It’s quickly cut short as Brian faints dead away, and Russell’s entreaties to ignore the incident and continue the toast are met with indifference.

It’d be easy to end the show like that, and Gamby almost tries to do so. After spitting in his mother-in-law’s tea, Russell tells his partner, “Now I fucking own her,” but the act changes nothing—Gamby is only person who sees him do it.

Here’s Sedgwick’s money quote: “For a man to undergo even a humiliating change in the course of a relationship with a man still feels like preserving or participating in a sum of male power, while for a man to undergo any change in the course of a relationship with a woman feels like a radical degeneration of substance.” This is, more or less, the exact plot of Vice Principals.

“He’ll never have any manner of grim reckoning and be shunned from all of show-business.”

Back when I wrote about television for The A.V Club I covered Eastbound & Down because I fucking loved it and informed readers whether an episode they’d probably just seen was mind-blowingly awesome, or merely kick-ass. If there was any doubt that this season was going to go full Brian De Palma, it’s gone now.

Wearing a wedding dress, she tells Gamby that the way he’d strung her along over the last year had really messed with her head, and that the only way to fix it would be if they got married. Vice Principals put more thought into the patterns and textures of the imposingly stylish shirts Russell wears than most shows do into their entirety. 

They’re antithetical but equally extreme characters who form a furtive alliance to work together to bring down the new Principal by any means necessary so that one of them can take her place.

But, as with everything else in Vice Principals, it’s been a long con. His regret seems to be genuine — “I cleaned it, Christine,” he tells his sleeping wife — though it’s likely too little, too late.

The party is a bombshell, and a particularly impressive one given the fact that it makes absolutely no headway as to what is ostensibly Vice Principals’ main plot of figuring out who shot Gamby.

It’s too true to life for that. Kevin, now married with kids, left school and broke Christine’s heart when rumors started to circulate that he was gay. Now that she’s confronted with a specter from their past, it’s hard not to wonder how much he may have lied to her, too. Over the first six episodes, Gamby and Russell’s bond deepens significantly, reaching the equivalent of the “I love you” beat of the standard rom-com.

(I was reminded of the Arrested Development episode where G.O.B. As Gamby takes Abbott home with him, Russell cleans up the party, spending the last part of his night scrubbing poop from his wedding portrait. The show started with them flipping each other off behind Bill Murray’s back, and it’s ended with them exchanging glances like Batman and Alfred at the end of The Dark Knight Rises.

As Gamby holds Lee, they reminisce about the year. When Christine asks Russell point blank if he was responsible, he dodges the question, instead blasting Avril Lavigne on the car stereo and singing along.

So, how do you solve a problem like Lee Russell? It’s a sweet moment and an unusually harmless cold open, though that complacency doesn’t last long.

Dayshawn is the only one who seems to have any idea of how much it’s affecting Gamby, as he notes, “You’re sad as fuck that Mr. Russell is gone. In typical Russell fashion, it’s only now that he’s been ousted that he tries to figure out who set him up. Words can’t really do the scene justice: Danny McBride is easily one of the best actors working today, and it’s entirely down to him that it feels earned instead of completely silly.

Three months later, Nash (with two female vice-principals by her side) is principal at North Jackson, where Janelle is starting her first day of high school.