Cougar Town - "I Should Have Known" - Review

Tom is a character Cougar Town has never really taken a stance on. He’s funny in his awkward, kind of sad way, and he works well in small doses. However, the characters keep walking all over him like a doormat and feeling little regret afterwards. This couldn’t keep going on much longer; as selfish as the Cul-de-Sac Crew is, “mean spirited” would not be the appropriate adjective to describe them. They’re deeply clingy and codependent, and they can do mean things to one another, but what pervades it all is a well-intentioned, loving sense of goodwill and affection for one another. So feeling no guilt towards their terrible (escalating) treatment of the misanthrope just could not last.

Though this and other aspects of the episode in theory feel like they’re good ideas, they’re not nearly as well-executed as they could have been. Bobby and Ellie are an underused pairing that I would like to see more of, but their storyline comes off as if it’s just going through the motions. Andy and Grayson are very amusing for how they subvert the “change approved” rule making that Ellie and Jules have monopolized, and providing a new perspective on it, but it’s never really followed through on. 

We haven’t spent enough time with Tom to know him as anything more than this cartoonish oddball who pops in every so often and does peculiar things. So attempting a main plot about him, and how Jules and Laurie (selfishly) protect him from a gold-digger doesn’t have enough stakes. If the series is going to make Tom a larger fixture of the cast, and not just somebody who pops his head through the window every now and again, they need to start humanizing him.    

Stray Observations:

-“That exact moment happened in my dream as well” – The “best friend kiss” isn’t just a funny gag but well-integrated by being made the catalyst for Tom’s anger towards the groups.

-“Cousin stuff can be hot … It’s like they instinctively know what want” – Busy Phillips is having a great season, and the writers have provided her with some great monologues including this episode’s one where Ellie has Laurie let her know when the midway point of the speech is by raising her hand (a nice meta commentary).

-“Did she still not like Ellie?” “Why would you say that?” “Because”

-“Your shirt does seem to come off a lot for no reason” – There was a lot of self-awareness to this episode.

-“That explains the bronze penises in your closet”

-“He’s washing his food pushing pinky”

-Tom’s photo of himself with a sleeping Jules.

-“Laurie thrown wine at her!”

-Great emotional moment: “Do you really think he’d be happy?” “No!”

-Adorbs: Andy and Grayson’s response in unison.

-Laurie climbs into Tom’s house through the roof in heels … and falls.

-I love the hug pact. There was another gag they used for some great emotional effect. 

Title Card of the Week: " Welcome to Cougar Town. Donny made the title cards about him, so he's gone now."

Grade: B-