Stuart Review: "Spoiler: Dexys Midnight Runners Get a Royalty Payment"

It seems like yesterday that this wildly insane show first premiered on HBO Max after so much anticipation, but that time was about a month and a half ago, and the first season is closing in on the home stretch. The previous episode saw the group in a universe that was very close to their own, with one of the number of exceptions being that they descend from cows. Stuart and Denise seemed to be very content with staying in that universe, while Bert and Kripke were handed the device to use on their own.

Stuart is later told that he's the only one who can save the universe, and because of this, he's the only one who can operate the device. He still wanted out, but finally decided to get back in the game, with Denise along for the ride. The result sees the quartet back together, and they land in another universe that is similar to their own, except in this one, they can read minds.

As for this episode, it begins with some fun with mind reading. All of this reminds Bert of a movie (it just had to be What Women Want), Kripke has erotic thoughts about Rob Lowe while also belittling Stuart, and Denise fantasizes about having a family with Stuart. Despite the distractions, Stuart figures out the problem: the device was never completed. It needs a steering wheel; not a literal one, but a control mechanism that will allow them to get back to the exact time and place before everything went south.

They need a satellite controller, and it's off to Caltech's engineering department. We see Ramona Nowitzki at her usual place, and they ask for Howard Wolowitz. One problem: Ramona's never heard of him. Apparently, he doesn't exist in that universe. That could be code for either "We couldn't get Simon Helberg to appear," or "Wait until the season finale for Helberg (and possibly Galecki and maybe Parsons)."

But all is not lost:

Bert manages to locate Bernadette, and in this universe, she's a dance instructor. Somehow, she's more evil in this than she was as a demon. The quartet visits her at her studio, and as we learn, not only does Bernadette not know the group, but she has also never heard of Howard (who Bernadette is married to in the prime universe). As her backstory in this reveals, Bernadette was forced into pageants by her alcoholic mother, and all that did was lead her to a career of teaching little girls to dance.

So with Howard not existing in that universe, Stuart comes up with a Plan B: break into the engineering department and steal the components, though Stuart has A LOT of doubts. They have to find a way to shield their thoughts, and after a lot of well-heard thought, they have the perfect cover: the hit song Come on Eileen (hence the title). After internally singing DMR's classic hit, and later singing The Girl From Ipanema, the gang enters the lab where they find...

Themselves. God, I love this show!

What follows the main pair chasing their lab coat wearing doppelgangers through a season's worth of universes: the apocalyptic one, the AI-controlled one, the magic one (complete with a tied up Neil DeGrasse Tyson), the Eden-esque one (where the natives are still fighting each other), until finally confronting each other in the cow universe from the previous episode. Lab Coat Stuart said that Prime Stuart told him he's the only one who could save the universe, which was the same thing that Main Stuart was told. Oh boy. We later see a military version of the group take the device from the lab coat group, after which the main group tracked them to a war-torn universe. The main group leaves and lands in another universe--where they are half-horses. WOW!

"Spoiler: Dexys Midnight Runners Get a Royalty Payment," episode 1.07 of Stuart Fails to Save the Universe, hit HBO Max on September 3, 2026. Minus the opening ad for an HBO Max program, and the recap, this episode was about 16 minutes long--clearly the shortest of the series. Yet so much happened in that little time. Stuart came into his own as the leader of this group. They went through nearly a season's worth of universes (the one from Episode 4 wasn't shown), and we saw three sets of doppelgangers--all in barely over a quarter of an hour! It's quite a stand out episode!

In addition, it was nice to see Ramona and Bernadette in this one, with Riki Lindhome and Melissa Rauch each making their second appearances on the series in their respective roles. We first saw Ramona in the second episode with the AI-controlled universe, while Bernadette first appeared in the following episode as an evil demon in the magic universe. But let's focus on the fact that Prime Stuart's been making promises to more than one version of Stuart. Main Stuart's been led to believe that he's literally the only one who can save the universe, but lo and behold, he's not. There's something rotten in the multiverse.

I truly think that the three remaining episodes of the season will answer a lot of questions bit-by-bit, namely who's really pulling the strings in all of this! The road to the season finale is here, and it will definitely be a bumpy ride for sure!