'The Audacity' Episodes 2-3 Recap: Does Duncan Secure Investment For Hypergnosis?

The opening episode of The Audacity was properly chaotic, with a whole load of characters feeling like their world was falling apart around them, but it all still felt oddly well coordinated, and we could already see the conjunctions where all the characters would start coming together. At the end of episode 1, Orson had found out while eavesdropping on Duncan’s therapy session that neither one of his parents had wanted to take him after the divorce, and he also got locked up in the basement when the maid noticed that the door to the little room he was in was open. We see a lot more of Orson in episodes 2 and 3, and we can tell he’s going to be a pretty big part of the story. Let’s get into what went down in these two episodes in this recap.

Spoiler Alert

Duncan Messes Up With Carl Bardolph And The VA

Faced with blackmail (and Duncan breaking into her home when she already feels paranoid), JoAnne gives Duncan the name of one of her clients who could potentially become an investor in Hypergnosis. Except she picks out the grumpiest, most unfriendly guy she can think of, Carl Bardolph, hoping the bad experience will put Duncan in his place. But Duncan’s head over heels just at the sound of his name. Carl Bardolph, of course, came up with Bardolph’s law, pure fantasy of the highest order, but exactly what tech CEOs want to hear: profits will keep growing infinitely. However, when he goes to see Carl at his favourite milkshake place (which he first staked out with his daughter), things go sideways in a hurry. We already know from Carl’s earlier therapy sessions that he hates having his private space invaded by strangers, and he makes it clear that he doesn’t appreciate Duncan’s presence when he stabs him in the palm with a fork.

After a bit of screaming, Duncan runs off back to Hypergnosis headquarters to lick his wounds, but he’s annoyed to see Ruffage and Jeffrey there playing badminton. Apparently, Anushka never told them that the deal was off, but when Duncan is in the process of trying to shoo them away, Ruffage lets slip that the deal would get Hypergnosis access to a lot of veterans’ data, and Duncan starts seeing dollar signs (beyond the ones the deal would bring in anyway). He promises to throw a big old red, white, and blue barbecue party for the SecVa (Ruffage’s boss). Later, when he gets inspired by the spider in his sink to never stop fighting, Duncan goes back to the milkshake place, but this time, he doesn’t even make it to Carl. Instead, he gets roughed up by Carl’s bodyguards immediately. When he gets back to the Hypergnosis headquarters, “Ruffrey” (his nickname for Ruffage and Jeffrey) have some bad news for him. The forest fires have gotten so bad that SecVa has had to delay her flight, to the point that she can no longer attend the barbecue. Instead, she’s prioritized an event at Spookle’s headquarters, and Duncan’s furious. Not only did things not work out with him getting Carl to invest, the VA clearly isn’t taking his bid too seriously either, even though he didn’t really want anything to do with them in the first place.

JoAnne Mishandles Things Entirely 

After Orson breaks out of the basement by smashing through the window, JoAnne gets paranoid about burglars and starts demanding Gary get her a gun. When Duncan gets Gary to give him a free ASD diagnosis test, Duncan gets his tech guy to look into Gary’s phone, and he gets paranoid when he finds out JoAnne’s been texting him about guns, funnily. After the Carl thing goes sideways, he tracks down JoAnne, given she’s been ignoring his calls, and she drives erratically to get away from him before rushing to visit an investment firm, where she tries to ask for help about how to make it look like she’s not actually insider trading. After getting some advice about “muddying” up her investments, she leaves. When she gets home, she tries to get Orson to change her passwords, but when she gives him the password to her laptop, which she says is his birthday, the date is off by one day. Turns out, she’s been thinking his birthday was actually her dad’s dog’s birthday all along, and though Orson feels neglected in this moment, his mother just laughs it off. Also, the fact that Orson hasn’t had his transcripts sent to school only comes up when the school authorities say they don’t know where he is amidst the forest fire. He’s just been hiding in a corner with an accessible bathroom and spying on Tess being a klepto. When JoAnne finally finds him, she blames it all on his dad and drags him home, but not before he needs another bathroom break, which she calls frustrating. 

