"Just a small respite" Ep 4 Season 3
The episode opens with a hot summer midday Saturday. "Peppino Pizza" is full of people clients, Gustavo is at the counter gathering the orders and Peppino is in the kitchen working his ass off to make all the pizzas and bring them to the tables. We see how our main protagonist is visibly stressed, walking quickly out of the kitchen, giving the orders to the clients, re-entering the kitchen to put the remaining ingredients on the dough he left, put it in the oven, take out the other one he was cooking and then repeating all that over and over. Gustavo and Brick (the latter trying to sleep on a pillow in a corner of the kitchen, today it's not delivery day anyway) sometimes look with concern at their busy partner, getting more and more stressed for each new order he gets. At one point Peppino even trips down and almost drops a pizza on the ground.
Then, finally, it's 2:30 PM. The pizzeria is closed until 5:30 PM. Gustavo flips the sign on the door then he turns around to see Peppino busy cleaning the floor from the dirt the clients left. Gus decides to do something about his friend's health and talks with Peppino. He tells him that he shouldn't overdo and that he should have a small respite, but Peppino refuses, his eyes too focused on his task at hand than actually looking at Gus. Gustavo breaks Pep's attention by taking away his broom and pushing him to the door, telling him that he's not allowed to be inside his pizzeria/home until its closing time (8 PM) and that he will use this time to relax. Peppino refuses multiple times, who will make the pizzas for his clients? What if something goes wrong while he's absent?! But Gustavo reassures him that everything will be fine and that Brick take his place behind the counter (he puts on a small chef hat and gives a thumbs up to Pep like the good boy he is). After all, it's not the end of the world if you take a pause, right? Peppino now is outside, the door slams close behind him.
"... Now what?", was the first thought our bald Italian man made when he realises that he has no idea what to do in his free time. So he decided to walk to the city, hoping that maybe he could do something there. He goes to a luna park and tries the roller coaster, but it only got him a very heavy nausea. He goes to a pub, but quickly it becomes lousy as the people are watching an exciting football match. He goes to a cinema, but the movie he chose to see was pretty bad. Finally he tried to go to the beach and have a swim, but the sea creatures were pretty rough today. (While we see this montage we see a small cat following Pep with curiosity)
We cut back to "Peppino Pizza", it's 5:30 PM. Some people enter and order, Brick and Gustavo get to work, with Gus doing actually a great job at replacing Pep. Everything is going pretty smoothly... Until a privileged and rich couple of celeries decide to enter the pizzeria with a slam. They're really rude, ordering normally but then complain for the dumbest reasons (like the olives aren't positioned correctly, the tomato sauce isn't on the crust, there are no specific glasses they wanted to drink beer with, etc). And Gustavo is obligated to smile to hide his frustrations, those two pretentious clients are really testing his positivity and kindness. (In this section there's a recurring joke where the couple use continuously the adjective "celery-stic", with Gustavo replying, each time with more frustration, that this word doesn't exist)
Back to Peppino. We're still in the beach and our titular Italian man is sitting on the sand trying to remove the sea urchins from the soles of his feet. Pep groans and complain, he was supposed to be relaxed and instead he came out more stressed than before! What was he doing wrong?! Right when he was making that question the small cat that was following him gets closer, purring, rubbing their body on his legs and finally jumping on Pep's belly to rest. Peppino is too tired to handle this fur ball and just sighed. He looks at the cat, in a way he was feeling pretty envious. Lucky little guy, they don't have any responsibility whatsoever. They rest whenever they want. They're just happy as they are with the smallest things.
Maybe that's just what all he needed now. A moment of silence. No extreme things, no noise. Just... being here in the moment. Peppino closes his eyes and breathes slowly in... And out... He feels the grains of sand brushing his hands and legs. The sound of the seagulls chanting in the sky, the sea crashing his waves to the cliffs, his breathing becoming slower and relaxed. And the smell of the sea... He forgot how good it was. It reminded him of his sweet childhood days. Peppino reopens his eyes and looks at the cat, they were smelling his face with curiosity. Pep makes a smile (a genuine one this time) and plays with his little new friend. For the first time in a long while he feels really happy.
We cut back to Gustavo, it's 7 PM, the couple are laughing loudly, disturbing the other people in the pizzeria and making them go away, Gustavo and Brick are clearly annoyed and frustrated with this. Finally the celeries finish their dinner, but they're heading to the exit instead of going to the counter to pay up. Gustavo makes them notice that and the couple answer that they weren't satisfied with the meal. In fact, they wouldn't even give a cent as a tip to a mediocre restaurant. At this point Gustavo lost it. Brick remains behind the counter looking with fear as the midget, with his skin red with rage, gets closer to those excuses of civilized people. "Hey, the world is unfair and you have to get used to it!" says one of the celeries, "Y'know, you're not being very 'celery-stic' now", but before they could finish that sentence Gustavo grabs the couple by the necks with his bare hands.
Before we could know what happens next we cut to Peppino heading back to "Peppino Pizza" with the cat in his arms and commenting that it was a good idea to take a break. The sun is starting to set, but before Pep could reach the handle of the door the pretentious couple head out of the pizzeria, with their faces full of bruises and cracked teeth, walking away, laughing and saying nonsense delirious for the pain. Peppino look at those two weirdos with a confused face, for then noticing Gustavo busy cleaning the floor from the mess the clients left in a angry manner. Peppino asks what happened and Gustavo just replies that he had a really stressful day, with his eyes too focused on the task at hand (like Peppino did at the beginning of the episode). Both remain silent for a moment. Pep puts a hand on Gus's shoulder and asks if he wanted to talk about it. Gustavo looks at his partner, softening his look a little. He nods his head without saying anything.
Peppino and Gustavo sit down in one of the tables, calm music plays in the background. We see the two Italians talking but we don't hear their voices, but through their body language we can understand that they're talking about the crazy day they had, Gus even notices the little friend Pep made at the beach. The camera zooms out as our protagonists keep talking happily while Brick sleeps under the table. Everything slowly fades to black and the episode ends.
(The episode, even though it had some funny moments, wasn't well received when it first aired because of its calm tone instead of its usual fast pacing ones and the lack of other characters in the show like The Noise. But even with that there were fans who did like this episode, some even reported that it helped improve their mental health)
