[8.5/10] In some ways the Obama birther nonsense feels like it was a million years ago, and in others, it feels like it was just yesterday. P&R folds that topic, like it does so many current events, into its own little world in a natural way. From complaints about "gotcha" journalism, to calls for long form birth certificates, to the delightfully specific reveal that Leslie was born in Eagleton, the episode does great at commenting on the absurdity of such complaints in a funny, and ultimately inspiring sort of way. The "it's not where you're born, it's where you're from" commentary isn't exactly funny, but using Leslie's clear and utter devotion to the City of Pawnee as a way to take the air out of the whole birther idea works like gangbusters.
It's also superb for the comedy side. Leslie's disgust (and near-vomiting) after having to even say the words Eagleton is great. Chris being shocked when his attractiveness doesn't get him a special exception at the Eagleton records office is a nicely played moment from Rob Lowe, and Andy leaping over the counter is an excellent bit of physical comedy. Even the recurring gag about racoons infesting Pawnee is a nice touch.
The B-story with Tom, Ben, and Joan was a little broader. I do like the idea of Tom having to face the music after flirting with Joan for so long, and Mo Collins is a pro, but it got a bit over the top at points. Still, Ben's sarcastic commentary ("Is she going to powder her vagina?" "That was as long as it was loud") saved any of the more ridiculous parts.
And the C-story with Ann trying to have a 5-minute conversation with Ron and April was well-conceived as well. Putting Ann on an island in those talking heads can be a gamble because she works better when playing off of someone, and this was no exception, but the well-edited sequences of her trying to get some sort meaningful response from the two unenthusiastic acquaintances landed very nicely. The medical malady story as the clincher was great too. And the capper, with Ron and April using wrong names for people, worked superbly as well.
Overall, a very strong episode that brings the laughs and packs a little emotional punch in the process.
[7.6/10] I go back and forth on the Ben-Leslie stuff here. On the one hand, the first half of it is near-perfect. The pair of them having to take a trip together, whilst trying to avoid one another so as to avoid temptation, is a classic setup that leads to a lot of great things. First and foremost, Leslie’s efforts to project unsexiness and platonic conversation are pretty great, from the banjo music to conversations about Johns Hopkins dorms to inviting random photographers to play third wheel.
It also leads to Ben talking about how great Pawnee is to the bigwigs in Indiana, which is possibly the sexiest and most endearing thing a man can do in Leslie’s book. The episode plays her conflictedness well, between her harried excuse to call Ann (whose half-hearted admonitions and joy when they’re ignored are superb), her clear affection for Ben, and her fear of losing a job that she cares about. It’s all very well done, and Amy Poehler and Adam Scott do great work at showing the chemistry between their characters.
Then Chris shows up and it turns into a wacky sitcom game of three’s company. It’s not my favorite use of Chris, as his blithe but pestersome qualities get to be too much here, and the entire bit is a little hackneyed. Still, that frustration and separation heightens the catharsis when Ben finally kisses Leslie, Leslie kisses Ben, and then there’s the perfect reaction to it – “Uh oh.” So well done, and such a great payoff to a season of teasing.
The B-story of April and Andy’s mini-fight from Tom’s proto-version of “Know Ya Boo” is nice enough. Tom’s entrepreneurial spirit and showboating come into play well, and Donna and Jerry doing surprisingly well at the Newlywed Show-esque game is a cute gag. The conflict between the actual newlyweds, however, is a bit easy, with the Mouserat vs. Neutral Milk Hotel argument being one of the sillier bits. Still, April going so far as to seek help from Ann, and rectifying things by covering a Mouserat song adds a nice emotional punch to the finish. And the whole thing centers around Andy and his devotion to his band, which is another nice way the show roots these things in character.
But speaking of which, the best thing in this episode is the part where Ron instructs a little girl about his libertarianism. It’s hard to articulate why this bit is so hilarious and adorable, but something about seeing the middle-aged, solitary grump finding a kindred spirit for his political views in an elementary schooler is utterly delightful. His lessons (particularly the lunch-eating) is great, and the fact that the little girl’s mom makes him recant, but that he wants an autographed copy of her essay anyway is the perfect finish.
Overall, it’s an episode that serves as the culmination of a lot of Leslie-Ben stuff, but stumbles a bit along the way to the finish line, with a nice enough April-Andy story and an all-time great Ron story in support.
