BLOCKBUSTER follows Timmy, a video store manager, striving to keep his video store up and running in a competitive and technologically driven world.
Starring Randall Park and Melissa Fumero, BLOCKBUSTER is a workplace comedy series written by Vanessa Ramos. The series also features J.B.Smoove, Kamaia Fairburn, Leonard Robinson, Keegan Connor Tracy, Olga Merediz, Tyler Alvarez and Madeleine Arthur.
BLOCKBUSTER Story Summary
Timmy (Randall Park) works as a manager at Blockbuster, a video store where the other employees at the store – Eliza (Melissa Fumero), Hanna, Carlos, Connie, and Kayla have a passion for movies like Timmy. Eliza and Timmy are childhood friends who share a good rapport. Eliza has recently gone through a breakup with her husband Aaron whereas Timmy is divorced.
Timmy recommends ‘Under the Tuscan Sun’ for a customer who’s looking for a movie to help him move on from a breakup. Timmy believes that the algorithm in OTTs can’t beat his personalized recommendations.
Timmy gets a piece of the unfortunate news that all the other Blockbuster franchises have closed and his store is the only one that’s remaining. When he confides in Eliza his fears about the future of the store, she suggests throwing a party to highlight the importance of human connection over algorithms.
While planning further for the party with Percy (J.B. Smoove), his childhood best friend, Timmy unintentionally reveals to Percy about Eliza’s breakup which upsets her because she had told him to keep it a secret. Disappointed by Timmy’s revelation, Eliza leaves.
When Timmy, Carlos, and Percy go to a bar, Carlos suggests that his connection with Eliza is worth pursuing, whereas Percy believes that it’s a bad idea to date a coworker.
When an inflatable gorilla balloon which Percy brings to the party, catches fire accidentally, Carlos and Kayla make a video and upload it on the internet. The video reaches a reporter who arrives at the store in order to interview Timmy.
Eliza comforts an upset Timmy and inspires him to give a speech to the local community to support the store. Despite the goof-ups, the party turns out to be a success and the store gets new memberships.
Timmy and Eliza apologize to each other and clear their previous misunderstanding. Just when Timmy wants to reveal his feelings for her, Eliza’s ex comes to pick her up. She wants to give him another chance for the sake of their daughter, leaving Timmy confused.
Timmy takes up the responsibility of the store but he has to fire one of the employees to keep the business running. Unable to make a decision about who he should fire, Timmy discusses with Percy about interviewing the employees on the basis of who needs the job more. After the interviews, Timmy wants to fire Kayla because she is least interested in the job, but Percy is against it as she’s his daughter.
Percy tells Timmy that he wanted him to hire Kayla so as to spend quality time with her. Timmy heaves a sigh of relief as he doesn’t have to fire any of his employees because Percy allows time to pay for the store rent.
When sirens go off in the parking lot, Eliza, Timmy, and Percy see two teenage boys there. They turn out to be Evan and Trevin, the twin grandsons of Carol, a small business owner next door.
Percy and Timmy discuss how difficult it gets for Timmy to hide his feelings for Eliza and keep things casual.
Eliza, frustrated with the twins’ pranks, decides to teach them a lesson. When Eliza and Percy spend time together for planning the pranks against the twins, Percy reveals to Eliza that he misses spending time with Timmy because he has got busy with the store.
While attempting to teach the twins a lesson, Timmy falls off the skylight into Carol’s store. After the commotion, Eliza has a conversation with Carol who then decides to send the boys to reform school for the summer bringing the prank to an end.
Timmy apologizes to Percy for not being able to spend time with him and they decide to go to a bar. Their reconciliation doesn’t last long because Timmy discovers an eviction notice from Percy in the mailbox.
The next day, Timmy walks into the store to the cheers of his employees as he got nominated for Itsy Bizzie, Iron Creek Small Business Awards. He doesn’t take the nomination too seriously as his store doesn’t make good business.
In spite of Percy’s attempts at reconciliation with Timmy, the latter has trust issues with Percy. But he promises he will pay Percy the rent soon, hoping he might win the Itsy Bizzie. Eliza pushes Timmy to try and win the award as they could use the money to evade eviction.
The employees get to know that the Chamber of Commerce will be interviewing Timmy and inspecting the store. Timmy goes through a makeover to present himself for the interview against Eliza’s suggestions.
While the Chamber of Commerce interviews Timmy, a fire breaks out in the store accidentally because of candle decorations arranged by Timmy upon Connie’s suggestions.
