By Amy Van Veen (Contributer) – Email
With half of the shows standing up their fans this week, there was more of a chance for greatness to shine through instead of falling through the cracks. Anticipation for next week’s shows is rising as NBC is coming back with all new episodes as Michael Scott prepares for his inevitably tearful farewell on The Office.
HIMYM is leaving us fondly remembering Robin’s new dog, I mean boyfriend, while they wait a couple of weeks until they re-return. As a result, it was left up to Mad Love to wow the CBS audience. Kate’s sister Julia is coming to visit NY and, as the older sister, Kate’s protection takes the form of coddling her twenty five-year-old sibling like she’s a ten-year-old. Brittany Snow guest stars as Julia, the mid twenty something who strives to be taken seriously as an adult and is suffocating under Kate’s big sisterly thumb. When a traditional visit to go see Annie results in Ben seeing Julia’s dark side, he tries his best to be everyone’s best friend while Kate is still blissfully unaware of her sister’s wild ways. The next morning, Julia wakes up on Kate’s couch sleeping next to Larry resulting in Connie and Ben trying to cover up the facts to protect Kate. Julia spins it by saying Larry slept with Connie and hilarity shows up for but a moment when Larry and Connie go head to head in their usual mean manner. Ben acts as the “lecturing father” while Kate plays the role of “overbearing mother” and the sisters make up in the end. Calling this episode a stock sitcom experience doesn’t even capture the predictability of it. HIMYM did this same storyline twice, once with Ted’s sister and once with Robin’s, but at least their storylines and well-roundedness of every character made them interesting. The show is written to create a Dr Jekyll/Mr. Hyde scenario with Larry and Connie as the bitter two and Kate and Ben as the euphorically happy. There needs to be something more otherwise Mad Love will always be sitting in the shadow of their CBS older sibling HIMYM.
Burt’s older brother Bruce, played by J.K. Simmons, showed up Tuesday night on Raising Hope. This second guest star of the week far outshone Brittany Snow’s mild appearance, especially when cousin Mike returns with his wife, and brother husbands. An intriguing game of Hide-n-Go-Seek with the family had Maw-Maw hiding throughout the entire episode, first under blankets, then as a lamp, constantly relocating herself for some interesting background acting. The guest stars piled up in this episode with Howard from Glee, the guy who hit on Abed from Community and some curly haired unknown playing Mike’s brother husbands. All the while, Sabrina has come to visit the craziness that is Jimmy’s family reality and is loving it. Virginia tries really hard to be PC when she invites Mike’s new, ahem, family into the house as she stumbles over serving deviled eggs. Even though the Chance family doesn’t want Mike being pulled into a cult, they would rather have him living in a motor home with four other people than living in Virginia’s girl room where she does her thing like chew nicotine gum and think up schemes to get on Oprah. Unfortunately, Mike’s marriage is a five way intersection, not a two way street, so he has to go through a groin-kicking divorce ritual and then awkwardly sit with them when their battery dies. When Jimmy shows them his wicked Gollum impression, though, he gets to wear the button up shirt and khakis and Virginia takes action to get her son back from the vortex of the motor home. Meanwhile, Burt and Bruce are having a brotherly face off in Bruce’s mattress store. Burt enacts a vicious technique of retribution when he starts to rip off those lawfully bound mattress tags. To get Mike back into the motor home, Sabrina and ex-Dead Tooth help him sing his way back into their hearts after Jimmy learns all about them. When this plan is successful, though, Burt comes home to try and get Mike back with Bruce and calls the cops turning the whole situation into a balloon boy fake out to get Mike back. Since Burt misinterpreted the events of balloon boy, he has to sit in jail for thirty days and Mike gets a second chance with his dad because he is the Second Chance. Every week this show is unbelievable with absolutely no hint of sitcom predictability in sight. The only downside is fans have to try to live off only one new episode a week.
