“But tomorrow is going be just like today. And I know that because today, is just like yesterday. Sometimes it’s just kind of hard to find those moments of beauty.”
Whether you have worked specifically in retail or at another job you did not like, you have felt every word that comes out of Amy Sosa’s mouth in Superstore’s Pilot episode. Or, sometimes, that’s just life—today feels like yesterday and tomorrow is likely to feel like today. Moments of beauty are often rare, but what is even more rare is people caring enough about us to make an ordinary day into something special.
Comedy relationships are fascinating because it’s never instantaneous like this—at least not for me. All my favorites have taken multiple episodes, in some cases seasons to grow on me, but with Jonah and Amy, in an unsurprising turn of events, all it took was a moment of beauty. All it took was one person really and truly seeing inside another’s sadness and doing something about it.
The reality of any situation is that it does not take a lot to bring joy into someone’s life. No one ever needs big and bold and grand, only a moment. And sometimes, a moment is glow in the dark stars on the roof of a store when it is least expected. There is so much innocence in this moment and that is probably what does the trick in making it so riveting. While Jonah clearly has a crush on Amy, he does not necessarily do this to get her to like him as a schoolboy crush would, but he does it because this is something that he can instantly tell a person like Amy deserves.
It is a moment of expression.
It is a moment of vulnerability.
Amy’s moment of vulnerability with him is a rare one for her—we learn throughout the episodes just how much she has been through and how infrequently she vocalizes it, but in the very moment where she tells him about the one long day, she does not do it for sympathy, but she does it to get it out. She says it out loud because something about Jonah’s persistence makes it easier for her to have a moment of truth.
And that is what Jonah’s moment of beauty comes down to—an expression of vulnerability. It comes down a man standing in front of a woman and doing something nice for her just because he realized that no one in this store (and likely in her life) has. It is a man standing in front of a woman stating that just because he cannot put actual stars in the sky, he can align the roof of a store with them. It is a man hoping his gesture glows in the dark and that from this moment on, Amy expects moments of beauty in the ordinary life she has been used to.
Again, I do not necessarily think Jonah expected anything more out of the moment than to make sure Amy expects more out of him and more out of life. This was not a grand gesture to impress her, it was a gesture to prove that moments of beauty can be found where people do their best to help other people. It was a small, vulnerable gesture that appears grand and one that paved the road to their relationship beautifully. (One we’re hoping is fixed in the finale!)
Moments of beauty can be seen in someone picking up someone else coffee on their way to work. It is not grand because it is meant to be, but it is grand to showcase that trying our hardest to make people happy matters. Because it does. These are the type of moments that stay with people through everything. These are the type of moments that leave a lasting impression on characters and on fans.
The little things equate to big things. The stars inside the store matter just as much as the stars in the sky.
These are the kind of moments that make comedies so special in how they handle romance because they go out of their own to show the little details that matter in grand ways because there is beauty in the simplicity of it all. It does not take much. It just takes effort. It just takes one person caring enough about another and trying.
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