Timmy feels bad for losing control over himself and apologizes to Eliza for not listening to her advice. When they both decide to go out, Eliza gets a call from Aaron and the plan gets cancelled. With nowhere to go, Timmy reconciles with Percy saying he needs his best friend to beat his loneliness.
Timmy decides to move on from Eliza and puts himself out in the dating game with the help of Kayla and Percy. Kayla introduces him to the latest dating apps and uploads his profile. After a little prodding from Percy and Kayla, he agrees to go on a date with Rene, his hairstylist.
As Percy wants to spend more time with Timmy, he makes Kayla say yes to all the dates that Timmy found online and meet him the very same night at the same place where Timmy is already on a date with Rene. His date with Rene turns awkward when all those girls turn up at the same time.
When Timmy notices Percy and Kayla in the same place, he clears up the confusion by telling the girls that this was done by his friends. Eliza sees that Timmy is back into dating and leaves the place.
The next day, the employees at Blockbuster decide to work on the inventories in order to make the arrangement of the videos easier by staying the night at the store. But Timmy has to get back to his parents for an ‘emergency’ at the old age home. Eliza warns him against going there because of the manipulative nature of his parents but he decides to go anyway.
Timmy finally sets much-needed boundaries with his parents and tells them not to drag him into their fights and only call him in case of an emergency. He rushes back to Blockbuster and tells everyone to go home and that he will finish the inventory. He also apologizes to Eliza and thanks her for her support.
Carlos, Connie, and Hannah notice that Percy takes advantage of Timmy by using the resources of the store for his personal reasons and they bring it to Timmy’s notice. Timmy finally puts his foot down and tells Percy to respect his boundaries and Percy agrees.
Blockbuster Ending Explained
Later in the day, Blockbuster starts swarming with people who have come there to use the bathroom as the one at the mall is closed. Realizing that this was done by Percy, Timmy loses his cool.
While he tells the people to not use the bathroom at Blockbuster, he meets Lena who had come there especially as she likes the store. When Timmy goes to clear the misunderstanding at the store with Lena, he asks her out on a date and she accepts.
When Eliza sees the girl that Aaron cheated her with, at the store, she spirals because of her strained relationship with Aaron. Timmy comes up with a plan to cheer her up and calls it a ‘special guy day’, something that his mother came up with in Timmy’s childhood to make him feel special. They spend quality time together making Eliza feel better.
Realizing that she needs to take steps to progress in her life, Eliza prepares herself for a promising new job. Though he can’t imagine Blockbuster without Eliza, Timmy encourages her to move on to a better opportunity.
Timmy gets a call from Eliza’s new employer and he says the best things about her. Eliza goes to the new company for the interview but she comes back and tells Timmy that she hasn’t taken the job because she doesn’t want to leave Blockbuster.
Timmy wants Eliza to take the new job; so he goes to her new company, ‘Around the Call Car Rental’, and finds out from Andrea, an employee there, that Eliza had begged for the job but she didn’t get it. He stops himself from confronting her in front of other employees and instead offers to pay her more to keep her.
Blockbuster organizes a Christmas event and all the employees are overjoyed because it’s sold off. They hire Stevie to be Santa but his drunken behaviour drives the customers away and the event gets cancelled.
Upset with how things turned out, Timmy seeks solace in Lena, and they hang out at the bar where Lena acknowledges him as her boyfriend. Eliza worries about Timmy and wants to cheer him up so ends up at the bar. But when she sees Timmy with Lena, she gets upset and leaves.
The solar flare results in a brief internet shutdown that results in the customers swarming into Blockbuster to rent out movies and the business at the store booms.
Do Eliza And Timmy End Up Together?
Aaron re-proposes to Eliza, but she rejects him saying that they can’t keep their relationship going as her daughter is an adult now. Meanwhile, Timmy calls Lena “Eliza” by mistake and an upset Lena walks out.
Eliza realizes she has feelings for Timmy and wants to confess the same to him but a fight breaks out at the store which stops her from confessing. Percy and Stevie fight because of a misunderstanding and some people at the store start robbing the store in the aftermath of the confusion created by the solar flare.
Upset at what happened at the store, Timmy tells Eliza that he can’t keep holding on to the dream of keeping the store running anymore. In the end, the future of both Eliza and Timmy’s relationship as well as the store hangs by a thread.
BLOCKBUSTER is now streaming on Netflix.
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