I’m recapping Reboot, a new show on Hulu, and this is episode 4! I’ll be releasing episode 5 tomorrow, 6 the day after that, and the rest whenever the next episodes come out.
I’d also like to formally apologize for the lack of good pictures, Hulu improved their screenshotting algorithm and there’s no good stills on the internet for anything past episode 2. Honestly, they’re hurting their own marketing so I don’t understand why shows do this!
We start this episode right where we left off- in bed with Bree and Timberly.
Bree wants to know if one time makes you gay, what it means to come out as a late in life lesbian, and whether there are any lesbian Oscar winners. She frantically googles all of these questions in quick succession, and the way this is so relatable to anyone questioning their sexuality had me dying. When Timberly’s alarm goes off, Bree throws down her phone and pretends like she just woke up.
The two women actually have nothing in common. Timberly shoots Cameos and Bree doesn’t even know what a Cameo is. Bree says it’s her first time “getting busy” with a “lesbian woman”, and Timberly says that term is outdated, the other is redundant, and also she doesn’t use labels. Bree is so cute and nervous here though! It really breaks down her shell! She asks Timberly if she did okay, and the younger girl says “you slayed!” which Bree thinks is “yous layed”, which is adorable and endearing and I’m falling for both of these women!
Bree shows up on set drinking a yellow gatorade and feeling great. Reed wants to talk about how his call last night didn’t mean anything but along the way he sees the gatorade. He knows what that means! Bree only ever drinks Gatorade after she had sex, which means she had sex last night. Bree shares that her and Timberly went out last night in a tone dripping with allusions, but she doesn’t go further than that before flitting away.
On-set romance is in the air, because Elaine is out to dinner with the one and only Zack– aka the actor who plays her childhood crush Cody. Zack honestly makes me deeply uncomfortable, but Elaine is a little bit starstruck. Zack started working in commercials when he was 4, and Elaine made a glucose monitor for her cat when she was 6. They have so much in common! They both started in the medical field!
When Timberly asks Reed a question on set, Reed takes the opportunity to awkwardly ask Timberly what happened with Bree. He asks if the guy was nice, and Timberly sort of laughs and subtly corrects him until Reed finally chokes on his own tongue and absorbs the information. You know his mind is truly blown because he shifts into his tough guy accent and says he isn’t phased.
Of course, he runs off immediately to tell Clay what he learned. Reed doesn’t think it’s like Bree, but Clay knows that it’s just like Timberly on her reality show, Fuck Buddy Mountain. Apparently Timberly is Sinberly, “men women down for anything”. Now would be a great time to point out that this is a really shitty bisexual stereotype! Reed tells Clay not to tell anyone, but Gordon overhears and takes it right into the writer’s room.
They discuss the legitimacy of scissoring, and then move into their personal relationship. Hannah is deeply uncomfortable with the situation and tries to get them all to move on as fast as humanly possible. The reason? She hasn’t told her dad that she’s a lesbian! When she confides in Billy, the gay writer boy, he says that “nobody says lesbian anymore billy jean king” which I hate! I know so many young people who identify as lesbians, and we shouldn’t be further stigmatizing a word that is already so stigmatized and sexualized. Honestly, for how man queer people there are in this show, I feel like they aren’t really doing the best job portraying queerness at all, instead leaning into stereotypes at every turn.
Nonetheless, Billy and Hannah’s heart to heart is cute, and I appreciate him hyping her up. He tells her to just tell him right now, and Hannah runs off to go do it. Once face to face with Daddy Gordon, she bails out.
The lunch between Elaine and Zack went well, because at the end of it Zack announces that he wants to give her a tour of the lot. When she declines to do her boring job, Zack steals her phone and runs off, with Elaine chasing him. They try on cute costumes in the wardrobe, steal bikes, and ride around the lot. They’re so cute and happy and having fun! When they run into Elaine’s boss on the lot, she panics, but he’s just happy to see her finally having fun. It’s all working out. As Zack says, everything ends well because they’re on a TV show!
On set, Timberly and Bree have an emotional scene together. Timberly wants to take Bree’s joke, and Bree is all for it. Apparently, Timberly regularly seduced women on Fuck Buddy Mountain when she considered them as a threat as well. Clay thinks that could be what Timberly’s doing here, and the two men decide to intervene. They head to Bree’s trailer to tell her that they support her being a lesbian (Bree’s not- she’s sexually fluent) but they want to tell her about the way Timberly used sex to neutralize her opponents on the show.
Bree runs off to confront Timberly about the manipulation, and Timberly is appalled. The entire show was scripted by producers, and she’s hurt that Bree wouldn’t understand that. Bisexual stereotyping mitigated? For now, the two have made up, and Bree is just mad at Reed and Clay for putting her in a bad situation. She’s especially mad at Reed. He can’t keep trying to be her protector when they’re not a couple and she’s not the same person she was 15 years ago.
While she’s going through this rant at Reed, she misses her queue to come on stage. Flustered, she repeatedly asks if she should just “come out” and the stage director tells her to “come out”. This is too much for Hannah! She comes out and announces that she’s a lesbian. She gets choked up saying it, but Gordon already knew. Hannah did a bunch of press for her last movie calling herself a Queer Filmmaker which was a bit of a tipoff! Hannah is genuinely shocked that he read the press and interviews.
Bree also has an announcement. She was gay last night and she’s a sexual fluid! She reaches out for Timberly’s hand as she says this, but the other girl just shakes her head, grimacing at the announcement.
And that’s the episode!
