Spoilers below for the latest episode of Mom, so be warned!
Though Anna Faris may have exited Mom in an untimely manner ahead of Season 8, but the CBS sitcom's creative team have still found offbeat ways to [work her character Christy into storylines]((Which easily inspires questions about why nobody ever noticed that billboad before, but ), even if it's just through one-and-done references. In the most recent episode, "Tiny Dancer and an Impromptu Picnic," Allison Janney's Bonnie stumbled across the less-mentioned stripper chapter from Christy's past, which allowed for a fun and silly appearance from Better Call Saul and Nobody star Bob Odenkirk.
William Fichtner's Adam made a huge sacrifice in the early part of the episode, choosing to opt out of Bonnie's very tempting sexy picnic for the express purposes of ruining her day. Though not out of pure malice, at least. Rather, he wanted to give her a heads up that a massive image of Christy's not-exactly-covered-up body was being used on a promotional billboard for the strip club Mr. Naughties. To be expected, Bonnie wanted nothing more than to get that giant ad taken down, despite the fact that it had already drawing in horny customers for 20+ years. Or perhaps because of that.
After having some trouble getting in touch with any management figures at Mr. Naughties, Bonnie made a personal trip down there, which is where she met Bob Odenkirk's Hank, the current building manager who shared that he used to be a DJ at the club back when Christy was working there. It was quite the unexpected cameo from Odenkirk, whose vengeance-fueled action flick Nobody has been a box office winner, although he was playing the kind of sleazebag that he's often portrayed in his career. Hank is like what Jimmy McGill might have become if Rhea Seehorn's Kim wasn't there as a saving grace.
For the all too brief scene, Mom's set decorators and prop-masters did a splendid job short-handing the kind of person that Bob Odenkirk's Hank was. He was smoking while eating what looked like an egg dinner at his desk – mmm, strip club eggs – and had a bottle of Pepto Bismol directly in front of him on the trash-filled desk. Not to mention a chrome skull at arm's length. Plus, he's clearly a smart dude, based on his suggestion to use an Elton John classic as Christy's song on stage.
I'm the one who told her she should work to 'Tiny Dancer.' Get it? Because she's very small.
Turns out Hank is also smart/shrewd enough to recognize when something is working, and he knows that Christy's NSFW billboard – which is never actually shown to viewers in its full glory – has been drawing in customers for a long time. And you can tell how easily Hank is able to compartmentalize "business" issues from "personal" issues by the way he kept the billboard up all this time despite being keenly aware that Christy was not cut out for the strip club life. In his words:
So, Christy's still alive, huh? Wow, that's great. You know, I knew her heart wasn't in the pole. It's not for everyone.
Hell, Hank instinctively thought it likely that Christy might have been dead, which is another sign of just how highly he values Mr. Naughties' employees at any point during his career there. Thankfully, Anna Faris' character is on a much more promising trajectory than Bob Odenkirk's Hank, and Bonnie & the Ladies took it upon themselves to make sure that the Mr. Naughties billboard didn't any a negative impact on Christy's Georgetown education. Namely, they all climbed up and painted over it, though audiences sadly didn't get to see Hank's fury over that legitimately criminal development.
In the end, one has to wonder how in the hell that billboard was up for more than two decades without Bonnie or anyone else in her inner circle having seen it. It seems like even Christy herself would have been aware of it, if not from seeing it in person, then from friends and/or strangers bringing it up. Though I suppose someone very well could have mentioned it to her during her drinking days and she might not have remembered. Now we can all sit back an wallow in paranoia that our half-naked bodies are on billboards somewhere out there in the world.
Fans shouldn't expect Bob Odenkirk's Hank to get a spinoff like Breaking Bad's Saul Goodman did, but everyone should expect for Mom to deliver its final six episodes on Thursday nights on CBS at 9:00 p.m. ET.
