Taters Are For Laters

I’m working on NBC’s Thursday night line up. In the meantime please enjoy this Cougar Town/New Girl/Modern Family recap.

Spoilers...

Cougar Town – “Down South” (B)

Is it just me or did this episode strain its credibility by having the Cul-De-Sac crew run out of wine in the middle of a hurricane. From what I know about Jules and the gang, there’s absolutely no way they would ever let that happen. It’s ironic, because my beef with “Down South” is a direct result of the fantastic character work that came before it, but oddly enough I actually found that it played a factor in my enjoyment of the episode. Totally fine with Tom spending an entire hurricane outside of Jules’ window, but this group of friends running out of wine – grab a pitchfork, we’re storming the Cougar Town offices.

That was a pretty specific example (though I stand by it) but there did seem to be something off about this week’s episode. I think I would have actually preferred it if the writers went for a full out bottle episode rather than having the gang jump from location to location. The cast tend to be at their best when they function as one large group and the constant movement made the episode feel a little disjointed.

I had my issues with the Laurie/Travis storyline this week too. Laurie knows that Trav likes her, so it was odd that she was so oblivious to that fact in this episode. You could argue she was distracted by the break up, but when you have Trav playing Wade’s surrogate I have a hard time believing she would be that clueless. If this is the start of a much larger arc I welcome those two as a couple, but it still feels like they were mishandled a bit here.

I did still like some of their chats though, and while “Down South” may not have been as sharp an episode as Cougar Town in known for, it wasn’t without a few good laughs. I thought Grayson’s search for a new catch phrase was probably the best running bit of the night. I love that the writers have started exploring Grayson’s reasons for owning the bar and his 90s cool guy catch phrase was a great play on that theme. The ending tag between he and Ellie was hilarious – “I used to be so warm”... classic.

My favourite lines:

JULES: I love hurricanes. They’re like adult snow days. You know, you don’t have to go to work, you drink and play games.
GRAYSON: So it’s like every day for us.
JULES: But with wind...

BOBBY: I feel like I’m cheating on Andy.
TRAV: I’m your son, so it’s fine.

ELLIE: I’m only an okay storm, I’m not a perfect storm.

ELLIE: You just ate your hoodie string.

GRAYSON: You know how people say, “hey, you want to come with us?” I was the guy who dropped the “us” part. “Hey, you want to come with?”

And line of the night:

TRAV: You can’t take explosions so personally. You know, sometimes they’re just explosions.

New Girl  – “See Ya” (B)

I expected more from this one, I really did. There was a lot to like in this episode, but for a finale I was disappointed. The last episode of the season, at least in my opinion, should feel like an amalgamation of everything that came before it and for a comedy it should be able to generate a lot of its humour just from that. But too often in this episode the writing staff looked unprepared, inventing storylines or half hearted setups to give it that finale feel rather than going with something that felt organic.

Schmidt and Cece’s sudden break up was a perfect example. Everything before this episode suggested the two of them were happy with each other. I understand the concept of a reversal, but after two weeks of showing these two head over heels for each other apparently all it took to break them up was a short visit to a photo shoot and one side of a text message. Schmidt had visited Cece on set before. He’s always known she was a model, this isn’t foreign territory for him. And because of that his sudden surge of jealousy just struck really false to me. The White Fang reference was funny, but it could have been a lot funnier if it didn’t feel like a poorly executed excuse to drum up some finale drama.

From a story perspective that was probably the worst offender but there were more than a few setups I had to role my eyes at too. Winston’s sudden fear of the dark was ridiculous. And I thought Nick deciding to go search for the keys right before his run in with the coyote was more about that bit than an actual change in the mindset of his character. Also isn’t New Girl set in Chicago? Forgive my geography here, but what desert were they in?

It was hard to deny the charm of their little camp out though, and I did enjoy watching them reminisce to the sound of Nick’s 90s mixtapes (sadly I think all of those songs are currently on my iPod). If this episode had one saving grace I’d say it was probably in some of the more collaborative group scenes. It’s hard to deny the chemistry of this cast when they’re thrown into these big scenes with each other.

I also quite liked the way they capped off the episode, which counter to my earlier criticisms is exactly the sort of thing I like to see in a finale. Nick’s AC/DC return was a fantastic sequence – it didn’t go for too much, in fact it was entirely free of dialogue, and yet it felt entirely earned. A perfect no frills celebration of the season that was. It’s a pity the entire episode couldn’t live up to those last few minutes, but I’ll take what I can get.

To the quotes!

JESS: You think just cause he’s a snappy dresser the mice don’t see the hammer?

SCHMIDT: What the hell war is this?

NICK: I took my fair share of rubber bands so I don’t want to hear about it.

And line of the night:

JESS: Wow, look how pronounced Nick’s couch hole got. All this time I thought he was just sitting here drinking beer and complaining... he was making something.

Modern Family – “Disneyland” (B+)

I quite liked the Disneyland setting in this one. Not because I have any great affinity towards that particular amusement park or even amusement parks in general, I just thought structurally it gave us the best of both worlds – it allowed for some great group scenes while still leaving the writing staff room for a variety of different characters pairings. Not every storyline was a hit, but there were enough of them that if you didn’t like one, another would be around soon enough.

My personal favourite was Lilly’s leash. The number of great one liners that came out of that premise was incredible and I especially loved how immediately ashamed of himself Mitchell was as soon as the leash went on. But I was also partial to Manny’s stock project. Having been given a similar project in high school I completely understand the corrupting influence fake money has on a man.

Of course Phil and Luke had a pretty good week as well, and while I wasn’t as enthused about Claire setting up Haley with the kind of guy she’d like her to date, I am happy that Dylan is back (I loved watching Phil’s reaction to the news – it was subtle but his reaction was priceless). On the other hand, I could have done without Gloria and the shoes. It did end up leading to a nice ending for Lilly’s leash storyline, but something seemed off to me the way Jay attributed a lot of Gloria’s anger simply to the fact that she wears uncomfortable shoes all the time.

The big danger in an episode with this many storylines though is that it can tend to lose its cohesiveness which is where I thought Jay’s Abraham Lincoln story came in handy. Admittedly, I spent most of “Disneyland” wondering why he was telling the story at all (though on repeat viewing I figured I probably should have seen where it was going) but all in all it provided a nice throughline for the episode and produced a much better ending than the sum of those smaller storylines ever could on their own. Say what you want about the content of Jay’s final aside to the camera, but I thought for the most part the writers did a good job.

Alright, now for my favourite lines:

MITCHELL: Okay we just got a glare from Mr. Socks With Sandals.

LILLY: Chip and Dale!
CAM: Oh great now she’s chasing squirrels. (Technically chipmunks. I’m sorry if that seems arbitrary to you but I take my Rescue Rangers pretty seriously.)

MANNY: Ruben, if you heard about that stock at a birthday party it’s already too late.

GLORIA: Fake money has changed you.

CLAIRE: Oh my goodness, you are burning up. You might have the flu.
PHIL: A bunch of guys at work have the flu and we all drink orange juice out of the same carton. We should get cups...

And line of the night:

MITCHELL: Okay, it’s Toontown not Toonton. You’ve been watching too much PBS. (Man, I love Downton Abbey.)