We live in a time where seemingly everyone is fixated on past traumas, both real and/or imagined, yet, what they fail to realize is, that focusing on what has past rather than forgiving and forgetting, that is, moving forward, is what ACTUALLY dooms one to repetition. "A righteous man falls down 7 times, yet, he still gets up, but the wicked stumble in bad times".... Proverbs 24:16
Rather than having to correct some wrong, this season appears to have Nadia and Alan looking at different aspects of their lives through the lens of their own psyche's, to see that spending too much time focused on the "what if's" and the "what could be's, rather than rolling with the punches and realizing that sometimes, it simply really "is what it is", and "whatever will be will be".
Nadia, especially, fought hard to change things for the better by undoing a selfish act that changed her families fortunes, yet, once again found herself in a ...."bioaquadooloop", back where she started, until she realized that all the bs she went through was necessary to make her (and by extension those in her sphere) who she is in the present, just as the things her mother did affected who HER mother was, and so on back through time.
The wise man Solomon said: “I returned to see under the sun that the swift do not have the race, nor the mighty ones the battle, nor do the wise also have the food, nor do the understanding ones also have the riches, nor do even those having knowledge have the favor; because time and unforeseen occurrence befall them all.” (Ecclesiastes 9:11) ...
This is the journey of self discovery that Nadia and to a lesser extent Alan had to go through this season. We ALL have moments in time where we feel a "do over" would be welcome, but, we often fail to consider the "butterfly effect" that may have on everyone and everything else.
...As Satchel page famously said...,"Don't look back, cuz there might be something gaining on you"...
And now, a selection from the choir......
[9.2/10] One of the problems I often have with The Original Series is tone. It’s the sort of show that will play some confrontation for high drama, only to immediately jump to something campy. Or, as in “The Changeling,” it’ll present a tense, lethal standoff with a seemingly unbeatable foe, only to have Kirk close the episode by making some lame joke that everybody laughs at right before he presumably has to go notified the families of his dead crewmen. There’s nothing wrong with blending tones in principle, but it can be tricky, and the sort of whiplash it creates has hurt many a Star Trek episode.
But “I, Mudd”, by contrast, knows exactly what tone it wants to have -- absurd delight -- and it makes the most of that animating spirit. While I’m not always on the same wavelength of this show when it comes to comedy, the humorous bent of this episode worked on me like gangbusters. I have seen cleverer Star Trek episodes; I have seen deeper Star Trek episodes; I have seen more affecting Star Trek episodes. But I don't think I've ever seen a Star Trek episode made out of more pure, broadly comic delight than "I, Mudd."
That begins with the title character. I had mixed feelings about Ol’ Harcourt in “Mudd’s Women,” but I loved him here. Roger C. Carmel digs into the role with relish, playing Mudd as an oily, outsized, living cartoon character. The way he preens, boasts, takes theatrical offense to Kirk’s insults, just makes him this broad but ebullient presence throughout the proceedings. There’s little doubt that Star Trek is going for big comedy here, but Mudd is a character who can withstand it, even channel it, to wonderful comic ends. It’s a shame that (I think) we won’t see him again until The Animated Series.
But as much fun as Mudd is in and of himself, his best material comes from his interactions with the rest of the crew, Kirk in particular. When Mudd relays how he escaped from his predicament after Rigel 12, his increasing, flabbergasted annoyance at Kirk calling him out on his self-aggrandizing euphemism is superb. The dynamic between the captain and the huckster is particularly well-written here, and it livens each moment the two men share the screen. Beyond that, his exchange with Spock over “selling fake patents to your mother” nicely blends Mudd’s over-the-top expressivism and the consistently great dry comedy of the Vulcan officer.
In the midst of all these great laughs and the superb character-based comedy, “I, Mudd” manages to include a pretty great little sci-fi story to boot. It’s not an especially novel one for Star Trek. We’ve done ancient robots before; we’ve done not being able to leave a planet before; and we’ve done defeat via logical paradox before. Still, there’s enough wrinkles to this one, Mudd included, to make the adventure down on the planet interesting.
Part of that comes from the androids’ “kill ‘em with kindness approach.” Star Trek goes full Asimov here, with the robots realizing that if their duty is to serve man, then the logical endpoint of that duty is to make sure that their guests can never leave so that the androids can make them as happy as possible. What makes that tack interesting is that in contrast to some of the other threats the crew of The Enterprise has faced, these robots are trying to tempt our heroes rather than cow them.
