I do not like this episode. There, I said it. It’s a poor episode that squanders the excellent work laid down in the first two episodes. It’s an episode that feels contrived and forced far too often, which is very disappointing after two episodes that worked so hard to avoid such pitfalls. We open on Derek and Ivy doing the nasty again, followed swiftly by a scene in which Ivy wrestles with her conscience over whether or not she got the part because she’s sleeping with Derek. One can’t help but wonder why it is she didn’t seem to mind too much when she was writhing around on top of him moments ago. Then we get the awkward Brit-off between Derek and Dev, which I’m sure was supposed to be funny. It then becomes apparent that this episode will revolve around the casting of Joe DiMaggio, in particular Michael Swift, a character who we just don’t care about, and in trying to make us care about this the episode makes an awful lot of missteps.
As soon as the line “He’s doing
that Bruno Mars show” was uttered I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. This show
had so far avoided shoehorning in songs in such a witless fashion, and
unfortunately this isn’t the only offence of this sort in the episode. The
performance of ‘Grenade’ was almost as offensive as it’s silly introduction,
and it really didn’t do much to endear us to Mr. Swift. From Julia’s awkward
reaction to the mere mention of his name it was pretty clear where this episode
was going, and it did indeed transpire that he and Julia had had an affair.
This is another case of drama for the sake of drama that I don’t really see the
point of. To go from the very emotional ending of last week’s episode with
Julia and her family to ‘oh, by the way she had an affair.’ just feels a little
bit lazy frankly. Both characters have moved on and are leading happy lives so
it’s hard to believe that this would all suddenly be stirred up again.
Speaking of unnecessary drama,
Ellis’ ‘This was my idea!’ delusion goes from bad to worse in this episode, as
he steals Julia’s notebook for no discernible reason at all. It’s a very
strange development that really has no bearing on the episode at all so I’m not
entirely sure why it’s in there, though it was at least a surprise to find out
that he is in fact straight. Meanwhile, Karen is kept largely out of the way as
she goes to see her parents and attend a baby shower back home in Iowa. Of the
many plot devices introduced in the pilot I think the one I least needed to see
developed further was that of Karen’s parents, in particular the attempted
strained relationship between Karen and her father that’s actually just a bit
dull. Oh yes, and the baby shower is being held at a karaoke bar. Of course.
Because people do that. Yes, Shoehorned Song Syndrome strikes for the second
time this episode, as Karen belts out ‘Redneck Woman’, the deliberate lyric
fluff doing nothing but making the scene feel even more ridiculous.
Hahaha! Wow that joke just does not get old!
Even Anjelica Huston’s up until
now thoroughly fabulous Eileen just feels lazily written this week, as she is
forced to repeat the not-even-funny-last-week Manhattan to the face gag not
once but twice. Why is it exactly that she and her estranged husband always seem
to end up in the same restaurants? It is unfortunately not until the very end
that we get our first and only original song of the week, but it’s another
cracking one. ‘Mr. and Mrs. Smith’ is just beautiful, and while it’s not
exactly a subtle way of tying up the characters plotlines, and their varying
degrees of marriage, it is nevertheless a great song, and does a lot more to
make Michael Swift likable than ‘Grenade’ managed. It’s not quite enough to
save the episode completely, but it did more than enough to remind me of what
it is I loved about the first two episodes.
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