TV Review: Master of None, Episode 5: “The Other Man”

By Tyler Hodg

Things get weird in the fifth episode of Master of None. Guest staring Claire Danes, Noah Emmerich, and Colin Salmon, “The Other Man” incorporates some bigger name actors in a few odd situations.

The half-hour program is basically split up into two parallel storylines that never cross paths. Unfortunately, the contrasting narratives feel uncomfortable and make an otherwise fantastic episode awkward.

In the main story, Dev (Aziz Ansari) attends Denise’s (Lena Waithe) work party, where he meets a beautiful and flirtatious woman named Nina (Claire Danes). The two make it back to Nina’s apartment, but Dev’s suspicions become reality: the situation is too good to be true and Nina is fact, married. Refusing to be the other man, Dev decides against possibly being the reason for a marriage breaking up.

In a chance encounter, Nina’s jerk husband (Noah Emmerich) disrespects Dev to the point where he no longer has any bones about sleeping with the man’s wife. As you can guess, Dev and Nina eventually get caught by the husband and an argument between the three ensues.

The resolution of this storyline is what makes it odd. Dev and Denise run into Nina and her husband a month after the event, and learn that the infidelity helped repair their marriage into something of beauty. The resolve is abrupt, and I can’t tell if it’s meant for humorous effect or if the writers ran out of time to wrap the story up any other way.

In the secondary story, guest star Colin Salmon plays an exaggerated, offbeat version of himself. A mild friendship develops between Salmon and Dev, which culminates in Salmon summoning Dev to his house to showcase a domino train memorial of his cat.

Combining these two stories into one was a mistake. Both themes are worth a dedicated episode, and there are plenty of directions that writers Joe Mande and Ansari could have taken them. The oddness of the pairing undermines most of the humorous scenes in the episode.