Uhura is offered indelible beauty and immortality (a prospect they raise against nicely as part of the later feint). Unexpected lothario Chekov (seriously, as much as Kirk’s reputation with alien ladies proceeds him, it’s Chekov who always seems to be macking on someone) is waited on by a pair of beautiful ladies with oblique hints that he can do with them what he will. Bone is amazed at the medical lab the robots have, and Scotty feels the same about their engineering shop. It’s not quite the same as “The Menagerie” or, god help me, “The Apple,” but Trek explores the conflict between paradise and freedom with commitment.
Still, it’s just as committed to making the loony most of the predicament presented. While the interconnected artificial beings (paging The Borg) feels like an excuse for a typical “we have to destroy the controlling hub!” solution, it’s the shape that solution takes that really elevates the episode. While the “short circuit the android with contradictions” is a cliché at this point, the way the crew does it -- by acting weird -- is utterly delightful.
To be frank, it feels like a Futurama solution (which is, I fully admit, putting the horse before the cart). It is easy to imagine the Planet Express crew facing a group of logic-bound androids and deciding the best way to make them explode is to be goofy and crazy, just as the Enterprise crew did here. And the way Kirk and company pull it off is delightful.
The manic joy in the eyes of the gang as Chekov and Uhura dance while Bones and Scotty play imaginary instruments and Kirk conducts is just perfect. Chekov being told to stay still and instead doing a little pirouette is amazing. Spock telling identical androids that he hates one and loves the other because of their similarities, or offering beatnik poetry about logic being a tweeting bird or a wreath of awful-smelling flowers has particular comic force coming from him. And the group’s pantomime of the explosives and other imagination game that prove to be too much for the robots show a comedic verve and commitment to silliness that really paid dividends.
In the midst of all this silliness, “I, Mudd” offers a trite but still well-observed take on humanity -- that as much as these artificial creatures may want to study us, there is an inherent, illogical contradiction baked into the human condition, whether in the form of enjoying captivity while wanting to be free, or loving and hating at once, or being able to be enmeshed in real danger while embracing the irreverence of the imagination, that is too much for any purely logical creature to understand.
Part of that contradiction is being able to take a television show committed to drama and danger, albeit a fairly campy one, and spend an episode that blends that sort of adventure with broadly comic goofball antics. Mudd being surrounded by a trio of copies of his scolding wife (who, in a nod to the casting director and costumers, looks like an appropriately severe woman) is the right ridiculous note to go out on. Star Trek doesn’t always get this silly or this comedically exaggerated, but when it does, it’s an absolute joy.
[7.3/10] The Eagleton part of this episode doesn’t do it for me. I’m all for a slobs vs. snobs story, especially one built on Leslie feeling betrayed by a former friend, but all of the Eagleton stuff is just too cartoony. Everything from public forums with giftbaskets to a pink and purple jail with scones to Leslie’s frenemy Lindsey herself are just too exaggerated to make this conflict feel real and not just a bit of ridiculousness. It turns the “good town vs. bad town” dynamic into something that feels like it’s out of an 80’s cartoon.
Still, I appreciate the tack that it’s founded on Leslie thinking Lindsey was on her side, and that she feels hurt by the broken promise and backs turned on Pawnee itself as much as she’s upset with Lindsey individually. The whiffle ball feel is a nice twist to resolve the fence issue, and Leslie being the bigger person is a nice character beat.
What really sells this one though, is the B-story, where Leslie figures out Ron’s birthday and Ron goes nuts (in true Ron fashion) worrying about what public, showy thing Leslie is going to do to celebrate. I love the way everyone gets a turn with him, from April messing with him at Leslie’s prompting, to Andy inadvertently dropping hints about a kidnapping, to Ann scaring him with stories of bounce houses and hoopla, to Chris straight up kissing him on the mouth. Ron’s increasing paranoia, and his reactions to all of this are outstanding, and it’s great acting from Nick Offerman, who really sells Ron’s disgust and fear at all of this.
The finish, however, is beautiful. Leslie providing steak, scotch, old movies, and solitude is the perfect Ron Swanson birthday party. And the fact that it ties into their relationship and the Eagleton story is great writing. Ron knows Leslie and Leslie knows Ron, and that means that Leslie knows how to give Ron the sort of celebration he’d enjoy, and Ron knows Leslie’s the kind of person who’d make her hometown better. It’s a great testament to what is arguably the show’s core relationship.