Traffic Light gives its audience another glimpse into the very rich characters’ lives. Ethan’s neighbour has agoraphobia and is the best invisible friend he’s ever had. Phil has always been there for him, but it gets a little in the way with his new girlfriend. Adam wants to see a movie, but Callie wants to save a dog, but when the old woman owner comes and finds Adam holding the dog while Callie is looking for cell phone service, he becomes the hero and gets repaid, old woman kiss style. Mike and Lisa have a very noisy musical neighbour and when Mike goes to lay down the law, he gets sucked into the musical fantasy that is the Grammy award winning music producer’s life. In short, Mike has a man crush. Adam continues to have his heroics recognized with bread while Callie gets insulted by the old lady Magda. The bread, though, seems to be reproducing and when Adam tries to get rid of it, he gets caught and ends up awkwardly imitating Magda’s accent. It gets so Adam-painful. Ethan’s new girlfriend visits Phil with Carl, and Ethan finds himself at a crossroads between meeting this good friend or keeping him the pure invisible phantom that he is. Mike continues to play with their annoying neighbour and when Lisa finally takes matters into her own hands and calls the cops, Mike has to show off his lawyering skills to convince the police the scent they smelled was actually air freshener. Meanwhile, Adam and Callie are plagued by Magda’s special powers until Callie finds her dog again and holds it ransom in exchange for no more judgements and no more messing with their hot water. Ethan finally realizes he’s been taking Phil for granted, and the invisible friendship is fixed.
ABC took a break with most of their shows on Wednesday night and offered in lieu of new episodes two reruns of The Middle and one of Modern Family and I feel the question needs to be asked: what is wrong with Lily? She never smiles, she never moves her face, she never does anything. I’m beginning to wonder if she’s an incredibly impressive animated doll.
Mr. Sunshine gave viewers something new, though, with a visit from The Smurfs. Alonzo’s goodness begins to wear on Alice to the point where she’s afraid to be herself ever since she’s moved in with him. When she tries to talk to him she finds him giving blood in the middle of his homeless clothing drive while learning Spanish. Too good. The Smurfs are on ice and Crystal’s history with them causes a few violent outbursts against the only Smurfette. Turns out her history with them is tied to her poor parenting of Roman who, coincidentally, is living in the candy room at the Sunshine Centre. Ben tries to take care of the large man child who thinks the sun and the moon are married when he asks him to stay over for two days, only two days. Apparently Roman suffers from night terrors, is a budgeting whiz and teaches Ben to have a lot of fun with the games he was supposed to give to his nephew. Alice tries to talk to Ben about the situation, but Ben has his own problems. He’s beginning to care. He cares about Roman. He cares about Crystal. And he even cares about how Alice’s night with Alonzo went. Thankfully, Alonzo reveals a past marital secret, which Alice is ecstatic about because it proves he’s not as perfect as he seems. Crystal creates a Homeless Skate in order to not deal with the situation surrounding The Smurfs. Ben, though, helps her to actually have a true and honest moment when she shares how she used to be a skating Smurf herself, but her pregnancy pushed that dream to the backburner. Allison Janney can do anything, even create an emotional moment in a red leotard while dancing with a blue man. She’s truly unbelievable.
Big Bang is back giving a much stronger episode for fans to watch and rewatch amidst some fairly mediocre plot lines as of late. When Howard does a magic trick, Sheldon thinks it’s a poor use of his time, but also needs to know exactly how it was done. Immediately. Leonard starts to change for Priya, switching from glasses to contacts and buying bags full of new fashions. Penny is fine with Leonard and Priya and shows this extreme sensitivity with the other guys who are not as well equipped as the women to deal with her. Priya is uncomfortable with Leonard hanging out with his ex-girlfriend and when he tries to have the talk with Penny, his use of Darwin’s theory of the finches blows right over her head, but he counts it. Meanwhile, Sheldon’s brain is going to explode with Howard’s magic skills, especially when Penny figures it out. As Leonard and Priya spend some time in his bedroom, Sheldon tries his best to do the card trick under the door which is possibly one of the greatest Sheldon moments this season. When he tries to improve upon Howard’s trick with a “magic wand”, aka a barcode and scanner, Howard still manages to cheat his way past Sheldon’s defences with the help of Penny and Raj. In true Dr. Cooper style, the quest to find the truth of the trick leads to infrared cameras, hacking into a National Defence site and ordering uranium online which all leads the government to tattle on him to his mother. Poor Penny is faced with the reality of losing Leonard after he chooses Priya over her. They really just need to get back together, either that or Sheldon and Penny need to become closer friends because Shenny moments make every episode better.
It was a week of slim pickin’s but the choices were worth it, except for Mad Love. Next week is bringing back some NBC greatness which will push this week back into top form, hopefully.
As for the upcoming departure of Mr. Scott, there’s some cameo news on the horizon:
