Review: 'RENO 911!: The Hunt for QAnon' Paramount+ Exclusive Special

 

Courtesy of ViacomCBS

[SPOILERS] 

    Reno 911!: The Hunt for QAnon, surprisingly a title set and chosen by Paramount for the creators, writers and stars Thoman Lennon (Lieutenant Jim Dangle), Kerri Kennedy (Deputy Trudy Weigel) and Robert Ben Garant (Deputy Travis Junior), with Garant as director of this somewhat unexpected adventure, to suddenly come up with a story for. Lennon began to take concern with this assumingly shortly thereafter but soon an idea was settled upon and things were set in motion on the premise that would henceforth take place.

    The special begins in the same classic 'RENO 911!' style as the Comedy Central series that the special is based upon, with each of the nine cast members being introduced. The six that have not been named yet include Cedric Yarbrough playing Deputy S. Jones, Niecy Nash as Deputy Raineesha Williams, Wendi Lo McLendon-Covey as Deputy Clementine Johnson, Carlos Alazraqui as Deputy James Garcia, Mary Birdsong as Cherisha Kimball and Season 6 & 7's Ian Roberts as Sergeant Jack Declan as they chase down Lieutenant Dangle who's airborne via multiple balloons tied to his police bicycle. This intro was goofy fun and gave me a couple of chuckles to set things off.

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    When things settle down we hear a bit about some of the officer's opinions on the current state of affairs in our real world involving citizen's relations to the police before we find the whole cast gathered in their iconic police headquarters with their leader Lieutenant Jim Dangle at the podium. The rest of them seem to each be indulging in drugs of their choice, assumingly from the evidence locker. A classic argument ensues involving the spelling of the mammoth like character from Sesame Street, Snuffleupagus, in which I agree so much with one side of the dispute that I almost misspelled it just now in the way that one of the side believes it's spelled. As the argument begins to grow out of hand the Lieutenant regains control of the group through an "Om break" by having them all say the word "Om" slowly/meditatively before breaking the news that they've been tasked with tracking down and serving the infamous Q of QAnon, an unknown internet conspiracist with a massive following, for allegedly posting defamatory things about a local pizza restaurant on internet message boards, which led them to the suing of the mysterious Q.

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    While searching the internet on the station laptop they quickly come across an article on the Hollywood Cabal filled with recent scandals and conspiracy theories before coming across an advertisement for Q's Booze Cruise while surfing the official Q website. Dangle calls the cruise line and lands all nine of them tickets before a somewhat fitting and funny cruise preparation montage set to "Who Let the Dogs Out?" by The Baha Men.

    Undercover as civilians in plain clothes, or should I say cruise outfits galore as everyone files aboard the cruise ship in a good mood before we meet our first guest star at the check-in, Riki Lindhome from Garfunkel & Oats playing a woman who wrote a book titled 'Confessions of a Woman Who S*** in Nancy Pelosi's Desk'. Shortly follows is Kulap Vilaysack playing a woman leading the cruise ship security force that give the group their awkwardly private and extensive screening. We then meet Gary Anthony Williams who plays an out of his mind captain with an almost equally off-the-rocker Jay Pichardo as his first mate.

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    Hosting the keynote address aboard the ship is the character Ron, being played by comedian Patton Oswalt, whom takes a big part in this special as the rest of the crew mingle with the cruise ship guests, including an odd character named Julian played by Julian Gant. Whilst the speech continues Deputy Johnson seems to be taking to the speaker for more reasons than just her faking of agreement with the garbage he's discussing. While trying to decipher whether Q is actually aboard the ship or not, some of the recognizable people we come across are Steve Agee and Brian Posehn who are very forwardly already onto them as undercover cops and whom we later see in charge of some of the cruise activities like Q-Trivia Night.

    After some random high-jinks including an appearance from the ever funny Rob Huebel playing an imagined eccentric older well dressed gentleman courting a Frozen Halloween outfitted Deputy Wiegel and some one on one discussions between the flirtatious Officer Johnson and Ron, we quickly find out (to my surprise) that Steve Agee's character is actually an undercover FBI agent, Brian Posehn's is an undercover CIA agent, Riki Lindhome's author character turns out to be a VICE media journalist with the odd Julian turning out to be an undercover journalist for MotherJones.com.