The Eagleton stuff gets a bit too out of hand for my tastes, but that still makes this one a keeper.
I've never been a big fan of the Artie character on The Sopranos. He's a little bit too dumb to live, and in a lot of ways he feels out of place, not in the sense that he's not a mob guy (Melfi and Adrianna and even Charmagne fit into the show without being in the mob), but more that he feels kind of like a bumbling sitcom dad transplanted into a more grounded, weighty show. There's space in 'The Sopranos' for a character to idolizes and envies the mafia guys while being a bit too much of a muppet to ever hack it as one of their soliders, but his shtick tends to be a little too broad and predictable to really work for me. And his ill-fated attempts to collect his money in what was an obvious scam were pretty weak.
By the same token, I wasn't a huge fan of Gloria either. She was initially kind of interesting, since we'd never really seen Tony at the beginning of a relationship before (short of Melfi), but the crazy woman/mother substitute business got tiring quickly.
That said, I love the effect that both of these characters have on Tony in this episode. The popular narrative about the character of Tony Soprano is that he's a sociopath, but I don't think that's true. He's obviously not a good person, but he still has good impulses and feels the weight of some of his moral choices, even if he disregards them or acts on them in misguided ways. I love how the episode goes over how guilty Tony feels about Gloria's death. How he dreams about her, talks to her old colleagues, obliquely bounces his feelings off of Janice, gets angry at Melfi, and how, ultimately, it motivates him to potentially save Artie's life.
Now it's still all a little selfish. Twice Tony asks if people think he's a toxic person, and it reflects an insecurity, possibly a realization, that by the nature of who he is and what he does, he sows destruction and discord wherever he touches. When he's talking to a hospitalized Artie, Tony asks him what it would be like for him to have to find Artie dead and live with that guilt. Tony is narcissistic, but also sees himself as benevolent, as the kind of guy who would at least try to help if the people he considers close to him would come. He's clearly regretful that he (in the gross oversimplification of the situation that tortures him) turned away from Gloria's cries for help. It's an interesting, more vulnerable, even considerate side of Tony than we've seen on the show -- one who would willingly call 911 to save his friend's life.
There's other interesting stuff in the episode. Carmella is sublimating her feelings for Furio by setting him up with a dental hygenist she knows. Adrianna is trying to extricate herself from as many activities as possible so she doesn't have anything to tell the FBI. Even AJ gets a bit of a story, as we see him living high off of his dad's reputation, but finding himself feeling awkward about when he realizes that the reality doesn't match the popular image for mob life. It's not one of the sharpest storylines the show ever did, but like most AJ stories, it's simple enough and to the point. But the meat of it is Tony, who shows a side rarely seen.
This episode is a default winner of my heart just because this is the episode where Andy and April get married. It's done in the perfect, carefree, beautiful, true-to-character fashion and in doing so, completely overrides every single cliche in this popular sitcom trope storyline. It's a perfect representation of who April and Andy are, as people first and as lovers second and it manages to wring out so much affecting drama within a single episode and makes the episode so much more than a wedding episode.
Andy and April have a surprise in store for everyone who attends their dinner party: they are not at a dinner party but in fact, their wedding. While everyone at the party seems genuinely happy for them, Leslie has second thoughts on it all and fears that two people who are very close to her may just be making a tumultuous mistake in their early lives. By the ending of this episode, it's clear that while she is moved by the simple but sweet nature of their wedding ceremony and their pure love for one another, she continues to have her fears that an impulse decision could spell trouble in the future. That's one of the greatest things about this episode, maybe one of the greatest of the series. Things do not necessarily wrap up in a neat little bow and it's thematically, all the more powerful for it.
Leslie is just so perfect in this episode. While Ron tells her that it isn't her place to try and correct April and Andy, she tries nonetheless even if she does not actively try and stop the wedding. Amy Poehler is absolutely sensational in this role and she manages to take the script and wring out every bit of humour while capturing the nuances of the drama too. Her performance during the wedding is absolutely fantastic because it captures both a joy and a disappointment and Amy Poehler has gotten to a point with this show where it's sailed way past Leslie being a Michael Scott copy.
April and Andy are probably one of my favourite television couples and I'm not one to generally focus too much or even care too much about television romances because I find most of them, in the sitcom format, tend to run stale at a point. I feel that way about Jim and Pam for example but April and Andy are an exception because they are exceptional circumstances for characters. In a show full of eccentric and wacky personalities, they might just be the two wackiest. The generally apathetic April and the goofball Andy to vaguely characterize them seem to find pure content in each other and the chemistry between Aubrey Plaza and Chris Pratt is so strong that they capture so flawlessly this oddball love their characters have for one another.
