.
The big work drama revolves around Yarn Barn and who updated the comps. The answer: AJ. She added Michaels and Etsy because she felt the original comparison wasn’t complete. A reasonable decision—until you remember Bill exists.
I was genuinely nervous for her. Bill has the energy of someone who would absolutely eat your face if you interrupted him, and he’s repeatedly done nothing to disprove that theory. So when AJ admits what she did, I fully expected disaster.
Instead, Bill does something even more shocking: he gives her credit. Honestly, that may be the most unrealistic thing that happened in the episode. Well that and Davis eating all the shellfish.
GIGI
We love a celebrity cameo, and Gigi Hadid’s appearance was easily one of the funniest parts of the episode. She shows up at the office for one reason and one reason only: to break up with Bill. Yes, somehow Bill has a girlfriend.
To absolutely no one’s surprise, Bill responds with all the warmth of a corporate earnings report. He immediately dismisses her feelings, which feels completely in character. We understand that work is important, Bill, but at some point you do have to acknowledge the existence of other human beings.
The more unbothered he acts, the angrier she gets. He wants to take the conversation somewhere private. She has no interest in protecting his dignity. Frankly, good for her.
The breakup is brutal, public, and exactly what Bill deserves.
The funniest part is how unsurprised everyone seems. The emotional range of finance bros continues to be one of television’s most reliable stereotypes, and Bill isn’t doing much to challenge it.
AJ, meanwhile, sees an opportunity. She tells Bill that only his team witnessed the breakup, which is objectively untrue. AJ, my girl, you work in an open office. Half the floor probably stopped answering emails to watch.
While Bill occasionally offers solid career advice, his takeaway here—that AJ should simply never get into a relationship—feels wildly shortsighted. The problem isn’t relationships. The problem is Bill.
For reasons that remain questionable, this somehow ends with AJ inviting him to her dinner party. The professional boundaries between these two are basically decorative at this point. But office crushes happen, bad decisions get made, and this show seems determined to explore exactly how messy that can become.
THE SHOES
Vanessa Hsu (Constance Wu) and Abby’s (Avantika) work relationship might be my favorite dynamic on the show. Vanessa is a complete disaster, but she’s a sarcastic disaster, and her dry sense of humor works every single time.
When Vanessa tells Abby she needs to get a pair of shoes back from Austin, Abby immediately looks like she’d rather do literally anything else. She’s already drawn a line in the sand with Austin, so having to reach out to him feels like a problem. Of course, she can’t exactly explain that to her boss.
Austin isn’t making things any easier. He’s hiding behind Abby’s boundaries while simultaneously being passive-aggressive about them, which is an impressive level of petty. The frustrating part is that Abby and Austin are genuinely cute together, so watching them dance around each other feels like self-inflicted torture.
Austin promises he’ll drop the shoes off. Great. Problem solved.
Except he doesn’t.
That sends Abby on a mission to track them down, only for her to fall asleep and wake up the next morning to Vanessa demanding to know where the shoes are. Nothing says “good morning” quite like your boss reminding you that you’ve failed a very specific assignment.
Abby is ready to apologize, but Vanessa informs her that a proper apology requires a gift—and that gift needs to be in Pharrell’s hands by that night.
No pressure.
Finding the perfect gift is hard. Fixing a mistake at work is harder. Doing both at the same time sounds like a nightmare.
Fortunately, when Austin finally shows up with the shoes, Abby has an idea. He’s wearing pieces from Pharrell’s newest collection, so she recruits him into her apology plan and has him post about the collection on social media.
Problem solved. Mostly.
More importantly, the episode reminds us why Abby and Austin work so well together. They balance each other out, and their chemistry feels effortless. In a show where some storylines are still trying to find their footing, these two remain one of the most consistently fun things to watch.
THE PARTY
Davis is so afraid to tell AJ about his shellfish allergy that he does the absolute worst thing possible: he eats shellfish despite being deathly allergic to it.
Now, I could talk about everything else happening at the dinner party, but honestly? I was too annoyed.
