2x08 Milk Money

[7.7/10] Easily the best episode of the season, and definitely the funniest. Everything here clicked for me.

For starters, I loved the absurdity of the “unpasteurized milk” storyline. THere’s just something so ridiculous and entertaining about everyone in town treating raw milk like it’s some highly illegal controlled substance, speaking of it in hushed tones and panicking it accordingly. There’s also some quality humor to the Jonny/Alexis pairing. Alexis mistaking Johnny’s order for “twelve pints of milk” for “twelve things of milk” is reminiscent of Lucille Ball ordering a “side of beef”. Johnny’s incredulous reaction and Alexis’s refusal to admit that she’d done anything wrong was the comic gift that keeps on giving.

But the coup de grace of the episode was the police checkpoint. The trio of Alexis, Johnny, and Roland trying to play it cool in front of the cops was a great comic scene. From the fake names to the absurd “we’re dairy farmers” lie to the other humorous exaggerations, the laughs were frequent and big.

I also enjoyed the election subplots as well. There’s good character-based comedy in Moira trying to be more approachable a la Jocelyn and Jocelyn trying to look more modern and glamorous like Moira. Moira trying to get to know the Jazzagals and Jocelyn trying to update her look to match the other gives each some strong motivations.

Plus I got a big kick out of the David-focused offshoot of that. David being torn between his loyalty to his mom and his desire to give people good fashion advice at the Blouse Barn is an amusing dilemma. His “wink wink” help to skirt around that moral queasiness is funny in and of itself. And Moira’s accusations afterward and laments about the knife “plunged into her back” were a great bit of comic escalation.

Overall, this was a real keeper, with some great laughs and good character work. The only thing I didn’t really enjoy is the prospect of the show restarting more relationship drama with Alexis and Ted.