Outsourced Gets Slap Happy
Parvesh Cheena
Slap-bet enthusiast Barney Stinson would be so excited! Todd (Ben Rappaport), however, is anything but when he's forced to investigate a claim by Gupta (Parvesh Cheena) that Rajiv (Rizwan Manji) let him have one — pow! — right in the kisser on tonight's episode of Outsourced (10:30/9:30c, NBC).
And so begins a series of hazy recollections by the parties involved, à la a certain 1950 motion-picture classic. "This is our Rashomon episode," says exec producer Robert Borden, referencing the flashback-heavy movie, a staple of film-school classes. "It's also a parody of a court case, with Gupta and Rajiv each making their case about what happened. Todd is caught in the middle trying to figure out who is in the wrong."
Not that his employees' versions of events is going to help him much. Gupta's fanciful retelling boasts an outrageously menacing Rajiv — played in a vignette by towering WWE pro-wrestler The Great Khali. "There aren't too many 7-foot-plus Indian wrestlers, but we got the one," says Borden, recalling how they altered the set to accommodate the giant. "We had to put in a piece of ceiling to cover the shot, because he is a large dude. He almost didn't fit."
As it turns out, neither do Gupta's or Rajiv's facts — and Todd calls upon Human Resources to resolve the matter. Well, he tries to anyway. "Todd finds out that HR has been outsourced to the Philippines," Borden says. "There's a nice little commentary there." Rashomon and social commentaries? Who knew a show about novelty products could be so deep!
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