Should Anthony Norman ever need to apply for another job — as one assumes he will, since the one he thought he had has turned out to be fake — he could hardly do better for a recommendation letter than the eight half-hours of Amazon’s Jury Duty Presents: Company Retreat. Over the course of a weeklong offsite, the 25-year-old Nashvillian, ostensibly hired as a temp HR assistant, proves himself to be an absolute dream of an employee: endlessly kind, unfailingly helpful, cool under pressure and loyal in a crisis.
The series should also serve as a strong calling card for the actors involved with tricking Anthony into thinking he’s just a temp HR assistant helping with a weeklong offsite, and not the star of the second season of Amazon’s sleeper hit comedy-reality-prank show from 2023. A few of them probably veer a bit too sitcom-y in their performances, but for the most part, it’s impressive how fully they inhabit not only their own roles but years of shared history.
Jury Duty Presents: Company Retreat
The Bottom Line
Too mild.
Airdate: Friday, March 20 (Prime Video)
Cast: Anthony Norman, Alex Bonifer, Blair Beekan, Emily Pendergast, Erica Hernandez, Jerry Hauck, Jim A. Woods, LaNisa Renee Frederick, Marc-Sully Saint-Fleur, Rachel Kaly, Rob Lathan, Ryan Perez, Stephanie Hodge, Warren Burke, Wendy Braun
Creators: Lee Eisenberg, Gene Stupnitsky
Beyond maybe helping everyone onscreen get future jobs, though, it’s tough to see much point in this series as a viewer. The same could be said of the first season (and was, by my colleague Daniel Fienberg), but at least that one had the advantages of novelty, James Marsden and, frankly, funnier jokes. Without them, Company Retreat just lands as a sweeter, milder retread of its predecessor, with no new innovations or insights of its own.
One imagines that since Jury Duty came out, anyone who finds themselves listening to insane legal testimony next to a bunch of weirdos immediately starts looking for hidden cameras. So Company Retreat, created by Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky and directed once again by Jake Szymanski, moves its premise to Rockin’ Grandma’s, a family-run hot sauce outfit. Its dozen-ish employees are striking out into the California woods for their annual retreat, a much-loved tradition that includes seminars, a field day, a talent show and plenty of team bonding, and Anthony is here to pitch in with whatever odd jobs need doing.
Like Ronald in season one, Anthony, who’s been told the half-truth that he’s participating in a documentary about small businesses, is the only “real” person on this trip. Everyone else, up to and including the manager of the Oak Canyon ranch (Blair Beeken’s Marjorie) and the various speakers, businesspeople, etc. who flit in and out throughout the week, is in on the joke.
What the joke is, though, is harder to pin down. I guess it’s on Anthony, since the premise of the show is tossing all manner of absurd scenarios at him — my favorites included a coworker (Rachel Kaly as resident techie Claire) obsessed with making everyone watch the TV show Bones, and a motivational speaker (Ian Roberts) who talks in graphic detail about losing his balls to frostbite — to see how he’ll react. But unbeknownst to Anthony, his arc is so tightly scripted that even the big confrontation that wraps up the season is one the cast has been rehearsing for months with a stand-in. So Company Retreat is less a show about the choices Anthony makes than the ones he’s been very carefully manipulated into making by a crackerjack cast and crew.
It’s less mean than that sounds, because the show is all sunny good vibes. The people of Rockin’ Grandma’s might occasionally get on each other’s nerves (Stephanie Hodge is especially fun as Helen, an accountant with a wild streak and no patience for nonsense) but they’re all fundamentally nice people who care very deeply about the company they work for. There’s not even a funny asshole type like Marsden got to be last season.
Even when a mortifying incident triggers a sexual harassment training session or Dougie (Alex Bonifer), the founder’s sweet but stupid son, goes “missing” for a couple of hours, there’s never any doubt everything will be fine — from our perspective but also, apparently, from Anthony’s. If he ever gets stressed or frustrated in dealing with all this nonsense, that footage is never shown. We only see how much patience and compassion he brings to every situation, and how quickly he feels welcomed into this big happy family.
But that’s less touching than that sounds because, of course, none of it is real. I don’t doubt that all of these actors like Anthony and are genuinely touched by the way he reacts to their characters — giving the insecure Dougie much-needed pep talks, encouraging receptionist PJ (Marc-Sully Saint-Fleur) to pursue his snackfluencer dreams, giving HR manager Kevin (Ryan Perez) love life advice. The fact remains that Anthony doesn’t actually know anything about these people or their motives.
That their motives mostly seem to be benign (no one is out to humiliate this man; if anything, they seem intent on celebrating his best qualities) doesn’t change the fact that we’re not watching humans strike up spontaneous and authentic connections with one another, but watching a bunch of people experiment on one guy like he’s a lab rat they’re coaxing through a maze. It’s all very sweet, but in an empty way.
Company Retreat is a remarkable feat of performance in that they were able to fool Anthony, of production in that they were able to maneuver him, of casting in that they managed to find such a winsome and tirelessly helpful hero in the first place. And, of course, it’s an incredible showcase for Anthony himself as the kind of dude who’d get employee of the month every month. But those are just impressive line items for a résumé. They don’t necessarily make for rewarding television.
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