Average Joe Season 2 Episode 4 Review: The Little Series That Could Is Still Going Strong

Critic’s Rating: 4.8 / 5.0

4.8

Average Joe is hitting its stride and then some.

There’s real beauty in the second season of a series that knows its audience and stays true to what works, while expanding the scope in a way that feels organic, not forced.

There’s also real beauty in a show that balances different genres and flat-out does it WELL.

Average Joe Season 2 isn’t trying to be something it’s not.

The little series that could keeps telling its story, and they may have left the United States and brought in some new, complex, and intriguing characters, but they haven’t forgotten who they are.

They’re telling a story about family, blood and found, the secrets that bind us, and they’re doing it all while making you laugh until it hurts and maybe gag a few times when the over-the-top violence makes an appearance on the screen.

Average Joe Season 2 Episode 4 was, in many ways, the series at its best because it gave us a little bit of everything and felt like the most cohesive hour thus far.

One thing about this series: it always leaves lingering questions.

The biggest one of all may be whether or not Teddy’s alive, and I’d bet some good money that we won’t get that answer until the end of the season, if we get it at all.

But outside of that, the real question is what the hell Teddy is trying to lead everyone toward. Or, more importantly, Joe and Imani, because Teddy clearly doesn’t care about anyone else.

Cathy and Leon’s motel ambush at the end of Average Joe Season 2 Episode 3 had no business being that funny, starting with Leon’s big gunshot wound turning out to be nothing more than a scratch that literally was never talked about again.

The dynamic between Cathy and Leon has been extremely fragile this season, which is saying something because it wasn’t great during Average Joe Season 1. Still, this season has added an extra layer of exhaustion to his shoulders.

You can see it written all over Leon’s face. He’s absolutely exhausted from trying to make people happy and be the kindhearted, understanding man people love and gravitate toward.

He and Cathy couldn’t be further apart, but at the same time, they’re also so in sync. It’s such an interesting dance to watch between the pair, and Cynthia McWilliams and Malcolm Barrett absolutely shine when they get to play off each other, like when Cathy and Leon tried to escape that motel.

Those two are truly ride-or-die, even when they can’t stand one another, and that’s really what it comes down to when you think about those two. They’re so different, and they’re never going to see eye-to-eye with one another, but they’re also each other’s person.

For better or worse.

The pair should have been killed at various stages during their escape, if we’re being honest, especially once they actually got out of that motel and the hitman was literally hot on their trail.

Average Joe has a way of making action sequences feel like they were made for television, but I mean that in the best way possible. You certainly don’t feel like you’re watching some big-budget action movie, but it still feels somewhat larger than life.

Now, who would want to kill Cathy and Leon? I assumed it was Sipho, considering he had a beat on Touch, but once the hitmen told Joe that he wasn’t after him, it became apparent that this had something to do with Teddy.

It always comes back to Teddy!

Joe showing up for them was expected because no matter how pissed off they are at one another, they ARE family at the end of the day. But I couldn’t blame Joe for still feeling some type of way instead of just embracing them with open arms, even if they almost died a few minutes ago.

While they were fighting to stay alive, Touch was not doing the same, and I’ve got to say, I desperately need Touch to get some help.

His desire to die is getting to the point where it’s becoming increasingly difficult to watch him actively reject every reason he has to keep going.

He’s only in Africa for Joe, and by extension Joe’s family, and Touch needs to live for himself, but he has people who love him. He has people who protect him and are there for him. He’s not alone, even if he seems to wish he was.

Even Phyllis has decided that she’s more or less going to protect him from himself as much as she can, even when he fights her at every turn.

Touch finding a potential love interest was not high on my priority list this season, and I like that their budding relationship isn’t defined by physical attraction as much as by an emotional one.

Touch is filled with an overwhelming sense of hopelessness, and that’s not dissipating any time soon, no matter how hard Phyllis tries. But she is trying, and her connection to him feels authentic to who we’re getting to know.

She’s a healer, but maybe above all of that, she’s someone who’s lost a lot, and even though she just met Touch, she doesn’t want to lose him either.

When I say Average Joe is doing the damn thing, I mean in scenes like Touch being tortured and then a lion coming out to go one-on-one with him.

What other television show is doing it like this?

If we ever lose Touch, it won’t be alone in a dark room at the hands of a lion, but he and Phyllis got very lucky that they had to face off with the world’s most docile lion ever!

When Touch randomly mentioned his gun to her, I knew that gun was going to go missing in some capacity, though I figured Akinyemi would find it and further the cops’ case. Instead, it went a completely different way.

Poor Imani.

Once again, I blame Teddy for EVERYTHING, but maybe especially for dumping everything on Imani so suddenly, when she clearly had a very different view of and relationship with her father than Joe did.

The opening flashback provided more context on Imani and Teddy, particularly how he managed to get away with his double life for a very, very long time. And while we already knew that to some degree, finding out that it was only a week ago when Imani found out was wild.

Imani’s mother really deserved so much better.

Imani was right to tell her mother to pack up Teddy’s stuff and kick him out of the house and out of the life she helped build, but damn, that was the worst possible time for that advice to be acted on.

Imani wasn’t responsible for what happened next, but it’s also understandable that she’d feel sick about it as a human being.

Joe’s world was absolutely torn apart, but Imani’s was bulldozed in a way that’s really hard to process. She certainly had a host of warring emotions cycling inside her, and once she had a name to attach to that rage, that was it.

I know the core four is on shaky ground, but seeing them come together to search for Imani was a nice moment. And they ALL stepped up in their own way.

Cathy is such an infuriating character, and that’s what makes her so damn great. When you think you have her figured out, she does something to give you pause. And seeing her actually take Leon’s words to heart was one of those moments.

At her core, she does think about herself first, and that doesn’t just change because someone gets mad at you. But her willingness to step outside of herself and help Imani, when there was nothing in it for her, shows that side of her that others don’t like to see and she doesn’t like to show.

This hour was always going to end with Imani getting taken because, of course, it was, and they basically spoiled it in the season trailer anyway.

Sipho taking Imani now transitions us into the second half of this season, which should revolve around getting her back and trying to solve Teddy’s riddles.

Everything from Average Joe Season 1 to now connects, and if this season has one job, and one job only, it’s to bring it all together.

I have all the faith in the world that they will achieve that goal because Average Joe has yet to let us down.

Extra, Average Notes

• Was that hitman a real human? How come every person Joe and company fight has superhuman strength?

• The Akinyemi side plot would be much more gripping if we knew anything about the man beyond the fact that he lost someone. He’s clearly a good cop, but him being one step behind everything isn’t all that fascinating…yet.

• Sometimes this show can be very vague, like not really telling us how Touch went from being arrested to then being tied up in his underwear in front of Sipho, but I liked that we had to slowly figure out they were dirty cops.

• Sipho throwing money to the crowd felt like the climax of Batman when the Joker was dancing to Prince and throwing money to the people of Gotham City.

We’re halfway through this season, and it’s an exciting time in Average Joe land.

Let me know if you’re watching, and what you think is coming up next!

How are you liking the season so far?

Drop all your thoughts in the comment section below!

New episodes of Average Joe air every Wednesday through September 30, only on Paramount+.