Hello Tomorrow! – Season 1 Episode 2 “Great Salesmen Make Their Own Turf” Recap & Review

Great Salesmen Make Their Own Turf

In Hello Tomorrow! Season 1 Episode 2, Jack fabricates a letter from Jenkins and sends it to Shirl. In the letter are orders to delay launches until next quarter. Shirl is upset at Jenkins’ nonsense. They’ll have to issue refunds now, and she wants to move on from Vistaville. Once again, Jack is there to manipulatively assuage her concerns by reminding her of the joy they are giving people.

In addition to his retail job, Joey starts working for Brightside. Jack goes out with him on his first day. Much to Shirl’s chagrin, he gives the newcomer the good leads, but Joey is unable to get inside a single door.

Nevertheless, Jack is endlessly encouraging. He even buys Joey and the rest of the team tickets for a baseball game that night, claiming the young man has earned it.

Shirl remains skeptical of having any more success in Vistaville. Out of 48 sales they made, they lost 6 due to the launch delay. She thinks it’s time for Jack to let go of Joey and get his mind back on sales.

Meanwhile, Herb and Ed try selling to a couple. But they accidentally find themselves making a pitch to a man and his mistress, rather than the man and wife they were expecting. Later, Herb returns to the household to confess the situation to the wife, Myrtle. He leaves her with a pamphlet, assuring her she deserves a fresh start.

Myrtle obviously agrees. Later, she intentionally causes a grilling contraption to malfunction. While Myrtle walks away, her house is set ablaze, with her husband inside.

Jack tries giving Joey new tactics for selling to sad and desperate people. He has a new challenge for him: just get inside one door. And Joey does, completely on his own. From his car, Jack watches his son proudly.

On the way to the baseball game, Ed catches sight of Shirl stowing away the bag of refund money in her car. He later sneaks out to break into her car and use the money to make a bet on the game. But he’s too late. Shirl has already taken the money to run an ad for Brightside at the baseball game and on the radio–against Jack’s wishes.

Joey confesses to Herb he didn’t actually get in the door during his sales pitch. He just paid 10 bucks for the guy to let him stand inside for a while. Not wanting to let Jack down, he leaves the game early.

But back at his retail job, Joey gives a new sales tactic a try. He makes a pitch to his boss without his knowledge that he’s making a pitch. When his boss decides to buy a C-Plex, Joey returns to Jack with the news. Jack invites him inside to help them with all the new calls they’re getting from Shirl’s ads.

The Episode Review

I cannot get over the absurdity of Jack’s speech-to-text typewriter and its utter lack of practicality. It really drives home a critique of technologies and advancements that exist not to help humanity, but to act as a status symbol or to further a particular aesthetic. Everything that exists in Jack’s perfect little world is nothing more than a money-making scheme, really.

This episode doesn’t give us much more information about Jack’s schemes, but it does focus heavily on the developing relationship between Jack and Joey. It’s as if Jack is truly trying to believe what he preaches: that you can have everything you deserve (for himself, the perfect family). How can he believe it, though, after all the lies he’s told?