Photo Credit: Trae Patton/Fox

***SPOILERS Below***

Happy New Year, everyone, and welcome to my first The Crazy Ones review since before the holidays! It’s been a few weeks without any new episodes, and I’ll admit that I was craving a new episode before the latest one aired. However, I did gain new insights to my favorite show prior to finally seeing it as it aired in my time zone. The LA Times’ Calendar section featured The Crazy Ones on the front page with an excellent article about the show and the incredible cast that makes it work. Be sure to check it out if you can.

And now, without further ado, let’s dive into the latest episode. “The Face of a Winner” started strong, and continued with fantastic dialogue and sharp storytelling throughout the episode. The team of Lewis, Roberts + Roberts had two campaigns to deal with once again, and Sydney and Lauren create a campaign for a spa while Zach and Andrew have created a campaign for a video game. Of course, this is The Crazy Ones, and things aren’t always meant to be. Thanks to Simon gaining access to his iTunes account, he downloads a new app and is so excited by it that he flips the campaigns on the two teams. Things don’t go well, but the outcome is absolutely hilarious. Sydney and Lauren take over the gaming campaign, and have to learn to game themselves in order to learn about the product. Sadly, Sydney quickly becomes addicted and takes on the stereotypical habits of compulsive, highly driven and competitive gamers. Andrew and Zach take over the spa campaign and seem to thoroughly enjoy getting to test out all the lotions and potions they’ve been provided with.

For me, there were a lot of fantastic moments in this new episode. One for me was an early line said by Sydney to Zach and Andrew when they still had the video game campaign. She says “all the excitement of combat from the comfort of your mother’s couch” and being friends with many gamers, I’ll admit to often sharing similar thoughts when I watch them play. I also loved the two flashback moments in the episode. Seeing Simon as a “fruit ninja” was absolutely hilarious and the child actor who played a young Sydney in another flashback later in the episode was perfect. If there are more flashbacks in the future, I hope the same girl is employed as young Sydney. My other favorite moments were seeing Sydney’s reaction to an intervention and the blooper reel. I also loved seeing and hearing poor Zach try to speak through an allergic reaction he sustained from using one of the spa products.

Tonight’s MVP was absolutely Sydney. Not only was she brilliant with the final campaign of the episode, she also played Simon really well the first time he tried to talk to her about her growing gaming addiction. It was fantastic, realistic, and highly reminiscent of my real life gamer friends and how intense they are when playing the games they love. The episode was sharp, on point, witty, and absolutely hilarious. My only complaint is that it went by so quickly. The episode just flew, and I couldn’t believe the shenanigans ended so quickly.

Even though this review does have quite a few spoilers, I left a lot of detail about the episode out. If you want to know what you’ve missed and have a good laugh, be sure to catch The Crazy Ones here. It’s always worth it to watch or re-watch the episodes of this wonderful show. Plus, the blooper reel had a moment that’s sure to get most fans talking!