This storyline didn’t work for me because it felt less like comedy and more like irresponsibility. The episode essentially treats a life-threatening allergy as an inconvenience that can be solved with an EpiPen, and that’s where it lost me.
Yes, I understand the joke. I understand the awkwardness they’re trying to create. I understand that television often asks us to suspend disbelief.
Still didn’t find it funny.
Instead of focusing on the relationships or the chaos of the dinner party, all I could think about was Davis potentially dying because he was too nervous to speak up. That’s not comedic tension. That’s just stress.
The problem is that the show wants us to laugh at a situation that has very real consequences. An EpiPen isn’t a magic reset button. A severe allergic reaction is serious, and treating it as a punchline felt like a misstep.
Because of that, the entire party fell flat for me. I wasn’t invested in the drama. Wasn’t interested in who was talking to whom. I was distracted by a storyline that felt unnecessary and, frankly, irresponsible.
That’s it. That’s my takeaway from the dinner party. I was annoyed, and the episode never convinced me not to be.
JOSH ADVICE
Josh is not my favorite character, but he’s also nowhere near the worst. His biggest problem is that he’s desperate for approval—especially from his father. For whatever reason, Josh puts a lot of weight on what his dad thinks about his life and the choices he makes.
What I did appreciate is that his father challenges him. He reminds Josh that he doesn’t have to follow the same path as everyone else and that being true to yourself sometimes means thinking differently. More importantly, Josh actually listens.
And when his father offers to pull strings and make calls for him, Josh says no.
Does that completely redeem him? Absolutely not. But it’s one of the more mature decisions we’ve seen him make.
I also found myself unexpectedly feeling bad for him when he runs out to buy alcohol and bumps into his ex. Being dumped is awful. Running into the person who dumped you is worse. Seeing that they’ve moved on? That’s the kind of thing that can ruin an otherwise decent evening.
It’s a surprisingly human moment for a character who often spends his time making me roll my eyes.
What felt a little stranger was Josh giving Davis advice about AJ. On paper, it’s a nice moment. He’s trying to help his friend, and I can appreciate that. But Josh is also sitting on a pretty significant secret, which makes every piece of advice feel a little suspect.
When he tells Davis to focus on friendship first, it’s hard not to wonder where that advice is coming from. Is he genuinely looking out for Davis? Or is part of him trying to delay the inevitable because of his own history with AJ?
Maybe it’s both.
That’s what makes the dynamic interesting. Josh wants to be a good friend, but his own baggage keeps getting in the way. The result is advice that sounds thoughtful while also feeling just a little self-serving.
UPENN
One of my favorite parts of this episode is Davis accidentally calling out Josh’s past without realizing he’s doing it.
He’s just trying to make conversation with AJ and asks about UPenn. She says she enjoyed it, and Davis casually mentions that he’s been there too. Unfortunately for Josh, he’s talking about the exact same weekend Josh was there.
Then Davis drops the bomb.
He remembers it being an insane weekend because some girl was apparently throwing herself at Josh.
AJ’s reaction is basically, “Excuse me? No, I was not.”
For all of Davis’s awkwardness, he catches on faster than people give him credit for. The second he realizes something is off, he immediately asks if AJ is the infamous “Philadelphia Thirst Monster.”
First of all, Josh.
What kind of nickname is that?
I’d like to have a word.
The whole thing highlights how differently people can experience the same situation. Josh and AJ were both young, inexperienced, and clearly walked away with very different interpretations of what happened. But from where I’m sitting, Josh absolutely deserves to be called out for that nickname.
It’s terrible.
What makes the story more interesting is that it wasn’t an easy experience for either of them. It turns out it was a first for both of them, and instead of building each other up, they ended up damaging each other’s confidence.
That’s a pretty relatable part of growing up. Sometimes the moments that are supposed to be memorable end up being awkward, messy, and something you spend years rethinking.
Of course, the real twist is that they now live across the hall from each other.
Imagine trying to move on with your life only to discover that the person who took your virginity is now your neighbor. That’s not a romantic comedy setup. That’s the universe deciding it has jokes.
Not cool.
