This article contains spoilers for The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins Season 2 Episode 1.
NBC, hoping to recapture even a fraction of its ‘Must See TV’ glory days in its 100th year, has dubbed Monday nights the place to be for mockumentaries. St Denis Medical kicks off the hour-long comedy block, with The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins returning for its sophomore season half an hour later. It’s a smart move for the network, as both series build on their strong finales earlier in the year, though the latter delivers the night’s biggest surprise through an unexpected scene-stealer in Saturday Night Live’s Jeremy Culhane.
The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins ended on a cliffhanger in Season 1, revealing that Carmelo (Jalyn Hall) and Delilah Basmati (Arica Himmel) are dating. Arthur (Daniel Radcliffe) explains the stakes best: the Basmatis and the Dinkins are football’s Montagues and Capulets, or, for modern audiences, Autobots and Decepticons. When Reggie (Tracy Morgan) and Monica (Erica Alexander) discover that their Romeo, or Bumblebee, is dating the Basmatis’ Juliet, or Starscream, trouble will follow. Reggie has always counted on his family through injury, scandal, and even an ill-advised Quansah album – the 30 Rock-style cutaway is one of the episode’s best jokes – but his son’s relationship threatens to throw them into turmoil. Naturally, Arthur couldn’t be happier, as the drama promises exactly what he needs for the Dinkins documentary trailer if he is to revitalise his own career while helping Reggie with his.
The episode has plenty of fun with the forbidden romance, particularly through Brina (Precious Way), whose attempts to play the cool stepmom quickly descend into amateur but impressive detective work after she finds an unfamiliar strand of a woman’s hair in Carmelo’s clothes. She likens herself to Sheryl Lee Ralph in Moesha, hilariously comparing the role to Allison Janney’s in Juno for Arthur, before using Venmo, pizza payment, a 3C curl, and a reverse image search to track down Delilah’s Instagram. The fallout sees the teenagers stage a break-up, unbeknownst to everyone but Arthur, who wisely wants no part in the inevitable family fallout until it’s time to roll the cameras.
Elsewhere, the series continues to explore Reggie’s attempts to rehabilitate his image after earning a few Hall of Fame votes in the Season 1 finale. His appearance on SNL has finally landed on Peacock, complete with a cut to a clip from SNL 25, and fans have started to cool off. Monica wants to capitalise on his renewed popularity, but she can barely keep up with what’s culturally relevant anymore. Thankfully, The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins creators, Robert Carlock and Sam Means, can, so Monica’s solution is to hire an assistant.
The hiring process gives Carlock and Means another opportunity to take aim at society’s shortcomings. Monica finds herself inundated with applications from computer science majors, food safety inspectors, Spirit Airlines pilots, CBS News pilots, and vaccinated country singers, all desperate for the minimum-wage role. The jokes come thick and fast, including when Monica reveals her only requirement is someone who has only ever started a car by pushing a button. Enter Max (Culhane), who books Reggie on Sunday Night Football, a pre-pre-game show.
Culhane proves himself worthy of his own NBC sitcom, following the short-lived tradition that Tina Fey and Amy Poehler helped establish with 30 Rock and Parks and Recreation. He makes every second of his admittedly limited screen time count, delivering the premiere’s biggest laughs with an increasingly unhinged performance that culminates in Monica and Reggie walking in on him wearing a red latex suit and filming cake-sitting content for OnlyFans in his office.
Morgan and Alexander’s faces are a picture, even more so when Max launches into a furious rant about the uselessness of his education and how the boomers sold his generation a lie. They can’t afford houses, they can’t afford children, and they’re buying coffee on Klarna. His exasperated “Yeah, measles are back, thank you for that” delivered straight into the camera is excellent. Culhane turns what could have been a throwaway guest appearance into the premiere’s most memorable plotline, and perhaps provides Weekend Update its next recurring character.
Reggie’s stint on Sunday Night Football inevitably goes wrong when Slinky the Ferret, hidden inside his shirt, decides to explore places no ferret should. Yet the disastrous interview leads to a sincere moment between Morgan and Radcliffe, who remain the heart of The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins, even if a fallout feels inevitable once Reggie finds out the truth about Carmelo and Delilah.
Morgan is earnest as Reggie reckons Sisyphus had it all figured out, as getting close to your goals only to start over is frustrating. Arthur understands that better than most, having destroyed his career so spectacularly after an on-set meltdown that Reggie’s documentary was the only job he could land, aside from directing a few sexual harassment training videos. Their conversation takes an unexpected touching turn when Reggie suggests that Sisyphus might not have found pushing the rock so difficult if he’d had someone to talk to. Reggie is glad he has Arthur, even if they understand each other “despite what your people did.”
Ultimately, The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins builds on the strengths of its first season, even if it still hasn’t figured out how to utilise its entire ensemble. Bobby Moynihan is underused throughout the premiere, though it’s still early days, and Rusty’s potential to feature heavily remains. Carlock and Means continue to pack the dialogue with ridiculous throwaway jokes and the cutaway humour that made 30 Rock so entertaining, proving it a worthy successor to the Fey and Carlock hit. And if the premiere is anything to go by, NBC has made the right call giving the Dinkins family a Monday night home.