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    The team decide to pool their resources together to hunt down Q by suiting up Officer Johnson with a wire for her date night with the QAnon linked Ron. He quickly and easily admits to being Q and the force swiftly break down the door to arrest him but he flees, escaping down the hallway before jumping onto an electric scooter. The electric scooter chase was a highlight of this special, especially seeing the bullets and stuntmen fly everywhere and I'm personally a sucker for sight gags when they're done right, as seen with Deputy Weigel in the chase early on.

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    After Ron's capture my favorite scene of the special begins with a musical number completely out of nowhere started by Dangle while chatting with Johnson over the loss of Ron. Practically everyone's involved in this impressive song and dance routine until INCREDIBLY the real life super-star artist P!nk or Alicia Moore as she's credited is shown performing a cover of Billy Ocean's "Caribbean Queen" after the main cast's rendition of the song! This whole musical number somehow fits almost perfectly in the middle of this 90 minute romp and I hope to see it trend online someday in someway or another.

    Quarantined aboard the ship in what appears to be 30 days but is actually a mere 30-minutes we see the undercover cops seeming exhausted with life at sea with the "cat-sh** crazy" captain, his criminal first mate and their group of fully automatic assault rifle touting trigger happy security force. After barely misbehaving they're taken below deck but notably not restrained. They easily escape, a fault in the writing but I give leeway to upon it being a comedy special before they quickly dispose of the first mate with Home Alone like tactics and eventually stop the crazy captain from crashing the ship, however, the deadly security force begins actively firing upon them and eventually exiles them to death at sea in a life boat that turns out to secretly have been turned into a love nest by Deputy Johnson and Ron, to put it lightly.

    After another argument ensues amongst the group they reach land but salvation is quickly thwarted upon the reveal that the land they've landed upon is in fact QAnon's headquarters, filled with armed and camouflaged guards. With Ron having recently admitted to not actually being Q but instead to being Q's right hand man, Johnson decides to side with her man against her former co-workers and we soon see someone that appears to be the leader of the group in a lavish mansion on the island, which turns out to be a higher up individual taking direct orders from the ever elusive & mysterious Q*, a white robed individual played by the illustrious RuPaul Charles.

*You'll have you watch the special to find out who Q is! Apologizes for spoiling too much.

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    Upon the police discovery of the island, Ron decides it's best to blow everything up by setting a bomb to blow on a timer just like any true super villain except with the help of the former Deputy Johnson. With the gang locked in a sex dungeon below it's soon revealed Johnson actually secretly drugged everyone's beer in the base before breaking out the gang right as they're beginning to accept their fate. The heroes set off kicking serious butt right out of the gate in hilarious and vicious ways, including actual legitimately impressive combat scenes between some of the characters before ultimately culminating in the death of a very recognizable QAnon supporter from our real world Capital Riots.

    Ron's nowhere to be found when the gang gets to the bomb and are shown trying to get it to the ocean before they all blow to pieces but Lieutenant Dangle decides it's a good time for a personal life story at the absolute worst possible time and is assumed dead, with only his signature short-shorts being left behind after the bomb goes off earlier than he expected. His funeral is quickly shown before they all see a familiar looking person talking to a guest aboard the ship that turns out to be Dangle trying to enjoy a bit of the cruise-life before having to return to the daily life of a police officer in the early 2020's.

    Things pretty quickly wrap up with Ron hosting a private yacht trip for the nine officers that celebrate being a family before standing in a line on the ship in Titanic style while shouting "Human centipede Titanic", the exact type of humor us fans love to see in the series and specials.

   

Courtesy of ViacomCBS

    Overall, I really enjoyed this special and feel it confirms they've "still got it" more so than in their short-lived Quibi series, which they've reportedly finished filming a second season of, but has yet to be released. I hope to see a streaming service (presumably Paramount+) or someone else pick it up to distribute it soon because the heart of this family should live on until it's no longer able to. Sometimes all a comedy viewer wants are some low-stakes (albeit needs some stakes) with some humor that isn't afraid to go there and go there they have and go there they repeatedly do.

    If this is our last adventure with the 'RENO 911!' gang then it's a good send off but if a true send off is warranted for this series then I really hope to see them receive a chance to write a proper ending for the characters; whatever that may be.

   

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Jordan Bushert

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