What To Know
- In Episode 6, the gang lands in a bizarre universe, but Stuart and Denise are happy there.
- Bert and Kripke reject the universe, while Raj reappears as a doomsday survivalist.
- Stuart learns he is uniquely linked to the device that can save the universe.
When we last saw the gang of Stuart Fails to Save the Universe, they just abandoned a paradise universe after they destroyed it and landed back in the comic book store, where Denise (Lauren Lapkus) started to chow down on a ficus. That’s just a small clue that things are slightly different here. Warning: Spoilers ahead for Episode 6 of Stuart Fails to Save the Universe.
As it turns out, the group lands in a universe where humans descended from cows. It is also a universe where there is no designated hitter in baseball and no Skechers slip-ins, but more importantly, everyone eats grass and chews cud because of the cow thing.
But all in all, the cow people (cowple? peopows?) seem pretty happy. And since no one really knows how they are supposed to save the universe anyway, Stuart (Kevin Sussman) and Denise decide this might be a pretty good place to stay. They are happy in their cud-chewing life and as a couple. Stuart even proposes to Denise while vomiting up cud. Romance!
Colin Remas Brown/HBO Max
TV Insider spoke to Kevin Sussman about why Stuart and Denise are so drawn to a universe where humans evolved from cows, and why, after everything they’ve been through, staying there doesn’t seem all that bad.
“I think just because every other universe was trying to kill them,” said Sussman. “The Cow Universe is my favorite universe. I just find that so funny that it’s almost exactly the same as the regular pre-apocalypse world. Just this one little thing is different: They have the digestive system of a cow.”
“And at this point, they’ve been through so much that Stuart doesn’t want to be dealing with any of that. And he’s just like, ‘You know what? Close enough. Let’s just stay here,’” explained Sussman. “And also, in the Cow Universe, when you have a cow stomach, chewing your cud is not that bad. So, really, they’re not giving up much.”
Bert (Brian Posehn) and Kripke (John Ross Bowie) aren’t sold on the Cow Universe and decide to leave Stuart and Denise behind in search of a better reality. Unfortunately, their next jump drops them into a universe with seemingly no bottom, leaving them endlessly falling in the void.
Colin Remas Brown/HBO Max
Then Raj (Kunal Nayyar) shows up! He’s alive! In the cow universe, Raj is a doomsday survivalist trying to warn everyone that their world is ending. According to Raj, Galaxy GNZ11 and other celestial objects have disappeared, and entire star systems at the edge of the universe are vanishing. At this rate, the whole universe will be gone in a few hundred years. At this point, Stuart and Denise don’t mind that. That’s a problem for the future, not for the present.
Back at the comic book shop, Stuart encounters the other Stuart, who finally explains why he was given the device in the first place. Because Stuart Prime is entangled with the original incident of divergence at a quantum level, he is bound to the machine — and he is the only person who can save the universe. Other Stuart can’t help because he is merely a projection from a collapsing reality, but he does have one useful suggestion: Order another device from the back of a comic book.
That realization doesn’t exactly boost Stuart’s confidence. Every universe they visit seems to confirm that he is still a failure who owns a comic book store. But then delivery man Gary (Tommy Walker) arrives with another device, which turns out to be a quantum echo of the original.
Stuart and Denise eventually reunite with the still-falling Bert and Kripke and manage to jump into a universe where everyone can read minds. That immediately becomes a problem when Kripke’s private thought slips out: “My mother bathed me until I was 12.”
Stuart Fails to Save the Universe, Thursdays, 9/8c HBO Max