Karl Sucks

Spoilers for the Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed Finale

Here’s a very brief recap of what we learned in this week’s Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed finale: The cops are useless, Murray Bartlett rocks, Raymond Lee is still a dreamboat, and while a couple of loose ends were tied up, the finale did just as we feared and left us hanging on the show’s biggest mystery: Who is behind the extortion plot?

While my Podjiba counterparts continue to mock me for thinking that Steve could still be behind the plot, they’re at least willing to entertain that Mallory is involved, if only incidentally. Like, maybe she has a boss who’s tied into the extortion plot.

Either way, we still don’t really know, although we do know that a woman named Cecilia (Nina Arianda), the senior vice president of the Souter Group, is high enough up in the extortion conspiracy to arrange for Paula’s exoneration on a double murder by, simply, slipping a note into Dennis’ pocket and shoving him off the hospital roof. Poor Dennis: He survived the shot to the face (somehow), only to end up a blood splatter on the concrete — but not before colliding with a light post on the way down.

And that’s all it takes to exonerate Paula: a suicide note taking credit for the murders. Detective Sofia Gonzalez finds that a little too convenient and decides to question Paula during her own exoneration party, but Paula — rightfully — tells her to get lost, because the police had done nothing to help her up to that point, although poor Detective Baxter did take a shot to the chest for his troubles.

Not for nothing, but that involved a lot of hand-waving: Why didn’t Paula hear the shot? How did Baxter survive a gunshot wound to the chest? Who found him? And how did they do so fast enough to save his life? But Detective Gonzalez reunited Baxter with his kitten, so I suppose we can overlook the details.

What’s important is that the Souter Group, or whoever is behind all of this, not only had Dennis killed but took care of their second assassin, too. It’s clearly a very powerful entity, because by the end of the episode, just when we thought Paula had escaped this mess, she was pulled right back in: Whoever is running the plot sent her a video of the time she clearly ran over and killed that guy back in Portland, along with a text reading simply, “We own you. You’re gonna do us a favor.”

So Paula is definitely going to get sucked back into this — will she ever go on that date with Steve?! — and she is definitely going to have to keep investigating until she claws her way to the top of the extortion plot.

Meanwhile, Geri intimated to Rudy that she was romantically interested in him, Rudy spurned her because he’d reconciled with his ex, and Geri has decided to return to writing her story about the entire ordeal. But also, their boss at the magazine, Suzie Tell, is papering over her windows, which tells us she’s up to something secretive and, perhaps, that the Souter Group has wormed its way inside Paula’s workplace, too.

But mostly, the finale was about how much Karl sucks. They finally had the custody hearing, and Karl and Karl’s lawyer said some really sh***y things. Karl stood by quietly while his lawyer hit Paula below the belt, bringing up her relationship with the sex worker, the fact that their daughter once talked to him on the phone, and even the death of Caleb Jackson in Portland.

But that line Karl delivered personally was the worst version of the crappy ex-husband: “I was growing up. Paula wasn’t, and at some point we grew apart.”

Go to hell, Karl.

And then, after the judge agreed to maintain shared custody between Karl and Paula, and then, Karl had the gall — the audacity — to approach Paula at her exoneration party and ask her for help. “I didn’t think I was going to lose,” he said, “so I have a lot to figure out logistically to make [the move to Boise] work, ‘cause I don’t know what the plan is going to be. What do you think?”

Did he really just try to compel his ex-wife to feel some sympathy for him and solve his problem? Really?! After what he did to her?

Go to hell, Karl.

“I think I’m Hazel’s mom. Not yours, and I think you should figure it out,” Paula smartly retorted.

“I understand. I think what I’m trying to do is ask for a little of your help logistically.”

Go to hell, Karl.

I love Jake Johnson. Jake Johnson is an adored comedic actor. But he’s so good at playing this character that I think I kind of hate him, too. I wish him the best of luck on his Apple TV pickleball movie The Dink later this month, and on his forthcoming TV series, Sunset P.I., from the guys behind Brooklyn Nine-Nine, but as for Karl? I would not be disappointed if his face also met the business end of a light post on the way down from a hospital roof.

The show wants us obsessing all all year over Cecilia and the Souter Group, over who’s pulling the strings and how far up it goes. And sure, fine, I’ll bite. But the villain who actually got under my skin doesn’t need a conspiracy, a second assassin, or a shove off a hospital roof. He doesn’t need any leverage at all. He just needs a custody hearing and the sheer nerve to walk up to the woman he spent all day trying to destroy and ask her for a favor. Cecilia can keep her extortion plot. Karl’s the one I want to see on the concrete.

Go to hell, Karl. See you next season.