McAvoy: 'Matt LeBlanc' Has Much To Teach Us

In my last dispatch, I bemoaned Showtime's Web Therapy and the way its brittle lead, played by Lisa Kudrow, has had the effect of tarnishing my memories of the delightful bimbo she played for many years on the situation comedy Friends. But evidently I can't stay mad at Showtime half-hour series for long, as the latest episode of Episodes found Kudrow's fellow Friends alumnus Matt LeBlanc teaching us a lesson about power that I hope everyone who knows me, and especially everyone who works for or with (mostly for) me, takes to heart.

As you will recall, in the Season 1 finale, Matt (LeBlanc) fell into bed with Beverly (Tamsin Greig), one of the creators of his show-within-a-show, Pucks!, as well as a longtime antagonist. Beverly happens to be married to Sean (Stephen Mangan), who co-created the series and still runs it with her. Sean found out, and is heartbroken; Sean and Beverly have separated, but still see each other all the time because they continue to work on the show with Matt, the third point in the unfortunate triangle. In this latest episode, Matt has thought of a way to smooth things over, and bought Sean and Beverly new cars -- not just cars, actually; they're convertibles. And thus, I think, we may have seen the healing begin.

Let me state for the record that I do not in any way condone infidelity in romantic relationships -- or, indeed, in any relationships; loyalty is a virtue I hold very, very dear. It's particularly disappointing when a woman cuckolds a man; knowing, as I think we all do, that it is not in woman's essential nature to be true to her beloved even if he has helped her to get very far in her career, and that she will be distracted by a shiny bauble should she find one in her path, doesn't make that sort of behavior forgivable and for me to forgive such a transgression would...well, would give me another opportunity to be not just the bigger man but the biggest man in my professional and personal orbits.

My point is that although what Beverly did is the worst, what Matt did is bad as well. So as not just the protagonist but the hero of Episodes -- the great man lending his extraordinary talents and gifts to Pucks!, thus elevating material that even those writing it know is beneath everyone's dignity -- it falls to him to mend the rift. And in my opinion, for what it's worth (a lot, but never mind that), is that in purchasing fine automobiles for his colleagues -- both the one he wronged and the one to whom he gave the gift of his considerable manhood -- Matt is humbling himself in the most appropriate way he can: penalizing himself financially for the benefit of others. (That the cars he chooses fall in the mid-range "luxury" category is fitting, given the events that transpired; as he tells Sean, he's not about to buy a Bentley: "It's not like I fucking killed your wife!" Quite right!)

In our Great Recessionary, anti-corporate times, a lot of abuse is flung at powerful men for the damage -- real and illusory -- that they do to society; believe me, no one knows this better than I, the most powerful man in most rooms I enter. But though it may seem as though my powerful brethren and I get away with a lot, the truth is that most of us live by the idea of noblesse oblige, and we try to make amends, where possible, if we remember, in ways that the less-powerful around us will appreciate. That's the lesson of this latest installment of Episodes: if you have sex with a friend's wife, you make a gesture of apology, and that gesture should have speakers in the headrest. If he doesn't accept that gesture in the spirit with which you offer it, well, you did everything you could, and maybe his friendship is worthless to you. But in my experience, most people will, like Sean, take the car.

Remember, Matt is not just providing an excellent example for appropriate post-extramarital fling etiquette with regard to the cuckold: he actually sets a new, very high standard by giving a car to Beverly as well, and he didn't even do anything that ran counter to her interests or desires. Would I buy her a car too, were I Matt? Probably not. But I can't begrudge him doing it. Let her have the pleasure of driving it until, inevitably, she drives it into the back of a moving van at 65 mph on the 101 because she's reapplying her lip gloss.

Should happen inside of a week.