What role is Benjamin Bratt playing in the live-action Despicable Me movie?
The first version of this recap consisted of three words: Benjamin Motherfucking Bratt. Although those three words accurately sum up this latest episode of Loot, I’ve decided you all deserve more than just three words. Benjamin Bratt deserves more than just three words. And Molly Wells really did deserve Benjamin Bratt, so onward.
We find our favorite little billionaire horned up as hell. No landscaper can water even but one herb without her drooling over him. We’ve all been there, and I hope you, too, had an observant and honest friend like Sofia in the moment of need. Partially, it’s the fact that Molly can’t help but stand so close to her and boop her on the nose just to feel human touch, but mostly it is Molly’s recent search history, revealed at a team meeting — “Bridgerton guy beach photos, young Obamas kissing, George Stephanopoulos wife dead?” — that forces Sofia to take action. She is frank with her boss: Molly is horny. Being this horny is making her weird. Molly needs sex. Molly should head over to a bar “with some cleav out.” Molly appreciates Sofia “hyping [her] melons,” but she isn’t one to just go out and have a one-night stand. She has a different fix to hinder her cravings for some sweet man meat: She’s booked herself for a meditation retreat at a Malibu wellness center. It’s time to re-focus and re-center herself after her first relationship post-divorce ended up being such a disaster. I mean, there was literal shit water involved; it’s a pretty low bar there.
This is yet another example of how strong the writing on this show is (this episode is written by Zeke Nicholson). Loot could’ve easily moved on from the whole Jean-Pierre fiasco and never mentioned it again, but instead, they use it to get the most bang for their buck and turn it into some subtle but effective character development for Molly. She’s been burned twice in a row now; of course she’s hesitant to put herself back out there; of course she doesn’t trust her own instincts; of course she would rather deny herself even a little bit of a good time out of fear that maybe one day she could get hurt in a relationship again. Adding layers to a character while also giving us a hilarious plot in order to do so? That’s Loot’s superpower, and that’s exactly what’s happening here.
Because then Molly goes to that retreat. Boy, oh, boy, does she go to that retreat. Molly starts off strong — she brings a gorgeous piece of driftwood that she already has a strong connection to — but things really go off the rails when the group is asked to pair up for breathing exercises and her partner is none other than Benjamin Bratt. And not just any Benjamin Bratt, but a single (in this universe, he says) Benjamin Bratt in a tight white T-shirt who arrives a little late because his motorcycle just broke down and he had to drag it for a mile by himself, so, really, the hottest version of Benjamin Bratt there is. Somehow, though, he gets even hotter: He tells Molly that he is a huge fan of her charity work and sometimes works out to her Silver Moon Summit speech. Molly can’t even sit down correctly after that. It’s not long before they are instructed to face each other and touch each other’s hearts while maintaining eye contact. The guttural moan Molly releases in that moment is a war cry for horny women everywhere.
The best part about the entire scenario is that the feeling is very much mutual. It might be time for the “solitude phase” of the retreat, but when Molly wanders out of her room because … let me see here … “it’s Christmas morning, and mama’s got a big ol’ package under the tree,” she bumps into Benjamin Bratt who has been wandering the premises looking for her. “There’s just this energy between us,” he tells her. But he does have a warning for her before they take this any further: He’s leaving town and won’t be back for two years; this will have to be a one-night thing. It is music to Molly’s ears. She had been worried about getting too attached and not being able to get onboard with a one-night stand, and here is this beautiful man telling her that there is no other choice but for this to be a one-time thing because he has to go to London to film the live-action version of Despicable Me. I have so many questions that we don’t have time for, like why will this take two whole years, and also, what role is he playing?
Molly receives this news and proceeds to invent a new way to pronounce the name Benjamin (it is a very throaty Ben Jamin) before informing him that “that is truly the hottest thing you could’ve said to me right now.” The two of them, frankly, are happy to be caught and kicked out by the retreat leader. Screw the meditation retreat; they are going to screw each other at the closest Four Seasons. As Benjamin Bratt puts it, they will “be like two Minions passing in the night.” It’s so beautiful.
Honestly, Loot could’ve phoned in all the subplots in this episode and it would’ve been worthy of five stars. But is that what they did? No. Instead, they give us Joel Kim Booster just being a straight-up comedy icon, okay?
Nicholas and Sofia wind up helping poor Ainsley (never knew I wanted this trio, now I want it always) who they find sobbing over her complicated wedding seating chart. She is only used to crying happy tears at work, so this is really a departure for her. While Nicholas would normally run screaming from such a task, Ainsley’s family is so overrun with the juiciest, most scandalous gossip; the man cannot help himself. Where do you seat the aunt who was revealed not to be the daughter but the mistress of your late grandfather? What about the uncle who let the family’s winery fall apart and also has a mysteriously missing wife? Before long, Nicholas and Sofia are steeped in the drama.
When the task seems impossible and Ainsley is ready to just give up, it’s Nicholas who refuses to let this happen. “If a pretty white cis girl doesn’t get the wedding of her dreams, then where are we at as a country?” he asks. “This is America! We used to stand for something.” And so Nicholas takes matters into his own hands. He calls the two aunts causing the most trouble and unleashes truly wild, cruel, and absolutely hilarious tirades on these old women. One starts with, “Take some salad tongs, pick those tits up off the ground, and turn that hearing aid up,” and ends with, “Her dick dock is 70 percent graveyard dust at this point, good-bye.” You know how in The Notebook Ryan Gosling’s character is all in the rain like “it wasn’t over, it still isn’t over” because he just cannot ever let Allie, the love of his life, go? That’s me but for this moment in Loot.
But Nicholas isn’t just savagely calling out elderly women on the phone to no end (I would still watch that, just to be clear) — his tirades dovetail into the other shenanigans going on in the office. Howard and Arthur are auditioning potential heels (villains) for Howard’s wrestling league. They run into a snag when everyone who comes in is simply mean — they need someone you love to hate; a heel you can still get behind. That’s when they overhear Nicholas on the phone and realize the heel they need has been standing in front of them all along.
They ask Nicholas if he’d be interested in a job in which he has to “take off [his] shirt and belittle people in front of an adoring crowd.” At first, he assumes they’re talking about a position at Abercrombie, which he is legally not allowed to work at anymore. But when they explain what the job really is and that it could be great acting work for him, he’s in. Oh, friends, we’re four episodes in, and Loot has been hyping up this wrestling league for several episodes now — you just know we’re getting this on our screens sometime this season. It’s going to be so beautiful I can hardly stand it.
Notes From a Group Talk Session
• It’s true, Arthur’s search history is embarrassing in a different way: “J.Crew coupons, science museum hours, and what is daddy?”
• Benjamin Bratt opens up to Molly about how he loves acting because it helps so many people, you know? Molly agrees. “One time I had really bad pink eye and I watched ten Law & Orders back to back. You really helped me through that,” she says, sincerely grateful.
• I’m sorry, but Ainsley is just so funny. She wished upon a star for help, and it happened? What is her life? She is the perfect little mystery.
• One potential heel to Howard: “How the fuck do you look like a grandpa and a little kid at the same time?”
• Another absolute banger from Nicholas to a random woman going about her business in the office: “What is this hideous sweater? You look like Grimace taking a shit.”
