Review: No Activity “Magnolia”

Overview (Spoilers Below):
Cullen and Risoli’s interrogation of a former Collective member (Rob Delaney) reveals some startling new information. Meanwhile, Dirk meets his adoptive daughter, Madison (Elle Fanning).

Our Take:
After wasting time with Risoli and her pet possum, it’s finally time to get down to business. The episode showcased some more information about the Collective thanks to its former cult member Magnolia. It turns out that the cult has a secret drug lab in its basement run by kids. Magnolia only agreed to help Cullen and Risoli investigate the Collective to get revenge against his brother for stealing his love for tennis. The interrogation part of the plot managed to turn things around after the last episode until the very end.
The episode’s segments only focused on Cullen and Risoli’s interrogation and Dirk’s time at the Collective. Tolbeck, on the other hand, got stuck in the back seat as he’s only there to ask if Cullen has ADHD. It wasn’t clear what happened to Tolbeck after his television interview in the previous episode. So I’m going to assume that he’s on temporary leave. Maybe we’ll know for sure in the later episodes?
While it was disappointing to see Tolbeck in a limited role in this episode, I still enjoyed the interrogation segment with Cullen, Risoli, and Magnolia, who was respectively voiced by Rob Delaney. Risoli was still struggling to be as likable as Tolbeck, and the humor was still lacking some memorable laughs. Still, it was able to move the season’s plot along despite its pacing.
The other segment that left me feeling mixed was when Dirk spent some quality time with his adoptive daughter Madison, who became pregnant thanks to her boyfriend. With his wife Sue being gone for two days, someone has to have some awkward conversations about sex with Dirk. It served as a decent introduction to the father-daughter relationship that could grow in the later episodes. However, Madison’s constant swearing did happen to get on my nerves after a while. Just because she’s growing older doesn’t mean she has the right to drop the F-bomb every few seconds.
The “Magnolia” episode offered enough interesting intel for me to know what the Collective is doing. Sure, Magnolia immediately blew his cover and lied to Cullen about his brother just to rejoin the cult, but it’s better than having no information at all, am I right? While far from a massive improvement over last week’s episode, it at least showed signs that things would hopefully get more interesting later down the road. It looks like it’s back to square one for Cullen and his new partner.