Everything else in this episode is perfect to my eyes too. The introduction of Orin, onscreen at least (previously Leslie voiced her disapproval to April regarding Orin being her friend) is amazing and another reminder or indicator of the sheer number of great side characters the show was able to squeeze out over the years. The interactions that Ben and Chris have with the character are hilarious in the sheer contrast in their attitudes. Ben is terrified of Orin (one of my favourite moments is the "are you asking me or telling me?" bit) whereas Chris terrifies Orin with his positive outlook on life!
I love seeing Jean Ralphio again and the sheer sleaze and arrogance he brings with him is brilliant. The very brief scene he has here provides plenty of laughs. It's also great to see April's parents and her sister again and the utterly apathetic speech she makes after the wedding and turning April into tears are just other lovely touches to this episode.
I love Ron's simple but profound interactions at the wedding. He first tells Leslie that it's not in her place to stop their wedding and after the ceremony, tells Leslie that the reason she didn't do anything drastic was because she knew it would be futile to stop those crazy kids. The dance between April and Ron is perfectly awkward and really highlights a relationship that is very strong with the show. It's so beautiful.
Elsewhere, Ann is trying to hit on guys to little success. There she sees Donna, who initially warns her off but upon seeing how helpless she is, coaches her in the dating world. As Andrew says in his review, I don't feel too strongly with Ann's love life on the show but a storyline like this really brings out some levity and humour out of that situation. Donna is particularly brilliant in this episode.
Simply, I love, love, love this episode. Virtually any episode that focuses heavily on April and Andy will at least leave me happy and at its best, like here, feels like transcendent television. The simplest of wedding gestures here is more powerful than the many grand weddings we've seen in other sitcoms. It is so true to the characters and it could never have worked in any other way.
[7.2/10] This is a pretty good, but not great episode. The main plot, about Ben meeting Leslie’s mom, is one of those typical sitcom plots that the show can breathe new life into with its execution. Details like Leslie and Maureen’s simultaneous head tilts are great stuff. Still, the twist that Maureen makes a pass at Ben doesn’t really work for me, as it feels a little too contrived a monkey wrench to throw into “the bubble.”
Still, the whole “bubble” thing resonates, with the universal desire to prolong that initial burst of carefree euphoria invoked, and that gives it a bit more pep. At the same time, after being initially flummoxed by Leslie underpreparing him, and then doing too good a job after Leslie overprepares him, the fact that Ben finds the middle ground (and backbone) on his own initiative to tell Maureen that he and Leslie are dating is a nice resolution.
The B-story with Ron reacting to Chris shaking up the department is a mixed bag as well. The various changes lead to some funny scenes (like the woman who made tea with sprinkler water chasing Ron around his swivel-desk), but gets a little broad for my tastes. Still, Ron perfectly assessing his team to Chris to try to undo the shakeup, and stomaching a week at the dreaded swivel desk as a sacrifice for the return to normalcy are nice looks for him.
The C-story with Tom and Andy helping to digitize the archives on the fourth floor is similarly hit or miss. Andy’s clueless enthusiasm is always funny, but Tom’s stymied schemes don’t do much for me, and the exaggerated gags about how horrible the fourth floor are a bit too much as well. (Though the guy who pour out coffee and then smashes the pot is a nicely surreal moment.) It’s a decent enough way for Tom to start feeling the tug of his leash in local government, but moment-to-moment it’s just not that great.
Overall, it’s an episode with some evident flaws, but still a largely enjoyable one due to the comedy and characters.
I liked this one pretty well. There's a lot of what feels like table setting here, but there are some fun moments and there's a lot to everyone knowing more about deception than the people who are doing the deceiving think.
I'll add that I love the parallelism in the scene with Jackie Jr. and his goon holding a "sit down" with the drug pushers, that immediately cuts to the scene with AJ's principal and the school priest holding a "sit down" with The Sopranos in the exact same position.
