Recap / Central Park S2E10 "Bee Is for Brandenham"

RECAP:
Index
Season One: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10
Season Two: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16
Season Three: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13

Original release date: March 4, 2022

Written by: Bennett Walsh
Directed by: Tom King

♫ Whoa-oh
Finding out a lie
A lemon in the eye
It stings and it stings
Whoa-oh
Hanging by my strings
'Cause, ooh, yeah, yeah, yeah
It stings and it stings ♫

—Owen, "It Stings"

Owen has a bad headache and after a visit from his optometrist he has to wear special sunglasses until his eyes recover. He later has to help Bitsy remove a swarm of bees that has appeared in front of her hotel while she tries to convince a sneaker mogul to have his convention at her hotel. Paige, Molly, and Cole are having trouble trying to apply anti-itch cream on her boss's cat when he goes inside a wall.

Songs

• "Ideally I'd Deal With It" - Owen, Elwood, Fran, and other Park Workers
  Written by: Brent Knopf
  Performed by: Leslie Odom Jr., Rory O'Malley, Yvette Nicole Brown, Phil LaMarr, & Kelvin Yu
• "It Stings" - Owen, Paige, Molly, Cole, Bitsy, & Helen
  Written by: Kate Anderson & Elyssa Samsel
  Performed by: Leslie Odom Jr., Kathryn Hahn, Emmy Raver-Lampman, Tituss Burgess, Stanley Tucci, Daveed Diggs
• "Flyin' High" - Owen, Elwood, Fran, Paige, Molly, & Cole
  Written by: Kate Anderson & Elyssa Samsel
  Performed by: Leslie Odom Jr., Rory O'Malley, Yvette Nicole Brown, Kathryn Hahn, Emmy Raver-Lampman, & Tituss Burgess

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Tropes:

• Analogy Backfire: Whilst walking through park with his dark glasses on, Owen comments that he feels as blind as a bee. But then he recalls knowing that bees would see better than this, as they, can see all colors except for red.
• Bee Afraid: Averted. While people are afraid of the bees, the bees aren't shown to be stinging anyone and are rather calm. The only time they acted aggressive is when Owen accidentally knocks over the bee vacuum and spills out the bees inside and they latch onto Fran who's luckily wearing a beekeeper suit; other than that, no one else got stung by any bees.
• Continuity Nod: During "Ideally I'd Deal With It", among the things Owen has to take care of is removing a "SHART" graffiti from a park statue and re-positioning the owl camera from "Rival Busker" to be facing the owl nest.
• Double-Meaning Title: The song title "It Stings" refers to Owen's stinging headache, Cole getting scratched by Sir Peter and saying his scratch stings, and Bitsy and Helen dealing with the bees at her hotel that can sting.
• Inside a Wall: When Paige, Molly, and Cole try to apply anti-itch cream on Sir Peter, the cat hides behind a chest that's next to the wall. When they move the chest to get to Sir Peter, it turns out the chest was there to cover the hole in the wall and prevent Sir Peter from going inside it and they realized it too late, especially when there's a chapter about not moving the chest from the wall in Marvin's instruction book. Marvin video calls them and tells them to lure Sir Peter out with a strong, scented food.
• Meaningful Background Event: Near the beginning of "It Stings", while Owen is trying to navigate through the park with his limited vision, there's an old man entertaining a little girl with a marionette puppet and both the puppet and Owen are unknowingly mirroring each other as he sings about being a puppet on strings.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: When Owen feels like Elwood isn't doing a proper job at vacuuming the bees, he tries to take over despite his vision being limited. This results in him knocking the bee vacuum out of Fran's hand and spilling the bees out where they latch onto her.
• Noodle Incident: Elwood's line during "Flyin' High":
  And for the first time in this job I feel on fire
  Except that one time when I set myself on fire
• Now You Tell Me: When trying to apply anti-itch cream on Sir Peter who's hiding behind a trunk, Paige and the kids move the trunk out of the way only to reveal that it was covering a hole in the wall that Sir Peter immediately enters. When Paige is looking through Marvin's hefty instruction book on taking care of his cat, she learns that the title for Chapter 2 is "Don't Move the Trunk".
• The Perfectionist: Owen does so much as at the park that he can't trust his workers to do certain jobs. He would micro-manages them to ensure that they're doing right, and when he feels that they're not then he takes over their work. It's gotten so bad that he developed a headache from overworking at the beginning of the episode.
• Rule of Symbolism: During "It Stings", Owen walks past an old man entertaining a little girl with a marionette puppet of a clown and the puppet and Owen are doing the exact same movements. The clown symbolizes that Owen is acting foolish for trying to do all the work himself and not trusting his own workers to do the job on their own. He later makes himself look like a fool by accidentally spilling out the bees from the bee vacuum when he tries to takeover the job despite his limited vision.
• Temporary Blindness: At the beginning of the episode, Owen overworks himself to the point he has a headache that affects his vision. He sees his optometrist where she gives him eye drops that helps his eyes but blurs his vision and he has to wear huge, dark sunglasses to cover his eyes until they recover, which results in him bumping into things and people.
• A Wild Rapper Appears!: When it gets to Helen in "It Stings", she raps about how much she loves her talking shoes and how it's a better boss than her.
• You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: When Bitsy witness Owen accidentally knock the bee vacuum out of Fran's hands and spills out the bees inside and they latch onto Fran's beekeeper suit, while everyone in the area is panicking over the freed bees, Bitsy just stares at Owen and his crew with an unamused look.

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♫ In my old shoes I would lose
But these boots got me on cruise
Gotta move, gotta groove
When the shoes say to
But I'll be so screwed
If the bees don't shoo
Yeah, Landon will take the Roboots
I'll be like Mrs. No-Boots
She'll be my boss again
It's like no use, no use
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah
I hope that they sting ♫

—Helen, "It Stings (End Credits)"

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