SPOILER ALERT: The following contains spoilers for Jury Duty Presents: Company Retreat Episode 7.

Jury Duty Presents: Company Retreat Episode 7 is the effective end of the Rockin’ Grandma’s Hot Sauce story, and because the audience knows that, the Prime Video show is a little limited in what it can do. Viewers know what’s coming and they’re on pins and needles waiting for it to happen, which has the knock-on effect of making everything leading up to the big showdown feel like filler. But there’s no doubt that Anthony Norman sticks the landing—of course, without knowing he’s doing it.

The entire episode is basically one long setup, as Doug Womack is about to sign his company over to Triukas, so everyone is waiting for Anthony to find out the awful truth and play the hero. Unlike Jury Duty Season 1, when Ronald Gladden just had to get the jury to whatever verdict they could across on, Anthony actually has to come to a moral conclusion and actively stop the proverbial wedding. The question is how the show gets him to put his superhero cape on. It just stretches the anticipation out too long.

That’s because at its heart, “Mergers & Acquisitions” is a three-hander. It’s about Anthony and Dougie Womack, Jr. on one side, and Elizabeth Prescott on the other. The other characters are mostly just there because they have to be to keep from breaking the scenario. There’s a bit about Claire Coleman having an allergic reaction to seafood while still eating it, but FX’s Archer already did that bit—and did it better—with Pam Poovey. It never stops feeling like everyone else is just watching and waiting for Anthony to make his move, while enjoying the “turf and surf.”

But when it comes time to set things off, the actors who are involved are full speed ahead. Alex Bonifer takes his performance to eleven as a panicked Dougie literally runs across the Oak Canyon campus in a desperate attempt to stop the merger, which includes an intentional fall that looks like it may have actually hurt. Wendy Braun spends most of the episode stuck in the same chair in the same room, yet she’s still able to make Elizabeth sound worse and worse until she makes a hilariously angry exit. It’s the bleeped-out profanity that sells it; the only thing that would’ve been funnier is if it would also have come with a blurred-out Will Power double bird.

It is a missed opportunity that the rest of the characters, after they catch up to Anthony and Dougie, are left just milling around outside the business center doors. It would’ve been even cooler and more impactful if they had been in the room, literally having Anthony’s back the way that he metaphorically has theirs, and perhaps helping to run Elizabeth off afterward. Instead, they have to wait for Anthony to emerge—a moment which eagle-eyed viewers will recognize because Prime Video put it in the Jury Duty Season 2 trailer. Of course, without context it’s not a spoiler, but it’s still interesting that the big moment of the whole season got plucked for the trailer.

But ultimately, this whole episode is constructed to give Anthony Norman his heroic moment, and he gets it. Anthony’s impassioned speech to Doug about not doing the deal with Triukas and about family is every bit as sincere and as emotional as Jury Duty fans want it to be. The audience can feel how much he really cares in the look on his face, and Anthony even takes a moment to tell Elizabeth off. Actor Jerry Hauck, who plays Doug, does exactly what he needs to in drawing out the moment just long enough before he tears up the contract. It feels like a one-to-one scene between him and Anthony the whole time. That heartwarming moment is what the whole point of Jury Duty is, and “Mergers & Acquisitions” gets that totally, absolutely, completely correct—by just following Anthony’s lead.

Jury Duty Presents: Company Retreat streams Fridays on Prime Video. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Prime Video.

Article content is (c)2020-2026 Brittany Frederick and may not be excerpted or reproduced without express written permission by the author. Follow me on Twitter at @BFTVTwtr and on Instagram at @BFTVGram. For story pitches, contact me at tvbrittanyf@yahoo.com.