There's also a lot about what Tony and Carmella want for their daughter. Even though the episode never comes right out and says it, there's a sense from Carmella that she's worried about Jackie Jr. not because he seems like a bad influence or an inherently poor choice (though, unbeknownst to her, he is), but that she doesn't want Meadow to end up living the unfulfilling life that she has. The show does a great job of putting Carmella's dissatisfaction just below the surface, but still visible enough to come through when necessary. The way she asks Tony if there's anything he needs to tell her after he gives her an enormous ring tells the audience that Carmella has been through this before, and her subsequent purchase of the earrings show that she has subtle ways of lashing out when she's weary of the dalliances she has every reason to suspect Tony is engaging in.
There's also a great deal of mileage out of Tony wanting similar things, though for different reasons. Sure, his chats with Jackie Jr. could be chalked up to him simply wanting the best for his daughter, but there's a corresponding sense that Tony sees Jackie Jr. as himself, and wants him to be a better man than he became. He doesn't want Meadow to escape the same way Carmella seems to, but he does want his daughter to end up with someone better than him.
The two's fears about their children also come through in the AJ storyline. There's a certain fear in Carmella, that is subtle, but palpable, that AJ will take the lesson from his lack of punishment (which pretty clearly arises due to his skill on the football field) that he can do bad things and escape any consequences because of the value people place on his extracurricular activities, which would make him exactly like Tony. Tony too is able to commit bad acts (obviously on a scale much greater than vandalism) but never faces punishment because of an understood conspiracy. Tony seems troubled too, but seems generally relieved when he realizes that the punishment won't take AJ off the football team - the one thing that Tony sees as making his kid into someone assertive like himself. It's interesting as AJ is mostly a cipher at this point, and it's hard to know how much of all of this he's absorbing, but I suspect it'll bubble up again sooner rather than later.
(As a side note, the little Dragnet homage was kind of fun, but also distracting.)
[6.2/10] This is a weird episode, in that it combines this down to earth, very real emotional beats and real talk with unpleasant, broad, traditiona sitcom-level conflict.
Take the main story about Ben and Leslie helping out with Model U.N. There’s plenty of room for great comic stuff, like the pair dorking out in adorable fashion, April’s fascination with representing the moon, Andy trading militaries for lions, and April and Leslie’s high school-esque heart-to-heart. There’s also room for some good, real-feeling character stuff, with Ben feeling put on hold by Leslie, and Leslie feeling that Ben isn’t understanding enough of the position she’s in. That’s good stuff, and the heart in it almost carries the day.
But the Model U.N. war gets so bad and childish (which the show at least acknowledges) that it takes much of the punch out of the human element. It’s supposed to be “they get carried away and realizes how they’ve gone too far” bit, and it works to some degree, but the Model U.N. childishness is just too much, and cuts against the solid relationship material at the core.
The same definitely goes for Chris’s little pow-wow with Ann, Jerry, and Donna. Ann giving Chris “real talk” about how he needs to give his romantic partners space to be themselves and not overwhelm them is solid, and despite the broad elements of it, feels like a real conversation at times. But returning to the well of Jerry’s uncomfortableness, and the whole “focus group on my relationship” tack is strange and hurts the epiphany at the center of it.
Tom and Ron’s story works the best of the three in the episode, possibly because it’s the most straightforward, but even it is trying at times. Ron’s a noble guy, and his trying to let Tom save face and have his old job, alongside a cavalcade of hilariously underqualified candidates (including a young Kyle Mooney!) is a nice storyline. Tom pushing his nobility too far, until Ron basically manhandles him into accepting makes Tom look pretty awful (though I love Ron’s angry walk), but it’s still the most effective bit in the episode.
Overall, this is one of the more uneven episodes of Parks and Rec you’re likely to find, one that has many of the ingredients that make the show great, but which mixes them in with strange choices or unpleasant stuff that makes it a mishmash of good stuff and stuff that just feels off.
[7.3/10] There’s some cool moments in this episode, but mostly it stumbles by feeling more like a setup for S4 than a conclusion to S3. L’il Sebastian’s memorial service creates a big enough set piece to send the season out in fine fashion, but the stories feel more disjointed and incomplete than usual, and that hurts the proceedings.
On the one hand, the main story is pretty good, even if the resolution is saved for S4. The notion that Leslie and Ben are playing with fire is a good one, particularly with Ron finding out and providing a convincing demonstration as to why they’ll get caught and fired and there’ll be nothing he can do about it.
The love vs. job routine is an old one, but the episode nicely underlines how these two career-focused people may very well be able to do their work and have a relationship at the same time, but that it’s too much for them hide it at the same time. All the screw-ups and rearranging at L’il Sebastian’s funeral are a great illustration of that, and Ron being the voice of reason and suffering the brunt of their on-the-fly retooling is a nice touch and wake up call.
