Review: Highly Gifted “To D or Not to D”

A guest star steals the show in another surprisingly deep social commentary from Snapchat’s original series.

Although last week’s episode of Highly Gifted doesn’t hold any influence on the plot of its latest installment, the show’s structure seems to be settling into a clear formula: Dave and a second character have a conversation that leads to one of them laying out some uncomfortably relatable truths.

This week’s co-star is Jerry (Ron Funches), who takes aim at how people are forced to choose between engaging honestly with their own interests or conforming to society’s expectations. For instance, as an African-American, Jerry feels pressure to play basketball even though he hates it. Including racial stereotypes, even in the limited discussion Highly Gifted’s runtime allows, is a clever move which makes the show’s argument tangible; even if you somehow can’t think of an example from your own life, it becomes hard to deny the truth behind Jerry’s interaction with a nameless white jock. Here, the transactional nature of socializing is viciously reduced to the jock being seen with a token black person for the day, in exchange for Jerry receiving a glimmer of hope that he could be cool (and let’s be honest, that hope probably won’t be realized anytime soon). Fuck, even Jerry’s dad got to sneak vodka into his soul-crushing job.

Nevertheless, I’m getting worried about the show becoming too comfortable sticking to a formula. In fact, my previous concerns about a lack of worldbuilding were actually exacerbated this week by the ostensible high-school setting. Dave was on a date ordering sangria in the pilot, but now he apparently watches Jerry play basketball at lunch; exactly how old are these characters? Meanwhile, any semblance of the story has been reduced with each episode in favor of monologues, which inevitably becomes a repetitive format despite showcasing interesting points of view.

“To D or Not to D” does feature more jokes than the cringe humor of “Do Nerds Dream of Electric Sex?”, including a predictable yet satisfying kicker. Despite this variety alleviating some of the pacing issues of a monologue format, I was still left with the overall impression that Highly Gifted has been content to simply coast with minimal effort. I found that this episode’s premise was the show’s most intriguing so far, but that the sense of déjà vu in its execution ultimately limited any lasting impact.