NOTE: Full spoilers for this episode of, “Superstore” are present in this review
Superstore’s been off the air for quite a while now, having aired its two-part midseason finale back just before the halfway point of this past November. This fortunately meant that the show is returning pretty early in 2017 though, with an excellent midseason premiere, “Lost and Found.”
Superstore is already starting off its 2017 run incredibly well, and a lot of that was due to the very clever character storylines in this episode, all of which ultimately wove together with a very satisfying final result. Things begin innocently enough, as we get a look at how miserable and poorly-maintained the Cloud 9 break room is (Cloud 9’s memo about it is one of the funniest jokes in an episode that’s already packed with great jokes!), but the episode truly kicks off on two major events; Glenn learns that about 20 of his employees are depressed, and a series of events at the lost-and-found lead to Amy finding $906.
Apparently, Cloud 9 empties out the store’s lost-and-found every January, and this means that the employees get to take turns reaching in and pulling out a random item. Some of the spoils were very amusing, such as Cheyenne finding a wig when she seeks a baby gift, or Dina coming across the stuffed giraffe that Cheyenne wanted, only to cut it up and rip out the speaker for her birds. Amy even initially finds a nice leather jacket, though Mateo coerces her into trading for a pair of dirty old cargo pants, which is where Amy, with some help from Jonah, finds the huge wad of cash.
The core plot with Amy involves something that the show has hinted at more than once; Amy is not very good at being selfish. Despite Jonah urging Amy to spend the money on herself, she initially thinks of how she can help her sister and mother, only to give about $80 to Cheyenne for diapers, who then blabs to all of the employees about the money that Amy found. This puts Amy in a tight spot, as the employees want to improve conditions in the break room, eventually forcing Amy to concede, and giving the employees an absurdly lavish break room area, to the point where none of them even work soon after, since none of them want to leave the break room.
Meanwhile, Glenn is going to ridiculous lengths to cheer everyone up when he starts becoming paranoid about employee depression, in typical Glenn fashion. This involves Glenn trying to use balloon animals, turning into a mime, using puppets, and pretty much every other schoolboy solution that you would expect Glenn to whip out in such a situation. The way that the cynical employees react to these earnest attempts to make them smile is pretty hilarious, particularly Garrett, who tries to make Glenn furiously dance, acting depressed whenever Glenn stops. It’s a little mean at first, but it fits very well with the spirit of this show’s humour. Glenn does manage to get what he wants in the final seconds of the episode as well, where he becomes the confidant to Amy, who confides in Glenn about her and Adam admitting that they’re not happy with each other, which came up during the midseason finale last November.
A third storyline also sneaks into the episode, whereupon Garrett and Dina address the fallout of their hookup in the photo lab during the midseason finale. Garrett is worried that Dina will be weird, but to his shock, Dina is the one worried about Garrett being weird, and has no interest in pursuing any romantic attachment. This, in turn, makes Garrett weird, and this was very funny, as Garrett is normally the super-chill prankster character on this show. Seeing Garrett thrown for a loop once again, as Dina unfurls his personality to a hilarious degree, is both a fantastic testament to the increasingly bizarre relationship between Garrett and Dina, as well as a great way to put Garrett’s character into a new and unprecedented situation. It’s also a nice way to keep audiences on their toes, and asking the question of whether Garrett and Dina could eventually become a couple in the long term.
As for how the main plot ends, it also finds a very inspired and very funny conclusion. Sandra ends up tracking down the man who lost the $906, using her savant-level autobiographical memory (remember when she mentioned having one earlier in the series?), and this forces the employees to return all of their break room amenities. Sandra immediately following this up by asking the employees if they want to go to her birthday party at Dave & Busters that weekend was especially hilarious! Better still is that the owner of the cargo pants, whom the employees believed to be a total douche because the pants were filled with joints, porn and dip, turned out to be a youth worker who had confiscated the items from kids, well, except for the dip, since he just loves dip. The money was for a youth trip to Peru, apparently. That was an even funnier final result for everything, and one that understandably made the employees feel pretty guilty about how they used the money!
It’s awesome to see Superstore immediately hit the ground running with its midseason premiere in 2017, further cementing that this show is starting to become one of the best current sitcoms on television. Every major character arc was moved forward in a very satisfying way, between Amy finding comfort with Glenn regarding her marital woes, and Garrett having to explore another layer of confusion and humility after his hook-up with Dina. Even beyond that though, this episode nailed every joke, and found no shortage of hilarious circumstances to put the Cloud 9 crew in, especially when the resolution to everything was just as clever and funny as how it all initially unfolded. It’s been quite a wait for the return of the Cloud 9 crew, but as we’ve come to expect from Superstore, the wait for Cloud 9 to open its doors again was definitely worth it!