Cougar Town - "I Need to Know" - Review

One of the most important things in life are our relationships. Cougar Town is about its seven main characters and how they relate to one another. Each episode, in a way, is about throwing something at a couple different pairings and seeing how they react to it (and in the process reinforcing why these people care about eachother in the first place). Cougar Town is great at making these conflicts very specific to the characters and grounded in a level of everyday realism. It’s also really good at creating emotional resolutions that aren’t just tacked on at the end of the episode as an afterthought.

This week’s episode is about Jules and Travis, and Ellie and Andy. Jules and Ellie want something out of their relationships that they simply can’t have. In the case of Jules, Travis has grown up and is off at college. He doesn’t need or want to see his mother on a regular basis. When she tries to give him some space, saying he doesn’t have to call her unless he wants to, she can’t handle him going nine days without contact. She calls him, but he quickly ends the conversation. Jules becomes so infuriated that she storms over to Travis’s school and tells all his friends that she still does his laundry. 

Ellie, at the suggestion of Bobby, starts rewarding Andy for doing what she asks of him (much like you would a dog – a joke the episode gets a good deal of mileage from). Bobby, however, is not one to idly sit by and watch this. He tells Andy, and Andy becomes understandably upset.

Now, everything up to this point is funny, but it works because we know who these characters are and that this is totally the sort of things they would do. And Jules and Andy would become upset and angry. But ultimately, they could never hold it against Travis or Ellie. Its sitcom mechanics that never feels like it’s going through the motions. Because the series goes for character work and a sense of place more than big laughs, it doesn’t try so hard to achieve its plotting and resolutions. Lack of resolutions can even feel awkward (e.g. Travis running off to Hawaii). 

So Jules goes to Travis and lets him know she’s so very happy for him, but she doesn’t want to end up a granny who never speaks to her son. Ellie opens up past her cold exterior (“I find it confusing when you’re vulnerable,” Andy tells her). Though she wanted Andy to do what she wanted him to do, what she wants more than anything is him. This could be a mission statement for the show. There’s conflicts between characters where each wants a different thing, but what they really want more than anything is eachother and for eachother to be happy. That’s why they can resolve these problems and it doesn’t feel forced or hackneyed. Trav is going to go off and do his own thing, but it doesn’t hurt to stop in and watch Game of Thrones with Jules every now and again. And he doesn’t do it because the Laws of Sitcom demand it but because it’s in the feelgood, low key, heartwarming DNA of Cougar Town. 

Stray Observations:

-Opening Title Card of the Week: “The letters in... Cougar Town can be rearranged to spell ‘Taco Rug’Now" (which also makes no sense).”

-The Cul-de-Sac Crew want Travis’s new girlfriend to feed Tom’s cat while he’s away: “I don’t live in the area” – To which they cry: EXCUSES!

-“I watched porn with Grayson and his girlfriend” –Many people have misinterpreted Game of Thrones as porn as well.

-“It’s like a brand new gay Ferrari” –The Grayson/Laurie storyline, though funny, felt out of place.

-Jules to Travis: “I want to be friends with benefits” – that came out wrong.

-The guys grow Tom Selleck moustaches. Because of course they would.

-“Trav will come back, you raised him to be dependent and helpless”

-“I must have butt dialed you” “From the Torres’ home?”

-Andy and Jules going “Oh” was very funny and adorable.

-“Once Trav ran away to Key Largo … I had to sell my soul to a Haitian shaman to get him back”

-“She was a real…” “Racist” “I was going to say collector”

Grade: B+