1x02 The Drip

[7.3/10] I definitely enjoyed this one better than the pilot. There was a little less setup and a little more getting into it, which I appreciated.

I got a kick out of Johnny and Moira having dinner with Roland and his wife, Jocelyn in order to get Roland to sign-off on the Roses trying to sell the town. Having the two well-heeled (or at least formerly well-heeled) sophisticates have to break bread with a couple of the rough hew locals is a good setup for comedy, and it paid off nicely. I still find Rolnad kind of annoying, but I know that’s partly by design.

The various unique touches of Roland and Jocelyn’s home and cuisine provide fodder for a lot of good reaction shows for Catherine O’Hara and Eugene Levy. At the same time, I like the dynamic of Jonny trying to play nice because he knows he needs the signature, whereas Moira just wants to get this stupid thing over with and doens’t understand why it hasn’t been done yet. THat makes for some fun conflict. I also like the hint that Moira used to be on some sort of Dynasty type show, which is an interesting wrinkle.

The kids hanging out at a tailgate is a good beat too. Stevie continues to have a sarcastic wit that I appreciate, and while I can’t imagine that she would actually help these rude people but for the fact that it’s a sitcom and so she has to, I like her rattitude. Alexis wandering around the tailgate like it’s a fancy club is a solid laugh, and the undercurrent that David has no friends, which this town might help him with, is a good one. Both stories in this episode are about the Roses having to deal with local shindigs that are very different from the ones they’re used to, and both work.

Overall, this is definitely a boost from where the show started, and hopefully indicative of better things to come (unlike that drip).