Quail Eggs
Episode 7 of Little America begins with Faraz asking about quail eggs, giving a sample to various restaurants before heading off to his job as a parking lot attendant. Determined to turn his trend into money, he sets his sights on Brooklyn while learning his Son is moving out to live with his friends. It turns out Faraz has a rodent infestation back home but the landlord refuses to cough up the money for an exterminator. Faraz promises his wife Yasmin the moon before discussing music with his son’s band. Afterward, Faraz starts looking at different properties before putting an offer in and deciding to build a house from scratch. At the site, he envisions the house of his dreams but first thing’s first – clearing the giant mounds of rock in the way. Working until late at night, his wife Yasmin encourages him to come home but he single-mindedly focuses on the project at hand. While his son’s performance gets underway, Faraz loses sight of the time and misses the chance to see his son on the drums, despite his promise. As Faraz heads home he laments his situation and worries about losing his son Behrad. Yasmin encourages him to focus on his son instead of the dream house and after some contemplation, Faraz tries to blow the rock up but it doesn’t work. as Yasmin and Behran sit together at home, we see Faraz trying his best to destroy the rock with a pickaxe, having given up on the project and wallowing in self-pity. Meanwhile, Behran heads in to the parking lot and is handed a file from Faraz’s co-worker, one full of pictures of his dream house for them. Smiling, Behran heads home and greets Faraz, telling him he’s chipped away a square foot of the rock for him. As the episode reaches its conclusion, Behran tells his Father he’s going to rent a room at his friend Jason’s but that doesn’t waver his enthusiasm. Three months later we see Behran has made a hit on the radio while Faraz continues to chip away at the stone, which has reduced down to a much more manageable chunk. After the episode we see Faraz is still trying to build his dream house but on a different property this time. While the episode itself plays out perfectly fine in its own way, it is overshadowed somewhat from the previous episode which tackled the same subject with more finesse and artistry. With the main theme of kids moving away and parents struggling to keep going in the face of this, The Rock combines this message with the symbolic references of chipping away at an impossible obstacle. It’s certainly not a bad episode but compared to some of the others in this anthology, it certainly ranks among one of the weaker entries.
