In Which The Third Wheel Is No Afterthought

Watching and Growing 

by QICHEN ZHANG

Up All Night
creator Emily Spivey

I've recently begun to realize that there's a slight possibility that I may be projecting my own self-proclaimed third-wheel identity onto my film and television choices. I'm shocked I could feel as much unadulterated loathing as I did for Keira Knightley when watching her steal Carey Mulligan's doomed loverboy in Never Let Me Go. Blame it on my ethnicity, but I can't help but see myself as the "supportive Asian friend" in rom-coms living vicariously through the obviously more sexy and more sex-having (and usually blond) main character. I liked Seth in The O.C. before it was cool to like him more than Ryan. Without getting too Freudian about it, I can definitely see myself chilling with onscreen tagalongs. 

Even without my inherent gravitation toward underdogs, though, Maya Rudolph wins my sidekick of the year award for her role as the pure embodiment of womanhood in NBC's Up All Night. Playing attention-loving TV personality Ava who hosts an eponymous, motivational show for women à la Oprah, Rudolph is initially and ironically portrayed as the single friend of the married couple, of which the wife is Ava's producer. Which is fine. Ultimately, someone’s gotta play the supporting role. But as a person whose YouTube habits accounts for half the views on Rudolph's national anthem video, I really cry at the prospect of her being relegated to the side. 

So when NBC first rolled out commercials for the debut of Up All Night I was initially disappointed that Rudolph was cast as the third wheel. The show mainly revolves around the hip married life of Reagan (Christina Applegate) and Chris (Will Arnett), a young couple with a newborn who create comical hijinks from their unusual stay-at-home-dad arrangement. Chris used to be a stuffy corporate lawyer but, once becoming a father, makes the progressive decision to stay at home, simultaneously quitting his job to take care of the baby and buying Bjorn Borg underwear. Instead, Reagan goes off to work each day running Ava’s show.

The show’s premise spotlights the couple as an exemplary paradigm of what a young, contemporary marriage should be. They drink, they party, they squabble over the tackiness of Chris’ Brendan Shanahan cardboard stand-ups. Somehow in all of that, they find time to change diapers as well. Among the fanciful notion that a serious relationship consists of disagreements on décor complemented with a shit ton of midday drinking, I found little space for Rudolph’s comedic prowess to manifest in NBC’s starry-eyed attempt to make marriage “edgy” and “alternative.” Guys, it’s Christina Applegate, not Christina Ricci. 

And what's ironic about the character positioning is that Ava is pushed off to the side despite her headlining her own fictional show with the main character behind the scene. In most episodes, Ava's constantly barging into Chris and Reagan's home uninvited, usually clutching a bottle of Sauvignon and smiling Rudolph's signature bright-eyed and gummy smile, with Chris mumbling sarcastically, "Why, Ava, come on in." 

But Rudolph doesn't take to the sidelines meekly. In just a few episodes, she's successfully managed to embody femininity and mock it at the same time. And it's hard. Last year's Holly McKay article that basically told female comedians to "be less ugly" demonstrates how the assumption that women can't be funny and attractive at the same time prevails in mainstream comedy. Rudolph confronts this assumption head on, embracing and yet rejecting it at the same time.

Wearing designer clothes as a TV idol and acting like the biggest diva since Beyoncé post-C-section, Ava sasses us into oblivion with zingers like, "Can you cut your hair? We are neither in a little house nor in a prairie." Even though we're supposed to be focused on the fact that Reagan and Chris are disrupting traditional gender roles, it's Ava that makes us acknowledge the reality of double standards. "At a certain age, a woman has to choose between her ass and her face," she delivers with complete sincerity in the pilot episode. I guffawed, even though I instinctively wanted to nod. But actually. After Ann Coulter, slowing metabolism is probably the biggest asshole around the block. 

Rudolph's making this transition from SNL to prime time look so damn easy. Although Arnett and Applegate are also playing characters relatively new to them — Arnett's trying out this new thing where he's not over the top, and Applegate is still reclaiming her dignity from those Kelly Bundy days — Rudolph is just killing it with her new role as a Hollywood diva and life-coaching guru. "Keep on watching and growing," Ava repeats in each episode while her face delivers a wise and perfectly lip-glossed smile. I want to laugh, but at the same time, I'm wondering if I would've become more in touch with my "inner woman" or whatever if I had watched more Oprah growing up. 

I'm not implying that Rudolph triumphs as the underdog on a show sustaining marriage norms despite tricking viewers into thinking it's defying gender expectations with the stay-at-home dad gimmick. (Although that's exactly what it does. Married life is so fun! A husband and wife's most serious problem is how to organize the junk drawer! How quaint, ammirite?!)

I'm not even trying to suggest that the show instinctively sought to overshadow Rudolph with Arnett and Applegate in the first place. I mean, the chick is undeniably funny in her own right without being obnoxious about it, unlike Molly Shannon, who guest starred as an incompetent soccer mom in arguably the worst episode of the season. (Put her back in a Catholic schoolgirl uniform and we'll talk.)

Up All Night caught my attention for its unique and relatively harmonious relationships between its characters. I'm not sure how long this third-wheel act can work, and whether dynamics between Reagan, Chris and Ava will change once Ava gets more serious with her new handyman boo Kevin, played by a lumberjack-y Jason Lee who actually seems to have gotten lost and confused on the way to the My Name is Earl set. But maybe it’s a good thing that the writers have incorporated this May-December romance into the show. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have gems like, “When he touches me, I feel as if I’m being sandblasted.” 

For now there's a certain balance to the show, in terms of both comedy and relatability, that gives each character his or her due. In the Christmas episode that primarily focused on Reagan's obsession with giving her newborn Amy the best first Christmas evarrrrr, Ava gets to jab the audience with her funny bone too. Not a mere reminder that her character's existence on the show is relevant, Rudolph's punchy deliveries stand well enough on their own, usually due to how damn relatable they are. After she tries on a skiing outfit to prepare for a romantic winter getaway with Kevin, she gets trapped in said outfit and shouts to her assistant, "It feels like I'm being raped by a sleeping bag!" Girl. You and every other chick trying on a North Face monstrosity at the mall. 

Maybe I'm biased, given my history of underdog admiration. But in Up All Night viewers can see just how the third wheel gets the audience's attention while simultaneously maintaining the balanced feng shui of the cast. In a recent episode, Ava appears in a karate outfit for a particular segment on her show. She asks the guest instructor, "Master Hu, what's the belt that allows me to catch a fly with chopsticks?" This has got to be a step up from that Karate Kid rerun on TBS you'd be watching instead. Plus, Megan Mullally just guest starred last week. Don't tell me you haven't missed that squeaky little woman. 

Qichen Zhang is the senior contributor to This Recording. She is a writer living in Cambridge. She last wrote in these pages about Parenthood. She tumbls here and twitters here. You can find an archive of her writing on This Recording here.

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