We’re two episodes into Not Suitable for Work, and I’m officially starting to understand what this show wants to be. Not saying it is there, but I am starting to see it.
Maybe it was the “love lard” conversation. Maybe it was the question of the want of the blender remnants of a protein smoothie. Or maybe it was Abby proudly declaring, “Well, I’m from Jersey, ever heard of that, bitch.”
Whatever the reason, the show is starting to find its voice. And that voice is calling to me.
Episode two opens with a reality that feels aggressively New York: nobody has their life together as much as they pretend they do.
That and there are always lessons to be learned.
AJ and Abby wake up to discover they’re being evicted. Josh is attempting to find privacy in an apartment full of roommates, which proves to be about as successful as you’d expect. Kel is trying to balance parental expectations with his actual dream of acting. Abby is setting boundaries. AJ has decided she’s having an alpha day.
Everyone is moving in a different direction, but they’re all dealing with the same problem.
The version of adulthood they imagined doesn’t quite match the one they’re living.
That’s what I found most interesting about this episode is that every character is struggling with some version of expectation versus reality.
Kel doesn’t want the future his parents sacrificed for.
AJ wants to prove she belongs in a world that’s already intimidating and she doesn’t feel good enough for.
Abi projects confidence, but she’s still figuring out where she belongs and is saddled with insecurity.
And Josh, perhaps most entertainingly, accidentally becomes the subject of a group chat that he’s not in.
Episode one introduced the chaos, and this one shows us what’s underneath it. These aren’t characters just chasing some glamorous New York fantasy; they are actively not prepared for what life truly can be in New York.
And honestly, that feels far more interesting.
Because if this episode proves anything, it’s that nobody in this show knows what they’re doing.
Which, to be fair, no one really ever does.
EVICTION
The girls finding out they got evicted is a rough way to start the morning. Their landlord, Antoine, isn’t budging with them. He is more than happy to throw the guys across the hall under the bus for turning them in, though.
To be fair, the guys deserved it, and Antoine is not exactly wrong.
Well, Josh is the reason they got evicted.
Josh is too busy wallowing in self-pity to grasp the magnitude of the situation. He’s stalking his ex like it’s a full-time job and wearing her robe like it’s the last piece of clothing left. Then the girls show up, understandably furious, ready to tear the guys apart over the eviction notice.
Josh immediately makes things worse.
At one point, he calls them criminals, which feels like a bold statement and a bad strategy when you’re the reason they’re potentially homeless. Josh’s inability to read a room may be the most impressive flaw he has.
To his credit, he does promise to fix it, which might genuinely be the nicest thing he’s done so far. The problem is – for us at least – is he doesn’t.
Abby does.
Even after setting boundaries with Austin, she knows exactly who to call when she needs something big to save her apartment. She asks him to post about Antoine’s dance night, and honestly, I respect the show’s commitment to still calling it a tweet.
The plan works. The girls avoid eviction, proving that social media can occasionally be used for something other than misinformation and public meltdowns.
A rare victory.
That said, Josh absolutely still owes them. One successful tweet does not erase almost getting your neighbors kicked out of their apartment.
THE GROUP MESSAGE
Josh continues to be my most frustrating character on this show.
Before we get into anything else, I need to address the red corduroy pants. They are terrible. I don’t know who told him they were a good idea, but that person does not have his best interests at heart. That is probably the same person who told him that a cardigan was a good idea.
Fashion crimes aside, Josh’s real problem is when he discovers his coworkers have a group chat dedicated to mocking him. They call him Joffrey, which is honestly brutal.
But expected.
From his co-workers’ perspective, he’s the privileged son of a powerful executive who walked into an opportunity someone else deserved. The reputation he created the moment he used his last name to get his foot in the door says it all.
The interesting and yet confusing thing is that Josh genuinely wants to fix it.
The problem is that he approaches likability the same way he approaches everything else: as a problem to solve. I have no faith he can.
At lunch, Davis and Kel give him surprisingly solid advice. Stop trying so hard. Be the person they became friends with in the first place. Show up. Be helpful. Relax.
Josh’s biggest issue isn’t being a nepo baby or his rich kid arrogance. It’s the lack of self-awareness. He spends so much time worrying about how people perceive him, but takes no responsibility for what causes that perception.
So when he shows up – uninvited – for drinks and makes an effort to connect with his coworkers, you can tell he’s trying. The conversations are painful, but he’s making progress. He’s even trying to help Elena (the next day), whose job he essentially inherited, by taking small tasks off her plate.
It’s a nice gesture, but it doesn’t erase what happened.
He wants people to see the version of himself he sees. The hardworking and smart guy. The good friend.
But his actions tell a different story.
