Last Night's 'Idiotsitter' Took Place in a Non-Binary World

Comedy Central’s new series Idiotsitter is admittedly dumb. Starring Jillian Bell as the immature partier on house arrest and Charlotte Newhouse as her straitlaced and flustered “babysitter,” the series explores the endlessly ridiculous antics of two, well, idiots. Last week’s episode “Fumigation,” saw the girls at the pinnacle of their asininity, drugged up on toxic gases and hallucinating a wild night out at a club. Last night’s episode, “Mother’s Day,” didn’t sacrifice its bonehead voice, but it did address a surprisingly mature issue. In it, Gene met her biological mom — wait for it — a man named Dan.

While Gene and her dad are watching her impossibly dumb stepmom open presents on Mother’s Day, there’s a knock at the door. Gene answers the door to a man and asks, “What?” in her usual brazen manner, and the man, played by Michael Hitchcock, responds, “Hi Gene, I’m your mom.” The rest of the episode finds Gene and her mom doing the typical getting-to-know-each-other activities, like hanging out in Gene’s room, playing video games, and Gene trying to figure out if she inherited anything from Dan — like when her legs fall asleep when she’s on the toilet. Gene makes Dan, who used to be Dianne, a revolting sandwich with Jell-O, and Dan projectile vomits instantly upon eating it, which is obviously the way to Gene’s deranged heart.

“Mother’s Day” is the first episode of Idiotsitter that finds Gene and Billie apart: While Gene is getting to know her mother, Billie is on a blind date with a vile and burly biker dude for whom she unexpectedly falls until he crashes his motorcycle into a fire pit and dies.

The noteworthy part of the episode, though, is how Gene, her father, and her stepmother react to a transgender identity entering their insular, affluent world — or rather, how they barely react. Dan never explicitly states that he is a transgender man, but it’s implied since he used to be named Dianne. At no point in the episode, however, does anyone question or mull over his identity: Gene immediately accepts him as her mother, never asking Dan a single question about the fact that he is a man. Gene’s dad barely addresses his ex-wife’s gender when Gene invites Dan into the house — his angry outburst is merely a reaction to seeing his ex. Even Gene’s stepmom, who seems too stupid to have a thought that lasts for more than five seconds, invites Dan into enjoy a “mom-osa” for Mother’s Day, not thinking twice about his gender. There aren’t many qualities in Idiotsitter’s characters that we should try to emulate, but their apparent blindness to gender is definitely one of them.