The rest of the episode has mini-stories, few of which get particularly tied off, but which point things in new directions for S4. The biggest is Tom and Entertainment Seven-Twenty, which is pleasant enough, and has the same deal with him deciding whether he’s done all he can in government, but there’s more seed than tree here.
Andy’s song is great, and his asking April to be his manager after she gets him 50 bucks and helps him with songs is kind of cute, but it’s also very slight. The same goes for the hints at Tammy 1’s return and the shitstorm to follow.
The best of them, oddly enough, is Chris and Ann’s bit. Chris seeing tendonitis, coupled with L’il Sebastian’s death, as a harbinger of death is a good choice for the episode. The endlessly positive guy facing a minor setback and having it all crumble down for him emotionally made me laugh and even pity Chris. But it also gives Ann a chance to regain some standing in their (platonic) relationship, to help him and be a bigger person, and that’s a nice beat and resolution to Ann’s story throughout the season. Really, hers is the only one that gets closed out in a satisfying fashion here.
Still, even if it’s open-ended, I do love where they leave things with Ben and Leslie. Job vs. love is, again, a little trite even if it’s been done well in the back half of S3. Still, now we’re talking about love vs. dream, and that’s a miniature horse of a different color. It’s more cliffhanger than anything, but it raises the stakes in a believable and compelling way, and that give it a lot of credit. I don’t like the way this one just seems like part 1 to the S4 premiere, but in an age of binge watching and streaming that doesn’t matter as much I suppose. It’s a good enough episode, it just feels a bit incomplete.
Love this episode. The twin storylines in this episode, featuring Leslie/Tom on the one hand and Ron/Chris/Andy/April on the other hand are each so brilliant and charming. To start with the A story, Leslie tries her hand at online dating after a particularly distressing experience with Sewage Joe (great to see these wonderful side characters pop up every now and then. More on that in the next episode too), fearing that she seems to keep landing sleazy guys and to her great horror, she finds herself a soulmate match with none other than Tom Haverford.
I've made it clear in the past that I think Tom is, among the main cast of characters, the most problematic so it says something when this A-story not only works but is hilarious start to finish and this is one of Aziz's finest outings yet as he really shines here comedically speaking. There's not too much more than him teasing and humiliating Leslie at every possible turn once he finds out that they were paired up by an online dating site and yet, it's so entertaining to watch because the episode completely embraces all of Tom's worst qualities, plays it for every ounce of comedy and at the same time, transfers the audience's total sympathy onto Leslie.
The B-story features a grilling competition between health conscious Chris and meat loving Ron. In the previous episode, there was a great moment of tension when Chris showed up to the "dinner party" with a vegetable loaf for a cake much to Ron's chagrin. So, in a way, one can almost view it as a continuity of an ongoing tension. Anyways, this storyline is absolutely fantastic too. The highlights are the visits the group make to firstly, Grain N Simple and secondly, Ron's favourite store, the Food N Stuff. The Grain N Simple scene really gets the most out of the dynamics at play between Chris/Andy on the one hand and April/Ron on the other. The hippie by the food barrel and the vegan food sample moments are highlights, as is Andy emptying a container of grain and Chris immediately walking away inconspicuously.
It's also nice to see another appearance by Kyle, who we find out is someone that even Jerry picks on. It's amusing to see the ladder if you will extended by another rung and who knows, perhaps Kyle has his own punching bag.
Do you have comfort shows or media? Whenever I am overtired, too tired to think or just need a brain vacation, I retreat into favourite movies an TV series. This is one of those. I fell in love with this movie when it was first released (1991), bought and wore out the VHS tape (how we “streamed” in the olden days), bought the DVD, even bought and read the book (Fannie Flagg writes beautiful books). The casting for this is amazing, Kathy Bates and Jessica Tandy (who was nominated for an Oscar in this role) forging an unlikely but transformative friendship in the present and Mary Stuart Masterson and Mary-Louise Parker as Idgie and Ruth, the relationship at the heart of Ninny’s story within the story, then add Cicely Tyson - Perfection! I didn’t realize, until I read the book, what a brave adventure it was to take this book to screen. It bravely took on many themes that challenged the norms of the time with grace and power without alienating the audience from the deep emotional bonds of the characters. Of course, I love everything about this film and give this film a 10 (perfect) out of 10. [Drama with humour]
