"Setup Squad" Recap: Episode Three

Haven’t watched this episode on DVR yet? Missed Cinco de Mayo? Here’s a fun drinking game. Every time you hear someone on the show say the word "douchebag," take a shot of Tequila and chase with a swig of Corona. Got your shot glasses out? Ready? Let’s go!

Episode three of Setup Squad begins with good intentions. Meredith attempts to get squabbling coworkers Lauretta and Helen to hug it out, but Lauretta looks like she would rather have her eyelids taped open while watching 2 Girls 1 Cup. "I’m sick," she says. "Fine, bitch, be that way," says Helen. Well, that was successful. And these two are paid to help clients make connections and communicate better with others? As the old saying goes, "Those who cannot do teach."

The first hapless client is Vinnie, who goes by stage name DJ Jove, a deejay who claims to rub shoulders with celebrities, is always surrounded by an entourage, believes women are intimidated by him and, in his own words, needs "a girl who can handle me." In the words of all people who are not DJ Jove, he comes across as a common everyday douchebag. This winning specimen was in fact featured on MTV’s Is She Really Going Out with Him as, unsurprisingly, "DJ Douchebag." Meredith is chosen to inflict this overly-gelled blowhard upon the women of New York City, which is essentially aiding and abetting a crime against civility. I say just give him a bag of condoms, send him to Seaside Heights, New Jersey and be done with it.

The second client is Kathy, a single Asian-American female in her early 30s who has spent the last two years in pajamas and scrunchies avoiding the dating scene. While she is said to have been in the online dating circuit, the point of online dating is to set up dates in person, but it does not appear that she has been leaving the house to go on actual dates. That isn’t "online dating”; that’s just Facebook stalking. "Dating" on Second Life also doesn’t count. Helen is assigned the task of helping Kathy come out of her shell. Lauretta glares at Helen and attempts to vaporize her with her eyes so she can get the task instead but fails.

Meredith meets DJ Douchebag at one of his gigs, which appears to be an off day at a run of the mill lounge in an unremarkable location in the city. He rolls in with his "entourage," which consists of one dude in a baseball cap who looks like he’d rather be anywhere but there. As he shrieks, "Where my ladies at?" no one answers, and the dance floor is emptier than a Tea Party convention at U.C. Berkeley.

Meredith is unimpressed. As she introduces herself to DJ Douchebag, he reacts nervously, because he finds Meredith attractive. "Are you nervous?" she asks. He responds by awkwardly rubbing his knees, as if a genie would come out of one of them to grant him couple of freebie wishes, which would be to turn Meredith straight and to stop sweating. No genie appears. Sad trombone.