Date Posted: May 9, 2011
By Amy Van Veen (Staff Writer) – Email
Mothers’ Day hit ABC in a big way on Wednesday night, and The Middle lead the pack with a true Heck disaster. Mike and the kids forget about Mothers’ Day, so they frantically try to remember what she’s asked for and then Sue remembers that last Mothers’ day all Frankie wanted was for “everyone to leave her alone!” So that’s exactly what they do for her. Unfortunately, Frankie’s a mom and doesn’t understand the concept of relaxing for an entire day, so what starts as sitting down to read the stolen People magazines from the dentist’s office turns into her looking for her glasses, fixing two broken drawers, finding and fixing the flashlight, finding and paying the unpaid gas bill, defrosting the freezer, fixing the toilet, and blowing the entire day while Mike and the kids come home from the best day out ever. She tries to act brave, but that night she breaks down in front of Mike and his solution is to redo Mothers’ Day. However, when they go back to Brown County, everything that was fun has been shut down because it was “a Mothers’ Day thing.” Poor Frankie. Throughout Frankie’s increasingly disappointing second Mothers’ Day, Sue is trying to find something in the souvenir shop worthy of her thirteen dollars. Poor Sue. Such an embarrassing youth. A failed trip on the Ferris Wheel pushes Frankie to jump and sprain her ankle. In the end, her mom guilt is a little satisfied as she heals on the couch and watches Mike and the kids in the other room; dads, on the other hand, know nothing of the mom-guilt.
Better With You. This show has had a few funny moments and in true sitcom style it has had some relatable qualities for the audience to grasp on to. However, there are certain inconsistencies that make it unrealistic and overdone. For one, Maddie and Ben’s apartment has a guitar and an amp in the corner. Which of these two high strung nerds plays guitar enough to keep it in their apartment? Maddie is a little too psychotic and overacted. Mia has problem areas of her own: no pregnant woman ever looks that good or is ever able to walk in heels. I don’t care what the Star magazines show, real people wear Uggs and slippers out when they’re pregnant. Finally, they start ideas but they are unable to continue them. There was one episode devoted to Casey getting a job as the mascot for Madison Square Garden and this week his job gets one mention. The only thing worth watching is Debra Jo Rupp who is possibly the most versatile mother played on television. From Mrs. Foreman to Phoebe’s brother’s home-ec teacher turned wife, and now to a pantsuit-wearing New York mom, she’s got the mom acting chops. In the best way possible. Happy fake-TV-Mom day!
The Mom Day festivities continue on Modern Family starting with Claire wearing a shirt that “makes her look like she’s been felt up by the creepy guy around the corner” who has “freakishly tiny hands,” when in actuality Haley made it for her when she was in kindergarten. She keeps everything. Gloria celebrates with a diamond necklace from Jay, and then a Froot Loop necklace from Manny, who feels like the lesser gift-giver. To compensate, Jay takes his back because they aren’t real diamonds, and then so does Manny, because they’re not real Froot Loops. They’re generic. And Gloria is left without a gift. Cam gets breakfast in bed, and then he gets incredibly offended because he doesn’t want Mitchell treating him like the mom or his wife, which he does more often than he realizes. Claire and Gloria want to “take a hike,” literally, with the kids while Phil and Jay make dinner, which Phil wants to turn into a musical montage, but Jay isn’t up for it. None of the kids are having a good time, and Gloria tries to shut them up with, “you can’t beach all day because you’re not at the beach all day!” Oh Gloria. Claire’s version of punishment is to leave the kids behind while she and Gloria continue the hike and take in the gorgeous view. While up there, Claire opens up about wanting to hit her kids, and pushes Gloria to share her honesty when it comes to Manny, which Manny overhears, and Gloria backtracks from. Jay and Phil share some honesty, too, when Phil finds an adorable note from Jay to his mom in her recipe: “Recipe for the perfect mom by Jay Francis Pritchett, age nine.” This then forces some eye leakage out of Jay, and some awkwardness out of Phil. Cam is busy dealing with the burden of being an effeminate gentleman typecast in the role of “mom” as he and Mitchell go to a playdate party in the park and he’s coerced into the Mother’s Day photo because, as a fellow mother said, he’s an “honorary mom.” In the end, the family gathers around for a meal, as they tend to do. When Jay’s eyes start leaking again, there are hugs all around, except for Manny and Mitchell. As dysfunctional and messed up as this family is, they know how to share the love at the end of the day and support one another, in their own weird way.
