Hello Tomorrow! – Season 1 Episode 5 “From the Desk of Stanley Jenkins” Recap & Review

From the Desk of Stanley Jenkins

In episode 5 of Hello Tomorrow! Season 1, a family of six excitedly drives to coordinates given them by Jack Billings. They all look forward to beginning new lives on the moon.

Lester brings Joey in for questioning, as he illegally made sales. When Herb sees him taken in, he initially decides to keep the information from Jack (to teach Joey a lesson). But Betty convinces him to tell his boss, hoping that Joey will fall out of favor with Jack.

Shirl shares with Jack that she and Ed are going to move to a B-Plex on the moon. He feigns excitement, but later in his room composes a letter from Stan Jenkins.

Eventually, Herb tells Jack about Joey, and he frees him just in time for the Country Club mixer for salespeople. At the mixer, Jack is charmed by Elle, the owner of the club.

Meanwhile, Betty tries to turn Joey against Jack by telling him about how Jack kept secret the court order halting sales. Joey then confronts Jack about lying to him and pretending to be his hero by rescuing him from Lester.

Shirley gives Jack the letter she received from Jenkins. It talks about how Jack has trouble coming his way and requests every piece of paperwork Shirley has. It’s fishy to Shirl, who decides to get Jack’s card for Jenkins and call him herself.

But when Shirley tries to call the number, she’s told it was disconnected. And it’s not a lunar-link, as Jack told her. After her failed call, Shirley approaches Jack with her theory: Jenkins has been pretending to be on the moon this entire time. He’s scammed Jack, and he unknowingly has scammed others. Now Jenkins has split and is trying to leave Jack with his problems.

Lying through his teeth, Jack plays along with her theory. He insists he’ll find her a way out of Brightside. But Shirl, assuming Jack’s innocence, wants Jack to get out too.

Myrtle is appalled to find that Lester just let Joey go. He wants to help her, but he’s mandated by the law to drop the case. He instructs her to accept a refund and move on with her life as best she can. But Myrtle has no life to go back to, and she later suffers a breakdown at the supermarket.

Lester, in accordance with the law, is going to shred the paperwork on the Brightside case. But he stops himself, thinking that Myrtle needs help, and he can’t turn a blind eye.

The episode ends with the family who thinks they are on their way to the moon. But their coordinates are only an abandoned compound, where an incredulous man greets them with a gun.

The Episode Review

Things pick up slightly in Hello Tomorrow!’s rote storyline. The plot advancement is nice, although it happens with little fanfare. I so wish these actors had more to work with, but so little has happened. I’m not sure the show’s material could fill out a movie, let alone a whole season of TV, but time will tell.

It’s not surprising that Shirley’s figured some things out, but I do worry how much Jack is feeding her. He’s too calculated to just let her find out about certain lies, so he must be trying to position himself as a victim. You see him sweating this out, however. He knows how clever Shirley is, and how much integrity she has; she’s definitely not letting this go.