The Two Coreys: Career Moves and Making Amends

It’s another week, and we’ve got two more episodes of The Two Coreys to dissect. “Career Moves” begins with Corey Haim trying to get his career back on track. Wait, hasn’t he been here before?

OK, that was a lame excuse to show a video most of us have already seen, but does it ever really get old? Anyway, Haim can’t get work without a publicist and he can’t get a publicist, he thinks, without an assistant — so he sets out to hire a personal assistant to make a few calls on his behalf. Based on his phone conversations with prospective applicants, he’s looking for a computer hacker. Yeah, this is totally going to work out well.

Coincidentally, Corey Feldman is looking for an assistant, too. He’s thinking of hiring an obsessed fan named Jake who looks like Pauly Shore. Thank God the Coreys are actors, because … well, let’s just say that their instincts when it comes to hiring people are not well-suited for a corporate environment.

Back at Haim’s house, the interview process looks like a bad movie montage. No one seems qualified or competent until Nell arrives. She promises to do anything for Haim, as long as it’s not illegal or unethical. And she’s hired. Her first task is to call Feldman to so he and Haim can set up their therapist-recommended bowling outing. Somehow we don’t think having a personal assistant involved in the conversation quite serves the doctor’s intent here. Although we love the fact that Haim is treating Nell like a new toy that he can’t wait to use.

The bowling outing goes all right — until Haim reveals that he’s not sure if he’s going to do Lost Boys 2. At this point, he doesn’t sound like the guy from the start of the episode who was desperate to get back to work. He seems more like the guy who has sabotaged his own career for the past decade and a half. Luckily, his hiring of Nell is paying early dividends, as she has set up a meeting for him with a casting director.

Meanwhile, Feldman’s new assistant Jake arrives for his first day of work. Unsurprisingly, he’s a total suck-up. He calls Feldman “Felddog” at every opportunity and even describes the 1995 movie Voodoo — in which Feldman starred as college kid who joins a fraternity that just happens to be a voodoo cult — as “a classic.” The moment he steps over the line though, is when he pulls down his pants and sits on Feldman’s toilet “just because he sat on it.” That’s pretty weird, even by obsessed fan standards. After that, it seems perfectly normal that he inspects Feldman’s underwear drawer and comments on the tube of lube he finds.

Before we’re able to shake that image from our heads, Feldman heads to a pitch meeting for a show he wants to produce called Celebrity Road Trip — but only after a quick recap of a therapy session in which the Coreys discuss their careers apart from one another. At the meeting, it soon becomes apparent that the executive he’s meeting with wants Haim to be the onscreen talent. Haim, it turns out, might not be available though, because his meeting with the casting director is going better than Feldman’s meeting. He lands a voice role in an animated independent film — although a look at Haim’s page on IMDb.com shows no such credit so we’ll have to see what happens with that.

In that spirit, we move on to the second episode of the night, “Making Amends.” It begins with Haim making a list of all the people to whom he feels he needs to apologize. The list includes: Todd Bridges, Alyssa Milano, Winona Ryder, Nicole Eggert, all of his ex-girlfriends, Joel Schumacher, Scott (Feldman’s manager?), his brother, Richard Donner, his cousins, his ex-fiancée, his mom, his dad (who he says also owes him a @#$% apology), and, of course, Feldman and Susie. He decides to start by inviting the Feldmans over for dinner. We were really hoping for a dinner party with all of the above, but we’re guessing only the last two people on the list are still returning Haim’s calls.

At their house, Feldman and Susie are having a photo session, where Jake pops up from time to time to make awkward innuendo about how he’s going to “crop” in his pants looking at the photos.

Haim decides to reach out to the non-Feldmans on his list by placing an ad in Variety asking for forgiveness. Haim and Nell think it has worked beautifully, but the Feldmans think it’s a bad idea and an obvious stunt — despite the fact that ad distinctly states that it’s not a stunt. Just as they’re mocking him, he calls to invite them to dinner. At least Haim is blissfully unaware of their reaction to his ad — not so with the readers of Defamer.com, whose comments send Haim spiraling into a depression.

It’s not the right state of mind to begin dinner, but after some awkward moments, the whole thing ends in a group hug. We’ll see how long that warm, fuzzy happiness lasts, considering we’ve still got several episodes left in the season. Not that we’re pessimistic, but we’d suggest the folks at Variety save a little ad space.