Date Posted: April 18, 2011
By Amy Van Veen (Staff Writer) – Email
Modern Family came back with a hilarious misunderstanding when Phil gets a new realty campaign featuring his family and an awkwardly phrased slogan: “I can’t be satisfied until you’re satisfied. Let me make your dreams come true.” On the one side of the van is Claire standing next to the first part and on the other side of the van is Haley with the last part and while they drive around all day discussing Haley’s choice not to go to college, they are completely clueless as to what it says and why every passing man is honking. Meanwhile, Phil’s voicemail fills up with calls from all sorts of, as Alex puts it, “Johns”. Cam has become Franklin Middle School’s interim music teacher after he coughed on the regular teacher in order to get the job. He plans on making it “focused” by making it “about the world”. Mitchell’s not convinced and neither are the kids, but despite Manny’s pleas, Mitchell remains the supportive partner by avoiding confrontation. Cam’s plans are far too complicated when the show goes on, and everything ends up an epic fail. Jay’s brother Donnie comes to town and their mutually abusive fraternal relationship is thrown into question by Gloria who cannot understand this kind of brotherly love. Although, things do get real when Jay finds out Donnie had cancer and didn’t tell him. The greatest moment, though, is when there’s a glitch in the end of the play when the kids each hold a letter to spell out “We Love the World”. Unfortunately, Luke is stuck in a harness floating from the ceiling and he’s the “L” of “World” and then the Franklin insignia of “F” is lowered in front of “Word”. Fantastic failure.
ABC did something special with their new comedy Happy Endings. Instead of making new fans wait a week for the second episode, they pushed together the pilot and the second episode in one monumental premiere night. From executive producers the Russo brothers, who have already steered shows like Community and Arrested Development into the quirky hearts of intelligent viewers, comes this new comedy about six friends. One reviewer said something along the lines of it’s just like that show Friends, but less white thanks to son of a Wayans, Damon Jr. The pilot episode starts with a wedding between Alex (Elisha Cuthbert) and Dave with all of their friends standing up with them. The wedding is quickly interrupted by a loser on roller blades telling Alex not to marry him leading her to run away from her wedding, breaking Dave’s heart. Brad, who is married to Alex’s older sister Jane, could beat him up since he is black, but Max is the gay and chubby one. Within the first few minutes, this show already has me hooked. Dave assures everyone he’s fine, cut to his epic meltdown. After he tries to get over her with a tramp stamper, his friends are worried he’s giving off a “real Howard Hughes vibe”. Penny, the single lady, is celebrating her thirtieth birthday with an awkward mix of Dave and his high school girlfriend and Alex who has come back shamefully from their honeymoon. Penny is also pretending to be 26 and Jewish after meeting a handsome man on J-Date, unfortunately Brad brings “dirty thirty” balloons and Max is convinced her charming date is gay. Meanwhile, Brad and Jane are on a pre-pregnancy cleanse that is pushing both of them to the brink of destruction leading to Jane, who has been chugging “water” aka vodka all evening, having a rather verbal meltdown of not wanting to be pregnant ever since Alex ruined everything by running out on her wedding. The pilot ends happily, well, almost happily. Alex has apologized and Dave has acknowledged that he has been taking her for granted, but despite appearances, they still hate each other, though they are trying to keep it just between them so as not to ruin the group. There’s hatred. There’s marriage. There’s a desperate white girl. And there’s a sarcastic gay guy. Most importantly, though, there’s little chance of the series being a series of random hook-ups between single friends.
The second episode of Happy Endings pulls fans deeper into the greatness that is the writing, directing and characterization of such a strong cast. Dave re-enters the dating world by attempting a one night stand with a fedora-wearing lame chick who is hot. He gets the nod of approval from guy friends Brad and Max, but his innate good guyness means he can’t break her heart. The poor guy gets sucked into girlfriend quicksand pretty quickly, and the advice he gets from his friends to be a jerk only makes her want him more. The situation gets so dire that he ends up helping her give a eulogy at her grandmother’s funeral, until he decides – at the podium – that he has had enough and dumps her. Turns out, she wanted to dump him, but he was seen as the clingy one. Ex-fiancée Alex is looking for a new roommate, but her older sister Jane is worried since she only sees the good in people, so she holds a potential roommate open house and all the candidates look exactly like her. It’s a little frightening. The one Alex chooses on her own, though, should not have been trusted since she has a website called smokinghotroomies.com and she becomes roommates with attractive women in order to set up webcams in her house. When Brad stumbles across it, with little ability to explain how, Alex beats her roommate up and earns $8000 from the website. Not bad. Meanwhile, Penny is feeling frustrated with Max for being such a straight guy gay husband. Since Max knows many flamboyant gay guys, he finds one to be Penny’s new gay husband, but she starts to worry that the offensively stereotypical gay new friend she’s brought into the group is throwing off their dynamic. Max lets her know why: she is the offensively stereotypical gay guy; she is Max’s gay husband. This show is unbelievable. Two episodes in one night and I’m laughing out loud at both of them. It’s also impressive that after only two episodes I’m connected enough to the characters to have favourites (Max and Penny if you wanted to know).
Community. What can I say? After so many themed episodes I was wondering where the glorious simplicity of Greendale Community College went, but this last week’s episode brought back memories of the good old days. It’s spring semester, and that means spring semester electives. Troy and Britta are taking an acting class, but Troy was waitlisted. Abed is taking a course called “Who Indeed?” looking at who was in fact the boss of Who’s the Boss? Jeff, and by extension Pierce, are taking a wine tasting course called “Intro to Italian Wines” where they meet up with Chang. And the Dean is offering a PA Announcement class for just ten dollars an hour! If UFV offered these kinds of courses, all I would do is take electives. The acting class reveals some truth that Troy finds Britta attractive, and when he makes up a story of his uncle molesting him as a child because he was never broken, we learn that Britta is attracted to the brokenness. The homework they’re assigned is to “drink a glass of cognac in the bathtub”. Jeff and Pierce both find an Asian student attractive, but when Jeff strikes out, Pierce goes in for the kill, or rather, the marriage. He’s engaged to Wu Mei and Jeff cannot believe it, so he does everything he can to find out the truth, eventually stumbling upon the fact that she is a corporate spy for the second largest moist toilette dynasty in Asia after Hawthorne Wipes. Abed wears on his professor’s patience (played by the former music teacher Sandy Ryerson of Glee) because Abed thinks he knows who was the boss. After the teacher calls him on it and tells him to teach the class, Abed empirically proves that Angela Bower was, in fact, the boss disproving Professor Sheffield’s entire life’s work that there is no one boss. Instead of killing himself, he moves on to find out what exactly was happening on What’s Happening? Over in acting, after Troy reveals the truth of his false childhood brokenness, he gets the lead role as Tevye in the all black production of Fiddler on the Roof. Totally called it during the commercial break. Here’s a little taste of what exactly a black production of Fiddler on the Roof includes: “Someone drop an old testament beat! …Dreidels.” Welcome back class Community. Welcome back.
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