Season 4 – Room 104

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Audience Member Genuinely can't grasp why this show is still on. Then again, I'm not sure why I've seen so many episodes. It's something like a car wreck crossed with a sad little league game. Half of you is watching just to see it burn, the other is watching it hopes they turn it around. Oh man it just keeps getting worse. HBO has been pumping out awesome stuff lately(Watchmen, Raised by Wolves, GOT, the list goes on really) but somehow this steaming pile of confusion keeps chugging along. SOMEHOW the least funny guy from ‘the league' has kept his sinking ship of nonsense, afloat for four painfully long seasons. The Sopranos ended by going black mid sentence, but somehow Room 104 keeps getting renewed. Please make it stop. Rated 0.5/5 Stars •  Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars 01/09/23 Full Review Audience Member The swan song season (S04) of the consistently superb one-act-drama series ROOM 104 comes out swinging – hard. Throughout the previous 3 seasons, the atmosphere & tone in each episode has been nothing if not entirely unpredictable. The way the Duplass Brothers accomplished it was by undercutting the severity of the story with the style/approach they used to tell it. (Very rarely have there been episodes that were exactly what they appeared to be in the first few minutes). In each season there have been a handful of truly remarkable standout installments – be it from great writing, terrific performances, or the occasional megastar appearance; perhaps it was all of these things that made them great. S01's unforgettable moments, (for me), were those that took seemingly silly conceits and then interrogated them with an unwavering sincerity; "Knockadoo" and "The Internet" are the best examples of this singular Duplassian approach. (For any fellow Horror fans, it shouldn't be a surprise that Mark Duplass's fingerprints are all over the writing of all four seasons of ROOM 104; see Netflix's amazing found footage films by Mark Duplass, "Creep" and "Creep 2," for a taste of just how truly uncomfortable and terrified Mark Duplass can make you feel despite being in the comfort of your own home.) Until the final season airs, it will be impossible to say for certain, but S02 of this series has always been the most highly celebrated, (at least from everything I've read from critics & fans alike regarding the show). This isn't that surprising as it has 3 of the best episodes in the entire series: "Mr. Mulvahill," "The Shark," and the finale, "Josie & Me," (episodes 02, 11, and 12 respectively). If we were to be reductive and say there were just two types of ROOM 104 episodes, we'd put "Mr. Mulvahill" and "Josie & Me" in one category and "The Shark" in the other – either there is something supernatural, (or simply not natural; eerie), going on, OR the events playing out in front of us take place within the same laws of nature that we find in reality, which means the drama is evoked from the weight of our character's emotional baggage that inevitably gets examined as the stories progress. But this would be a lame – and rather inappropriate – classification for the types of genre found in ROOM 104. Perhaps each of these three episodes from S02 are so memorable and haunting because they share far more in common with one another than most other episodes in the series: each of 3 episodes from S02 mentioned above focus on a single character who is at a breaking point in their lives, all three of whom are quite literally unable to move on in life until they overcome a whatever toxic factor or past trauma that's been keeping them in a dysfunctional, untenable lifestyle. *SPOILERS for S02 BELOW* "Mr. Mulvahill" captures one of Raine Wilson's (Dwight Schrute of the the American version of "The Office") best performances of his already-impressive career, and quite frankly remains endlessly re-watchable even if you remember how it ends. If you have not seen this episode, STOP WHAT YOU ARE DOING AND GO WATCH IT NOW. DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER, GO WATCH IT NOW. Back? Okay, good. Now, how many of you were 99% confident the reason that our protagonist played by Raine Wilson, (ironically and hilariously named "Jim" for this episode), had contacted his former 3rd grade music teacher because he wanted to confront him for suffering sexual abuse as a child? All of you? Well, that's what I first thought too – the first time I watched it – I mean, of course. Why else would someone be acting & behaving that way? There was a sliver of doubt that perhaps our protagonist Jim had been abused by a different adult in his childhood, and for some reason they incorrectly thought it had been Mr. Mulvahill, and that doubt is exactly what Mark Duplass (writer of the episode) is trying to evoke from us, which he does will absurd skill. It's only in the final few moments when he doesn't say anything about being abused, but says one VERY unexpected word during this long-awaited confrontation with, "the man who forever ruined [his] life," we hear the word: "teleported" and BOOM GOES THE DYNAMITE. Now we have maybe 3-4 minutes left in the episode, but the huge stakes that have been emotionally established have shifted from one awful form of childhood trauma into something we've never, ever, ever, in a million years considered happening to a child, much less have we thought about whether or not a kid seeing their music teacher teleport would, in actuality, really do that much psychological damage to the kid as they grew up into a world that could never tell him that what he witnessed was possible, real, or believable. If the allegory isn't hitting you over the head already, don't worry because Jim's brought his Louisville Slugger, and he's swinging for the fences. I could go on and on about various episodes of this series, and discuss why certain installments are brilliantly crafted, but let's save ourselves some time, yes? If you've seen the first 3 seasons of ROOM 104 then you approximately know what to expect in season 04. Only, this fourth and final season appears to be swinging for the fences and going for broke every single time. There have yet to be ANY episodes this season that don't leave the kind of dark, unforgettable, and aggressive impression on your brain as "Mr. Mulvahill" or "Josie & Me" both do. Or as "The Shark" certainly does. So stop on by – you know where to find this place – and Mark Duplass's thousand-mile-stare that betrays nothing will be waiting to show you some of the things his always-unpredictable mind has been preparing. Rated 4.5/5 Stars •  Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars 01/09/23 Full Review Audience Member Yo, this started out so strong Rated 2.5/5 Stars •  Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 01/09/23 Full Review Read all reviews

Room 104 — Season 4

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