Herb asks if she’s okay. She’s not acting like herself, but she seems better since she’s been back. It’s like she’s at peace. Other Hazel apologizes to Herb for tricking him and taking him to the Hub, but he’s already forgiven her. They hug. Meanwhile, the real Hazel wakes up, trapped in her own brain. She sees her father hugging Other Hazel and is able to run up to them. She screams, but they don’t hear her. Other Hazel tells Other Byron she can’t believe how good everything feels. He obviously doesn’t enjoy it, but he says he does. She’s looking forward to introducing him to Herb. They can come up with a story about how he went through psychological rehabilitation so that Herb will accept him. Other Hazel and Byron later make an appearance to their staff. Jay asks Other Hazel if Byron knows. “What are you talking about?” she replies. The FBI agents later tells Zelda something seemed off about Hazel. They come up with a plan. Herb tells Other Hazel he never thought he’d get to this part of his life. She showed up and he decided he had to hang on. But now Hazel seems like she’s doing well. “I can finally stop hanging on,” he says. Other Hazel says they’ve barely had time together. He apologizes, but he wants to die when things are good, not when he’s at the bottom. Other Hazel doesn’t want to force him to stay for her. She suggests one more camping trip together, where they can say goodbye. Herb says goodbye to Diane. “I never anticipated what you would mean to me,” he says. Because of her, he never felt alone. Meanwhile, Jay swims into the pasture cube and comes across Fiffany and Herringbone. He sneaks them into the main part of the Hub. They plan to meet back at Zelda’s. Other Byron invites Bennett to look at clouds with him. Byron asks about his background, and Bennett reveals he was Amish. Other Byron then hugs him, which strikes Bennett as odd. Jay says goodbye to Zelda. Zelda asks him to make sure Fiffany is going to be okay in the real world. Jay promises to get Zelda out too. She says she’s in love with him, but asks him not to say anything. Fiffany then comes in to speak to Zelda. Bennett looks for Dr. Hau, who was put in a solitary room for going insane. She claims that Hazel and Byron aren’t in their own bodies. Bennett was thinking the same thing. He wants to help stop the impostors. Bennett eventually happens upon Jay, Fiffany, and Herringbone. He doesn’t want to hurt them, but needs their help. He tells them Byron and Hazel aren’t themselves. Bennett fills them in. While Herringbone thinks they should leave it be, Fiffany says they must help Hazel. Sitting on a lawn chair and staring out at a cliffside while hooked up to an IV, Herb decides Diane should go to Bennett. He thinks he’ll be good to her. He then tells Other Hazel he’s always loved her so much that it hurts. When Herb says he’s ready, Hazel starts his IV. As he dies, Other Hazel finds her hands keep shaking against her will. It’s the first part of her “real” experience she doesn’t seem to be enjoying. The real Hazel runs toward them, screaming for her dad.
The Episode Review
I think Made for Love sets up an interesting parallel here between Herb’s relationship to Other Hazel and his relationship to his synthetic partner Diane. While the last episode may have painted him more as the naïve fool, this episode expounds more on the psychological reasons as to why he would accept Other Hazel over his real daughter. Herb has been lonely for most of his life. So when a semblance of goodness presents itself to him–of course he’ll hope. Of course he’ll take the “reality” of his daughter being happy and at peace. Just like he’ll grasp on to his relationship with Diane as the purest and most real thing in his life–despite her being made of plastic. It might be easy to write Herb off as an idiot who can’t recognize his own daughter. I think, however, that Ray Romano (in one of the most delightful performances of the show) well portrays Herb’s desperation for Hazel to be happy and life to be settled. If anything is a major negative for this episode, it’s the disturbing and unnecessary romantic development between Jay and Zelda. This show isn’t some arthouse indie piece–so I’m struggling to see why the consciousness of a dolphin and a human connecting romantically should even be explored. Maybe there’s a place for the topic elsewhere, but Made for Love certainly isn’t going to say anything profound about it. It’s simply weird, and doesn’t fit in with the rest of the show’s dark humor. We get a truly emotional ending to the penultimate episode of season 2, with Herb potentially drawing his last breath. Will Hazel be able to escape the confines of her brain? Can she bring back her dad?
