Date Posted: May 23, 2011
By Amy Van Veen (The Cascade) – Email
Cougar Town gets ready for their season finale next week that will include a trip to Hawaii to chase down Travis. This last week’s episode gives the reason for such a trip. Travis is crushed after Kirsten broke his heart, and Jules and Bobby are trying their best to be winning parents. Unfortunately, a visit from Kevin reveals the fact that Travis has not been on spring break, as he told them, but rather he is dropping out of college. Jules tries her best to be the hard-ass parent, but she’s easily taken advantage of and feels the weight of a one night stand with her son after their Estevez Festevez. It’s not weird if you just don’t think about it. Meanwhile, Bobby is dealing with his own life-changing decision to commercialize Penny Can. Mr. Frank offers him, Andy and Laurie a huge business opportunity by making Lou Diamond Phillips the face of Penny Can, and also adding a bunch of bells and whistles to the can. Literally. Ellie and Grayson try their best to deal with the creepy homeschooled kids who graffitied their sidewalk with chalk drawings. Tom tries his best to warn them: “Chalk children don’t forgive and they never forget.” This whole creepy blonde homeschooled kid part of the episode actually made my blood run cold. They’re terrifying. The only way to deal with their creepy dream drawings of Ellie and Grayson on fire is to fight creepy with creepy, and include Tom. Bobby feels cheap after Laurie and Andy agreed on the deal with Lou Diamond, but he does get credit and catch phrases included in Lou’s voice-overs. For Jules, she finally learns how to use tough love with Travis when she tells him he either has to go back to college or move out. With Bobby’s corporate deal, he is able to buy an apartment, which means he gives Travis his parking lot boat. Things are getting real, but still hilarious and at times terrifying with the cul-de-sac crew.
Happy Endings doubles up their episodes again, but it’s no longer an omen of bad tidings for the new ABC show. Although the network decided to drop Mr. Sunshine and Better With You, Happy Endings is coming back for a new season next year, along with 13 other shows ranging from sitcoms to a Mad Men-esque drama about Pan-Am flight crews.
The first episode of Happy Endings answers the all time question: who has it harder, a black guy or a gay guy? Brad can’t catch a cab, but Max can’t get married or get into heaven, plus Brad and Jane’s kids are going to be gorgeous because “half black is God’s Photoshop.” During yet another girl’s outing, Alex tells Jane and Penny the problem she and Dave had: they had love drift, she “heard it in a book she heard,” which terrifies Jane because it’s the epitome of her and Brad. Her solution? A forced night out filled with Cosmo-type quizzes until he confronts her and tells her how much he loves her. He even loves the scary face she makes when she sneezes. Alex is also confronted, this time by Penny, on why she can’t be alone after she ruins Penny’s chances with a handsome and charming recently-divorced architect. The other two, Max and Dave, complete a night of drinking and Segal movies by heading out to find Bo the rollerblading bride-stealer in order to destroy him. The only problem is Dave is more of a Zach Braff, so he comforts the heart broken Bo, until Max punches him in the face and the two of them get their asses kicked by Bo the ninja rollerblading bride-stealer. In the end, the question is answered: it’s harder to be a black guy. Brad wins the argument, “you smell that? Racism.”
The second episode brings the gang together again for a Barefoot Peddlers concert. Brad, Jane, Max and Penny have been trying their best to hang out just with Dave and then just with Alex because every time they all hang out together, anything can trigger Dave and Alex’s fights and they always seem to force Dave to pick a side. The solution? They’ll all bail on the concert with Dave and Alex and then just go the four of them, which would work if Dave and Alex didn’t decide to go anyways, so it’s the whole gang after all. While Jane does her best to get rage-level crazy, Penny retells the love connection she had with the Barefoot Peddlers’ electric fiddle player Tommy. When Tommy doesn’t remember her, Max has to try his best Segal moves on him while still being their biggest fan, which is tough because there are no gay hippies. As Jane gets drunk and begins to turn into a Creole river boat captain, Dave and Alex begin their argument once more. Brad explains to her how much she destroyed and humiliated Dave and that she can’t make it even because life isn’t a romantic comedy. She, however, thinks life can be a romantic comedy and jumps on stage to make a heartfelt speech. Unfortunately, the security guard is taser happy and gets her, then Dave runs up to help her and he gets tased. The two of them are joined by a tasered Max after he did his best to defend Penny’s honour. Dave and Alex make up, to a degree, and Penny turns down Tommy’s offer to be with him because he’s admitted to sleeping with thousands of women and being married, even though her two turn-ons are that he’s going to Wisconsin in a van. Good show with solid writing and a cast with actual chemistry. I’ll be glad to see them back for another season.
Big Bang finishes off their season with an interesting mish-mash of random situations. The fact that Leonard and Priya are dating and doing it in Raj’s bed isn’t that interesting nor is it that random, but the whole Liya or Preonard situation in the face of her parents’ disapproval finally comes to a head in this finale. Before that can happen, though, Raj needs to find a place to sleep while his sister and her new boyfriend slash one of his best friends choose his bed for their activities. First, of course, he tries Howard’s, but since Howard is on his way out, his mother would be Raj’s only company. At first that’s okay, but when Howard’s mom gets a little hormonal and wants to “play doctor” with the Indian kid, then Raj runs for Sheldon’s. Sheldon invites him in only under contract as a temporary roommate, replacing Leonard since his nights keep him with Priya. With Raj as Sheldon’s new roommate, Penny is free to join them for food and wine when Raj shows Sheldon the “difference between eating and dining.” Though Penny thinks Priya and Leonard almost living together is big, Sheldon thinks “origami napkin swans are the headlines.” While Raj plays nomad for the day, Bernadette is getting her PhD, and more excitingly, she’s been headhunted by a pharmaceutical company that will pay her “a butt load of money.” This inevitably turns Howard into the trophy husband and only non-doctor of the group, which he is fine with until Bernie buys him something pretty: a Rolex watch. In the morning, Sheldon awakens to find Leonard sleeping on his couch after he finds out that Priya is going back to India and he angrily tells her parents the truth via webcam. He also finds Howard at his door with a sad post-fight look on his face. The biggest surprise, though, and one that sits a little uncomfortably in my character-driven mind is what Sheldon, Howard and Leonard all discover: Raj wrapped in Leonard’s comforter next to Penny doing the walk of shame. With an ending like that, they’ll have a lot to prove next season.