So she tries to get Orson to submit a stool sample, except all of a sudden he can no longer go, so she sends him off to take a walk with the dog. The next day, at the hospital, she has to submit the stool sample before the technicians go to lunch, but the forest fire is raging, everything is dusty, and she can’t find the building, so it’s too late by the time she gets there. Lucky for her, she’s a psychologist and she uses her people skills to get the technicians to accept the sample. Meanwhile, Orson, under anesthesia, answers his mum’s phone when Duncan calls and tells him everyone hates him and that he’s a bad person. Later, when JoAnne and Orson get home, she’s making him his favorite dish, ramen, when she gets a phone call from the hospital and finds out the stool sample was literal dog dung. Any progress she’s made with Orson is instantly flushed down the toilet in this instant. Also, when Duncan calls her and threatens her, she replies that if he gets her license cancelled, she’ll just out him too, so he has nothing to hold over her. Good for her. 

What Does Duncan’s Approach To The Forest Fires And The Spider Tell Us? 

As soon as the forest fires start getting out of hand, various characters start freaking out, especially Lili, in stark contrast to Duncan’s unbothered attitude. It almost seems like performative passivity, and later, when Gary tells him that he doesn’t have autism and he’s completely “typical,” Duncan’s furious about being called “normal,” because to be a rich CEO you’ve got to have no empathy. Maybe he tried to tell himself he was different so he never had to deal with the fact he never really processed Hamish’s suicide. Hamish is the one who built Fahfa, and Duncan was just a smiling monkey. Even JoAnne rubs this in his face later, when she says he won the lottery by having Hamish as a roommate. When the Napa house burns down, Lili is distraught, but again, Duncan doesn’t care because he doesn’t value the memories they built there. In contrast, the one thing he does seem to care about in this episode is the spider in his sink, which he directly starts viewing as a representation of himself, or at least the ideal version of himself, because it keeps coming back to life no matter what he does to it. I mean, it might’ve been a family of spiders, no? Nevertheless, when Thelma finally slays the spider, he’s genuinely broken, and when he calls JoAnne asking for help, he says he’s lost a friend. Ah, men with too much empathy. 

Why Does Anushka Want To Collaborate With Martin All Of A Sudden?

After Duncan’s barbeque was cancelled, Martin walked around the place showing his pet AI, Xander, around. When he finds Ruffage clearly having trouble (the smell of a roasting pig triggered his PTSD of burning bodies), Xander hits him with a General Sherman quote which really resonates with him. Next thing you know, Ruffage is getting a full on therapy session from Martin’s teen therapy AI, and everyone around is entranced, until Jeffery marches into the scene and pulls Ruffage away. When Martin and Anushka get home, all of a sudden, she wants to be a part of what Martin is building, because there’s clearly some potential there. But Martin wants this to be his thing, and he reminds her of all the times she said his idea was stupid and the face looked silly. I guess there’s some trouble between the couple after all. 

Does Duncan Finally Win Carl Over? 

At the end of episode 3, Duncan stares at the only picture he has of his dear departed arachnid friend, and he gets inspired to be persistent once again. The forest fires are so bad now that only a psychopath would leave their house. So naturally, he knows Carl’s going to be at the milkshake place, and he goes there to meet him. Carl honestly kinda respects this, and Duncan tells him his story about Linus Po, a musician who everyone’s been mourning the whole day. Apparently, Duncan had tried to get him to perform in his backyard, a long time ago, for a million dollars. When he refused, Duncan upped the offer to 2 then 3 then 4 million, and then finally 4.5. Linus came, performed 3 songs, flipped Duncan the bird, and called him disgusting, humiliating him in front of all of his pals. But Duncan rationalises this by saying he still won because Linus hated himself more for accepting the money, and never made music again after that day. This sociopathic speech clearly gets to Carl, and when Duncan asks him to invest 300 million dollars into Hypergnosis, for a 7% stake, Carl finally bites and Duncan is a winner yet again. As if we needed any more proof that Duncan’s a true loser, as he’s driving away, he asks an AI to generate a triumphant song in the style of Linus Po with his own name in it. One last insult to Linus Po on the day of his death. 

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