This was borderline. The astute viewer recognized that the “NSA agent” was the same actor we met earlier in the episode who we know is not an NSA agent. And aside from that, we just kind of know that what is happening is too ridiculous to be real.
It also fits the tone of this show, in which people do and say witty and clever and sometimes downright funny things all the time, but never smile or laugh at the jokes- it’s always done in deadpan.
But your question echoes the thought I had when watching it: “is this to keep me the audience wondering if this is a joke or something that’s really happening?” And I think the answer is at least a little bit “yes”. Keeping us in Josh’s emotional shoes for a bit.
To this point, I was reading some of the audience reviews for Death by Lightning (which I thought was excellent) on IMDB. A common complaint seemed to be that swearing wasn’t period correct, e.g. “They wouldn’t have used the f-word like that in the 1880s.” I’m no linguist, but my understanding is that actual 19th century swear words would sound comically mild to a 2026 audience. Everyone would basically come across as sounding like Ned Flanders, would would probably be more distracting to most people. I guess they could have the characters not swear at all, but that probably wouldn’t be accurate either. Best to just use language that sounds equally strong to modern ears.
This might be a very specific thing, but in Curb Your Enthusiasm Wanda Sykes played herself in a few episodes. Except that was before she was publicly out as a lesbian, so there was a plot line about her being engaged to a man. At the time that wouldn’t have seemed out of the ordinary to the audience, but watching that episode now makes me think “She wouldn’t be getting married to him – she’s gay!”
In some TV shows, a character’s friends, family, and neighbors will walk right into their home without knocking or ringing the doorbell first. I know this saves a bit of time in the episode, plus there are people who have the “don’t need to knock” relationship in real life.
But there are times when character who normally comes in without a knock/ring, will do so because it’s necessary for a scene or a joke.
Dialing a phone. Since the whole world is aware of the “555” exchange, whenever anyone dials a phone (especially police shows, where they still use desktop phones with push buttons) you can see them punch 555 and that yanks me right out of the show. Listen to me, Hollywood: unless the phone number is integral to the plot, there is no reason to show anyone dialing a phone. Insert the “ticka-ticka” sound effect while the actor is “dialing.”
Well, when they use actual phone numbers, some bad things have occurred. “867-5309/Jenny”, Squid games, Bruce Almighty, etc. Lawsuits, lives ruined, etc.
But as noted above, dialing a phone or the modern equivalent ways to initiate a call is such a commonplace activity that they don’t need to show us the number, or show the actor entering it in a way that telegraphs the 555 fake exchange to the audience.
Back when direct dialing was a novelty, say 1947, there might have been a reason to spend 15 seconds of screen time making us watch an actor operate a telephone in detail. Now? WTF?
