…and a whole episode is dedicated to service (product) placement.
—Spoiler Alert for Ratings—
In episode 4, titled “Wahala Couple”, an old couple, played by Jide Kosoko and Maureen Okpoko, apparently have some personal issues going on as they board FJ’s vehicle. This marks the first time we get two passengers at once and one would have expected double the fun.
But the couple are not on the same page, and they drag FJ into their ‘wahala’ as they both decide that they’ve two different destinations. Consequently, FJ is left to decide which destination he drives to. Does he listen to the nagging woman or the stubborn husband?
While deliberating on where he should drive to first, they find out that he’s an estate realtor, then they ask him to drive them to one of his properties, and this is the location they end up going. It is funny that both husband and wife suddenly forget about their own wish destinations which they have been protesting for minutes earlier, only to settle for a third location that FJ namedrops as a location of one of his properties.
We are not taken along this journey, but we can imagine how fiery it must be for FJ being in the same vehicle with these two passengers.
This episode is filled with promotion for this particular real estate agency in Lagos and at the end of the episode, FJ doesn’t get paid again. Like we are even surprised at this point, ehn?
Due to the earlier back and forth on whether he should start the trip or not and which destination he drives them to, FJ forgot to start the trip on his phone app. This leaves them with no estimate of the fare he is to receive.
At least these passengers wanted to pay, but the ‘wahala’ they brought along caused FJ his own ‘wahala’ in this episode. FJ barely did anything wrong in this episode not to get paid.
On reaching the property location and after viewing it, the ‘problematic’ woman decides that she doesn’t like the property. Then, she storms out of FJ’s car, leaving FJ to chase a passenger once again for payment.
FJ controls his senses in this episode, so we could conclude that it’s never going to always be about FJ as external factors and circumstances can also bring their own complexities. We understand that the passenger-pair are not at peace with each other. As a viewer, I expected that we would get to know more about the roots of their nagging during the journey. But no, we get nothing.
FJ doesn’t have to necessarily ‘solve’ it like in the last episode, but at least get a hint on why the couple are crossed with each other. We can only conclude that the couple’s ‘wahala’ is so much that FJ couldn’t even interfere. You can imagine a wahala so strong that FJ can barely get a word out.
Or maybe, it’s nothing in particular but just everyday couple problems. And we as viewers, being in FJ’s shoes would not always get to see behind the scenes of some passenger’s lives. We would get to feel the effects of their continuous moaning, but what the cause exactly is, we should not always expect to get it as it is in real life sometimes. It is not every fight that we come across on the road that we get to know the genesis, nor might we get to know the end of it.
Episode 4 is quite an empty episode. The sad thing is how much I looked forward to it after the first 3 episodes and the awesome episode two and three. Please, don’t tell me it goes downhill from here. I hope this episode merely serves as a break.
Interestingly, the writer for the episode is the same as the last two, same as the director. Nothing changed. So I guess, it is just a break.
Rating: D
Side musings
- I wish they gave Jude Kosoko more to do with his character.
- The woman in this episode might just be problematic sef, because she flared up for no reason as FJ asked the first question on whether to start the trip or not. She was offended that he said “sir” and not “ma”, or just remained neutral. This should be a learning curve for FJ.
- I think I might be overanalyzing Ratings at this point. The next episode will tell me if it plans to be a serious series or it’s just a series of extended Instagram skits.
- How many episodes are we getting sef? If we’re getting 10 episodes, then the next episode would be the mid season which should serve something interesting. I hope, at least.
A new episode drops every Friday at 3pm on Ndani’s Youtube Channel.
We publish a recap every Saturday.
