AMERICAN AUTO Post-Mortem: Justin Spitzer on Payne Motors’ Big Gamble

[Warning: This post contains spoilers for the Tuesday, February 21 episode of AMERICAN AUTO, “Going Green.”]

The Payne Motors team may have gotten a little bit duped on the Tuesday, February 21 episode of AMERICAN AUTO.

While trying to find green investment options, Wesley (Jon Barinholtz) recommended his friend’s company, Sandbox. Their boss, Chase (Ben Feldman) pitched Payne Motors on a sand-based battery. (A “sandtery,” if you will.)

With no working demo and a questionable presentation, Katherine (Ana Gasteyer) laughed off the investment possibility, telling Chase it was ridiculous. (She did offer $50,000 as a kind gesture, but Chase was not impressed.)

The team left Sandbox annoyed at wasting their time—until they heard a rumor that Tesla might be interested in investing. That made them pause and had the execs second-guess their dismissal of the company. Their frantic calls to rival companies led to a rush of interest in Sandbox.

Katherine begged Chase for another chance, but he dismissed her, until Wesley brought it home: He promised that Katherine—and Payne—would be loyal; they’d be the team you want on your side. Ultimately, Payne Motors got its way and invested $300 million for a 5 percent stake in the company.

Back on the company plane, Katherine and company initially toasted their success—including the stock prices for Payne rising…until reality set in that there was no there-there. “Hey guys—what did we just buy?” Katherine asked, before cursing.

And while this could blow up in their faces, this isn’t something the show will come back to this season. “Long-term, it would be revisited in the future,” AMERICAN AUTO boss Justin Spitzer tells Give Me My Remote. “We had plans to revisit it even in this season, [but] it didn’t work out, so we don’t really deal with it.”

However, if the show gets renewed, “in a theoretical season 3 or 4, it would come back,” he says. “Yes, 300 million [dollars] is not everything to a company this big, but that’s also not nothing.”

AMERICAN AUTO, Tuesdays, 8:30/7:30c, NBC

RELATED:

• Justin Spitzer Previews Ben Feldman’s SUPERSTORE Reunion on AMERICAN AUTO
• AMERICAN AUTO: What You Need to Know About the Season Premiere

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