By Amy Van Veen (Staff Writer) – Email
With each network this week only bringing one new episode a night, the expectations have been high and the pickins have been slim. CBS borrowed an NBC regular on Monday night. FOX’s light was yellow this week. ABC has a new assistant and Thursday night brought both justice and wedding preparations.
Mad Love goes on a road trip, which seems early in the show for a sitcom staple, but they do bring in a special guest star. The episode starts off with Connie’s love for street cleaning day being revealed because it means all of the idiots who parked on the street get towed; one of those idiots is Ben. Of course. This leads Ben to sell his car to a lady upstate who has never before seen the car which leads Ben and Larry on road trip north. Ben wants Kate to come and Kate wants Connie to come. Although Connie hates road trips and everything fun they stand for, Kate blackmails her into going or staying to deal with the creepy neighbour Clyde. Larry and Ben drive up in Ben’s car while Kate and Connie follow behind. Kate’s prepared with fun bags and, obviously, the car situation gets mixed up to push Connie and Larry together. When Ben lets slip “I love you”, Kate crashes his car and the four of them have to stay in a sleazy motel. Sitcom cliché? Check. Meanwhile, a debate ensues between Larry and Connie about when it’s okay to flirt for favours. Larry flirts with the bartender to get free drinks while Connie flirts with Officer Barrett to get out of a ticket. The best part about this episode? Officer Dennis Barrett is played by 30 Rock’s Dr. Spaceman, but since the writing is less than original, he’ll have to sit in this role of nerdy and ordinary guy who Connie at first doesn’t like but suddenly does when she finds out he likes street cleaning day, too. Which makes Larry jealous: shocker. This show is going nowhere. It’s the same story, the same conversations and the same expected jokes week after week.
Traffic Light builds up to the game of the century to end a bitter rivalry. Ever since the epic ping-pong match of senior year when Mike won the tiebreaker and the championship shirt, Ethan has been waiting for the opportunity to take what is rightfully his. Cut to a day at the pool when Lisa feels the need to teach a certain lap swimming woman a lesson, which then leads to her nearly drowning. Before the lifeguard can get there, paramedic Ethan saves her life and Mike feels obliged to repay him. He, at first, offers him anything: his Al Gore signed football or even his grandfather’s watch that killed a Nazi, but Ethan wants the shirt. Meanwhile, Adam and Callie are dealing with the tornado that is Kate. When they try to have an evening out by themselves, Kate spirals because her husband has changed his status from “married” to “single” and keeps them home. The only solution is to keep her busy by getting her a job and Callie suggests an opening at Bloke where things quickly get complicated when Kate, who is getting serious with Ethan, sleeps with his boss Kevin. While Mike wants a rematch for the shirt, Ethan faces his girlfriend’s man on the side Kevin and a complimentary almost argument begins between two rather charming individuals. The episode ends with the rematch where Mike wins and then chokes on a peanut, then refuses Ethan’s expertise for a while because it means refusing to give back the shirt. All the while Callie, Adam and Lisa bear witness to the event and Callie takes pictures. This show’s quirks are clear and the tone is hilarious in its own subtle way. It only gets better.
Mr. Sunshine hires an assistant and organizes a funeral. Alice wants something, but Ben doesn’t have any money in the budget for her to get an assistant. When she calls him fat and he blames a thyroid problem, he gives her Roman. Crystal wants Rod the PA announcer fired and is furious that her office is dirty. First of all, Rod is played by that guy who is in all of those shows and movies and second of all, the night time cleaning lady died. Apparently Crystal and Nadia the cleaning lady were close friends in Crystal’s own special way. She wants to hold the funeral at the Sunshine Center, but it’s the same day as the rodeo which she leaves up to Ben to deal with. Meanwhile, Heather has kept up with his emails and noticed he got a confusingly emotional message from Alice. Alice, though, has her own problems when Alonzo stays chummy with his supposedly ex-wife. Roman turns out to be an excellent assistant, but quickly succumbs to peer pressure when his roommate asks him to spill the beans on Alice. Crystal’s funeral plans for Nadia include a Russian folk band, one hundred doves and Susan Boyle singing “Uptown Girl”. Alonzo’s not technically divorced and Ben first confides in Bobert/Hurley and then in the bull that got loose after the rodeo men with tranquilizer guns shoot one another. At the funeral Crystal meets Nadia’s family and notices them clad in all of her stolen things which makes her realize that Nadia had been schmoozing her with “vodka and salted cabbage” to get to her things. Nadia’s mother gives Crystal a set of Russian dolls that she plays with for quite some time and eventually give her inspiration for her eulogy which happens to be the best eulogy I have seen depicted on a TV sitcom yet. Everyone eventually works out their problem, but Rod the PA announcer is really fired when he takes off his pants and announces it at the funeral. Too bad Susan Boyle and the doves couldn’t make it.
Sheldon calls 911 on Big Bang Theory to report a robbery: someone hacked into his World of Warcraft account. When the cops will not help him retrieve his imaginary things, the dogs of war unite! Provided Howard’s done with his bath and Raj is done with Pilates. While trying to track down the hacker, Raj almost falls for the Nigerian royalty scam and Sheldon cannot find enough chamomile tea to quell his anger. On the other side of the hall, Penny and her girls Amy and Bernadette take girls’ night in exactly the right direction with the deliciousness that is Kahlua on ice cream. After one bite, Amy becomes funny and shares that humans are hardwired to throw waste at those who need to be ostracized. Sheldon catches sarcasm before Leonard and the girls show attitude to Priya, whose days on BBT are seemingly numbered. When the boys find the hacker, Sheldon appeals to the bullied little boy in everyone and convinces them to take a road trip through traffic to meet the man who stole from him and together they unite! Provided they wait until Raj is done his hip hop aerobics class and Howard’s done celebrating the Sabbath with his mother by watching Wheel of Fortune and showing off her mad skills. When they get to the hacker’s house, Sheldon brings his bat’leth and then feels silly when he realizes “it won’t taste blood tonight”. When the hacker ends up being the bully they all fear and the car runs out of gas, the nerds call their heroine Penny. She then shows them how a Nebraskan finishes a quest and together Shenny rise to the challenge! Well, Penny’s foot rises to the challenge and Sheldon jumps up and down in joy.
Everyone is on wedding duty on Perfect Couples, even Rex has got calligraphy covered. Leigh has a fool proof seating plan that has stickies that are correlated to each guest’s actual size and poor Uncle Herb is the size of a whole table. Amy has a list for Julia and Vance has one for Dave, the trouble is both their lists are completely contradictory and, according to Vance, Dave always succumbs to Julia’s will. Vance also realizes that Amy has invited all of her ex-boyfriends and Vance gets crazy jealous. Since he can’t actually invite any of his own exes, he plans on making a scene. Leigh’s solution is to force Vance into an “ex-boyfriends of Amy golf outing” and they all get along quite swimmingly. Meanwhile, Dave tries to put his foot down with Julia, but the only thing he can still win at is the wedding kick-off drinks. The problem though, is that Dave is a people pleaser and always blames Julia when a disapproval happens, so when he tries to create a Mardi Gras party that becomes a foam party and then a Murder Mystery bash, he’s in over his head and Julia sweeps in at the last moment to save [most] of it. Rex and Leigh have their own little side story when the super organized Leigh finally shows Rex her file of men and his file of women and together destroy them. The party is almost a success until the foam cue is still on – Dave had one phone call to make – and the lights go out. “Bang! Bang! Bang! ‘I’ve been shot!’” Whoops, Murder Mystery.
The goodness that is Bluetooth on Traffic Light:
