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“Welcome to the Road Trip” has a refreshingly simple setup, even by sitcom standards. It’s a straightforward A and B-plot affair, and both are laidback — almost cliched when you think about it.
Calvin, it turns out, is creepily passionate about his very nice car that he keeps at the shop since Tina gets jealous that he takes his wedding ring off to clean it. With a car show on the horizon, he’s planning a road trip that nobody but Dave seems to want to join him on.
When Tina and Malcolm discuss the trip, it quickly becomes obvious that Calvin is a fun-sponge monster on the road, and that Dave is in big trouble. While the men set out on their adventure, Tina and Gemma are left behind to amuse themselves by doing all the things they wouldn’t normally do — such as putting up window blinds.
The Neighborhood season 3, episode 5 quickly reveals that Calvin and Dave have fundamentally incompatible attitudes to road trips. The latter thinks it’s all about the stops; the journey rather than the destination. Calvin thinks they’re all about getting where you’re going as fast as possible. After Dave is able to talk him into a detour on Route 66, the car gets stuck in the sand and Calvin hitches a ride with a dude so creepy that Dave is forced to rescue him. Maybe the journey is more interesting than the destination after all.
In the meantime, Gemma and Tina’s attempts at DIY result in two broken windows, but also two fixed windows, if you think about it the other way. Even with Malcolm mansplaining the concept of mansplaining, the women are able to get the work done. And after, with their point proven, they decide they’d rather leave it for Calvin to do — provided he makes it home, I guess.
This recap of The Neighborhood season 3, episode 5, “Welcome to the Road Trip”, contains spoilers. We recapped every episode — check out the episodes tag.