[7.0/10] You just can’t keep Tony Hale down. This episode runs into some of the same “lurching from plot point to plot point” pacing of the rest of the season, but Hale is such a great comic performer that it almost doesn’t matter. He’s the kind of comedian who can make a creepy Psycho-esque interlude with a pillow version of his mom as hilarious as ridiculous footage of him boogieing down to a woodblock.
I enjoy the throughline of him straining to finally break free of Lucille’s hold over him, while trying to make other women take on a maternal role in his life. It’s true to the character and leads to amusing situations like Buster confusing pillow talk for food talk and Ophelia Love confusing Buster trying to do “mom stuff” for him flirting. The running gags about “blind siding” and the usual “I’m a monster bits” are well done. And I especially enjoyed the ridiculousness of the new giant hand.
There isn’t really much of a story here. Like most of the season, there’s some amusing connections to other bits, but not much in the way of narrative momentum. Still, Buster’s antics like face-planting in pies or using the wrong hand for various tasks leads to lots of laughs from Tony Hale’s excellent skills as a physical comedian, so I’m hard-pressed to look askance at any of this.
On the whole, “Off the Hook” is as clumped together an episode as anything else from season 4, but the superb actor at the center elevates the material.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParent2021-06-16T01:57:23Z
[7.0/10] You just can’t keep Tony Hale down. This episode runs into some of the same “lurching from plot point to plot point” pacing of the rest of the season, but Hale is such a great comic performer that it almost doesn’t matter. He’s the kind of comedian who can make a creepy Psycho-esque interlude with a pillow version of his mom as hilarious as ridiculous footage of him boogieing down to a woodblock.
I enjoy the throughline of him straining to finally break free of Lucille’s hold over him, while trying to make other women take on a maternal role in his life. It’s true to the character and leads to amusing situations like Buster confusing pillow talk for food talk and Ophelia Love confusing Buster trying to do “mom stuff” for him flirting. The running gags about “blind siding” and the usual “I’m a monster bits” are well done. And I especially enjoyed the ridiculousness of the new giant hand.
There isn’t really much of a story here. Like most of the season, there’s some amusing connections to other bits, but not much in the way of narrative momentum. Still, Buster’s antics like face-planting in pies or using the wrong hand for various tasks leads to lots of laughs from Tony Hale’s excellent skills as a physical comedian, so I’m hard-pressed to look askance at any of this.
On the whole, “Off the Hook” is as clumped together an episode as anything else from season 4, but the superb actor at the center elevates the material.