Cougar Town is a
show about incremental changes. The world isn’t saved on a regular basis,
allegiances haven’t shifted, etc. etc. Earth shattering changes never occur
(and would honestly feel out of place and offputting). The best episodes reveal
a new side of a character or a relationship, and challenge and evolve it in
subtle ways. Arguably this season’s best storyline was in “Between Two Worlds”
where Bobby confronts how inadequate he feels about his life. After trying on
the alternate personality of one “Ron Mexico”, Bobby ends up opening up about the
fact that he wishes he were someone else.
Bobby is still carrying on status quo, but it’s those little glimpses
where we see what makes people tick that elevate the show above just any old
sitcom. These are characters but their problems and their relationships, and
how they deal with them hit close to home even as they’re trying out different
gags.
Two of the three storylines have nice emotional resolutions
and character developments, but they don’t feel like the best stories to
explore more about the characters.
Jules recognizing she misses working for herself and then
goes out and lands a sale makes the icing swilling and outlandish bartending
self-created roadblocks to admitting that she’s unhappy. It’s this underlying
sadness and realism that lets Cougar Town
take turns into the more manic. The only problem is that we haven’t seen Jules
selling real estate since who knows when, and it’s ceased to be an important or
defining feature of her character. If the people she ultimately dealt with
weren’t guest stars may be the moment might have rung more true.
The Andy-Travis-Laurie storyline feels even less compelling.
The art snobbery angle feels a bit played, and it’s not the best note to be
played by Travis and Laurie. Andy admits at the end that he sometimes wishes he
had a dream that he could call his own. That his humdrum job crunching numbers
sometimes could use a bit more excitement. It’s heartbreaking and it’s all the
sadder coming from carefree Andy, but it does feel like a resolution that comes
out of nowhere.
The third story, Ellie’s story where she badmouths Bobby’s
customers is the only plotline that doesn’t work at all because it never goes
anywhere. Ellie never claims to feel guilty and it’s not acting as a
distraction from something more deeply felt (i.e. desire for independence or yearning
for lost dreams – even ones for lousy stand up). So it serves no other purpose
than an attempt to be funny and give something for a character to do. It’s the story most in line with the typical laid back, hang out vibe the series does well, but why
would anyone pay to get insulted; it comes out of nowhere and then it’s never brought
back to what it’s supposed to say about the characters.
There can be weird and crazy stories and the characters can do and say terrible things, but the stories can’t just be stories for the
sake of a story. They have to be brought to bear on the characters even if by
the next episode it’s like nothing ever happened. Here these stories don’t deal
with anything significant enough that it feels like its warrants drawing
attention to it, and the resolutions are nice but don’t stem logically from
everything that came before them in the plot.
Stray Observations:
-Tom is back to being the gang’s whipping boy.
-“You could put in a Jacuzzi. You could put in 10 Jacuzzis.
You could turn a whole room into a Jacuzzi”
-The “stranger touch” is totally something I could see these
guys doing, as well as something that they’d be completely oblivious to the
potential consequences of.
-What’s better, Laurie’s monologue about being turned into prostitute
in a compound in Yemen or Jules’ reaction: “What’s a Yemen?”
-Bobby’s Burgers sounds oddly close to Bob’s Burgers.
-“Stan has a harness but he eats glass”
-“He pays me back by being surly and stealing my shirts”
-Bobby warms the burgers under his armpits.
-Everyone steals drinks when Grayson isn’t in the bar.
-“I don’t think there’s a huge market for whores in their 40’s”
-“I think you’ve make a great whore, mom… did I just say
that?”
-“I just have trouble pulling off the pretentious part”
-The Latin Kings ordered a cake from Laurie: “Lil Choke
doesn’t like caramel”
-“She’s been doing that to me since before it was cool”
- “You’re probably nervous because Bonnie has some drinking
issues”
Grade: B-
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