There were a few classic cul-de-sac crew things to come out of Cougar Town’s episode on Wednesday night. First of all, they’re still sticking with their title and subtitle situation (which is a little golden nugget for every superfan). Secondly, Jules gets hit in the face by karma, or rather pushed down the stairs, and holds onto the fact that Cobbs can handle anything, even if that anything makes them look like a pimp with a cane. She then takes a bet that she can in fact survive anything, even the simple living of Bobby’s boat for one weekend. Out for coffee, Ellie feels better making fun of Jellybean when she’s there to hear it, and Laurie is sick of everyone taking advantage of one another. Her solution (and the third classic thing)? The Council. The Council will decide the fate of anyone who takes advantage of another crew member. It starts as a good idea and comes crashing down in the end when everyone blames Laurie for The Council idea and punishes her with the Little Richard wine shooter glass that can’t be refilled until everyone else is ready to refill theirs. Jules somehow pushes through a weekend on Bobby’s boat and ends up fighting a bum for wine and losing, to which Ellie responds, “Didn’t your mom tell you? Bums always win wine fights!” Happy Mom Day. In the midst of all this, Grayson is helping Trav out with one of the biggest decisions of his life: proposing to Kirsten before she moves to Chicago. Grayson is also coerced into not telling Jules to protect both her and Trav. Jules survives the boat, but then she and Grayson see Travis on his knee in front of Kirsten at the beach before she runs away. Grayson and Travis bonded. Jules survived the boat. The Council has been shut down. And wine prevails. Even if it is with Little Richard.
ABC doubled up on their Happy Endings, again. The first episode included gaycism, krav-maga and exes using one another for their own gain. Brad thinks he found a guy for Max named Franklin. The only problem is the only thing Max and Franklin have in common is the fact that they are gay and Brad tries to prove himself as a non-gaycist, but Max proves him to be a man who thinks all gay men are the same when he brings over Miss Mary, a black woman in his building, because he “thinks” Brad and her have a lot in common. Brad is a gaycist. Penny is terrified of living in Chicago (apparently this takes place in Chicago) and she is threatening to move back in with her parents until Jane suggests she takes a self-defence class. She signs up for krav-maga and becomes the “Israeli Angel of Vengeance, Shira.” Unfortunately, she talks Jane into taking the class and gets repeatedly murdered by her, until she takes a jazz-kwon-do class to find her inner Israeli Angel again and ends up defeating Jane with combination jazz moves and Israeli murder tactics. Alex calls Dave in a high-pitched voice which means “either she’s wearing really tight jeans or she has a mouse.” Mouse. Dave is holding off on unpacking at Max’s place because his shower burns him and it’s a gross man-cave of nastiness. When he goes over to Alex’s, he takes baths and relaxes on her clean couch, until she thinks he still has feelings for her and the two of them have a complicated feeling stand-off. He eventually makes Max’s place his place and moves in.
The second episode of Happy Endings used a hypothetical question of the impending zombie apocalypse to jump start the rest of the plot. It turns out to be a very nice move for the writers. Everyone thinks Dave would blend in, because he’s basically a zombie. This makes him want to quit his job and open a new restaurant called Pangaea Grill with a menu that boasts 900 dishes from 125 ethnic cuisines. No one has the guts to confront him and crush his dreams and Alex eventually has to bite the bullet and crush both his personal and professional life in one year. Max and Jane compete to see who would die first and who would survive. Cue many competitions. It’s a close race until the test of ruthlessness proves Jane the ultimate Zombie survivor. Penny, in the midst of this zombie situation, meets a handsome guy on laundry day and her laundry day outfit has him mistaking her for a hipster, so Max needs to give her a crash course in order for her to be like her new beau. There are a few hipster rules: don’t put any effort into anything, only like things ironically, and never show too much enthusiasm, everything is “don’t” and when in doubt, just say, “I’m over it.” Everything is going well until she and the gang try too hard to dress up for a 90s themed Bar Mitzvah and apparently in hipster lingo the difference between costume party and theme party is huge, and Penny dressed up for a costume party. She then dances her way out and everyone stumbles upon Dave and his food truck, which he’ll do part time. Unfortunately, hipsters love food trucks and his is empty, so they all have to make a run for it while Max distracts them. Moral of this episode? Hipsters are the zombie apocalypse, which is proved with overwhelming evidence.
Thursday night starts off right with a new Big Bang Theory. The relatively new use of a girls’ group and a guys’ group is proving to be incredible comic genius as the two merge upon a couples’ night out between Howardette and Liya. (Yes, I just celebrity named fictional un-celebrity couples.) Amy Farrah-Fowler has even become an interesting and humorous character as she dives into her presence in a girls’ group with earnest. The poor girl never had any friends in high school, so she was never a part of the whole clique period of nearly every girl’s adolescence. Her plan? Get Bernadette to spy on Priya and Leonard at their couples’ dinner. Since Bernadette is a good Catholic girl, she’s no good at lying, but Amy helps her out via text. Unfortunately, auto-correct messes up the lie and Bernie gets snappy when she feels caught. While the wildebeest is in the midst of the cheetah’s world (Bernadette is the wildebeest, Priya the cheetah; keep up), Sheldon takes a break from perfecting his three person chess game to observe Raj as he takes a new social anxiety pill in order to talk to a beautiful woman. They head out to a coffee shop and all is going well until Sheldon leaves to buy a scone with his scone money and Raj begins undressing down to his birthday suit while still continuing on in conversation. I was wary when this show gave Sheldon a quasi-girlfriend and I was even more wary when one-time Blossom star wanted to be besties with Penny, but the system of girls and guys with moments of overlap make the show even more wonderful; although, my only wish is to see more of the Shenny relationship that was at the center of so many of my favourite BBT moments.
Next: Greendale is hit by another round of paintball fever, The Office deals with an inner circle problem and more!