His last name may have opened the door, but it’s his attitude that’s keeping people at a distance. At least, eventually, he was invited to the group chat.
BILL
Bill learns that Yarn Barn is looking for a new bank, which means the team suddenly has less than twelve hours to put together a pitch book for a potential acquisition. Under normal circumstances, this is the kind of project that would take days. Instead, Jocelyn, AJ, and Davis are expected to pull it together overnight.
The interesting part is what this reveals about AJ and Davis.
Davis spends so much time worrying about whether people like him that he struggles to take charge when he needs to. Instead of pushing back, he lets AJ take control of the financial models. The problem is that AJ is so used to proving herself that she doesn’t stop to consider she might be wrong.
The next morning, Jocelyn discovers mistakes in the models. Suddenly, the team has less than an hour to fix everything before the meeting.
It’s a disaster, but it’s also one of the better character moments of the episode.
AJ spends a lot of time trying to prove she’s the smartest person in the room. Davis spends a lot of time trying to be the most likable. Neither approach works for them.
AJ’s mistake is that she assumed confidence and competence were the same thing.
Davis’s mistake is that he knew something was off, but he was too distracted by his crush to trust his own instincts.
The crisis ends up becoming a bonding moment for the team, but it also highlights the biggest weakness it has.
AJ needs to learn that being capable doesn’t mean having all the answers. Davis needs to learn that wanting people to like you isn’t a substitute for believing in yourself. Both need to find confidence in themselves.
At the moment, Davis sees every interaction with AJ as a potential love story. The guy is already mentally picking out wedding venues and kids’ names. Nothing is going to happen if he keeps treating every conversation like an opportunity to wife someone up instead of simply getting to know her. He’s trying too hard. He’s a pick-me.
KEL
Never underestimate a room full of teenage girls.
The second Kel walks into the English classroom, they have him figured out. They sense uncertainty in the way fandom can figure out anything that they want to know, even if there is no comment on it. Every question from the room of teenage girls feels like a test he is failing. Every answer feels inadequate. Before long, they’re dismantling him over Pride and Prejudice.
He lies to them, and they come for blood.
Honestly, it’s funny. Not because the girls are particularly cruel (even though they are vicious), but because Kel is so clearly out of his depth. The students immediately let him know that’s not going to help him survive.
He keeps looking for shortcuts, convinced he can survive on surface-level knowledge and a movie adaptation.
Thankfully, Abby steps in with some much-needed advice. If Kel wants to survive, he needs to be prepared. Actually prepared. Not “watched the movie” prepared.
What I like about this storyline is that it isn’t really about teaching.
It’s about the lack of Kels’ confidence.
Kel is spending the entire episode caught between the life he’s expected to want and the life he actually wants. He’s studied medicine because that’s the plan. He’s pursuing acting because it’s the dream. The place between dreams and reality is a hard place to be.
There’s a particular kind of vulnerability that comes with admitting you don’t have your future figured out, especially when everyone around you seems convinced that you should.
That’s why I’m becoming increasingly invested in Kel’s storyline. He is relatable.
Not because he’s failing, but because he’s still searching. The other characters are chasing careers, relationships, or status. Kel is trying to answer a much bigger question: what kind of life does he actually want?
THESE ARE MY CONFESSIONS
After the last thirty-six hours, AJ and Davis should be thrilled to be heading home. They’re exhausted, sleep-deprived, and running almost entirely on caffeine and adrenaline.
Instead, AJ uses the moment to ask Josh for advice.
Specifically, what she should get Davis as a thank-you gift.
Somewhere in that conversation, she casually reveals where she knows Josh from.
And suddenly it makes sense, she’s the woman he ghosted.
Watching Josh process that is actually one of the more interesting moments in the episode. For the first time, he seems genuinely embarrassed by something he’s done. There’s a flash of guilt there, like he’s finally seeing himself through someone else’s eyes.
Whether that guilt lasts remains to be seen.
Josh’s biggest problem has never been that he makes mistakes. Everyone on this show makes mistakes. His problem is that he rarely seems to understand why people are upset with him over those mistakes in the first place.
This feels different, though. Because he has to sit with the fact that someone he dismissed years ago is now standing in front of him as a fully formed person with her own version of the story.
I’m hoping moments like this become a lesson he learns and a change he implements.
The question is whether he’s capable of learning.
For his sake, I hope so.
For me, I’d really like to stop wanting to fast-forward through half of his scenes. Love the actor, have disdain for the character.
OTHER THOUGHTS
- Davis at the end scene – hahaha
- I don’t want a love triangle, but I have a feeling we’re about to
- Abby is goals
- Austin is HOT, but I love that he got turned down
Not Suitable for Work is streaming on Hulu.
