Cougar Town: "Damaged by Love"

Season 2, Episode 19

One Final Stab at Proving the Show’s Quality

During tonight’s broadcast, I ended getting into on Facebook with one of my friends over whether or not Cougar Town is a good show. I know, how cool am? But considering part of his status was “WHY IS THIS SHOW SO BAD THAT EVEN WHILE IT'S MUTED IT MAKES ME CRINGE???” (yes, he used all caps) I felt the need to defend the show, and of course by proxy my cultural tastes. I asked him if has seen the show, he said yes, most of the first season, if only out of loyalty to Bill Lawrence. Hey, I get it; that’s why I stuck with the first season through its middling first third or so. I then posited that maybe those early episodes had ruined the much better back 2/3 of that season (again, I get that), but he didn’t respond to that so I dropped it. Cougar Town is not for everybody, and I learn to accept that.  But still, he used the word “cringe” in regards to this show, so I feel the need to take one last stab here at the blog at proving this show’s quality to anyone who will listen. (This also kind of makes up for my half-ass attempt to do so last week.)

Since dropping the whole “Old Bitches Still Love Sex” angle (thanks, random internet commentators) the show has instead focused on hanging out with this gang, the Cul de Sac Crew (note: moniker is used mostly ironically), which often times means that it takes long, hard looks at the relationship between the characters. And the show did that tonight, while also upending our expectations a bit.

Though after last week’s episode it looked as if we were settling in to watch Travis’ emotional fallout from his breakup with Kirsten, the show took a different approach by viewing this all through the eyes of Jules and Bobby, who are so lost in their inability to cheer him up (because if strippers can’t do it, then you’re pretty much at a loss) that they can’t help but turn to criticizing each other’s parenting skills in order to distract themselves from the fact that they are failing in their promise to help him through his heartache. It was a solid character moment for the two, given even better weight from the delivery by Ken Jenkins.

And can I just take a moment to sing his praises? The show obviously brought him back due to positive reaction to his appearance in the Halloween episode, and while this kind of thing usually bugs me, here I was more than thrilled. Jenkins has this ability to hone in on that rough exterior/warm interior dialectic of the group, and that means he slides into the Cul de Sac Crew with great ease. And though his character on Scrubs was also a father, I think that role works better with his character here, both because we get to see both sides of the father-child relationship, and because his character shows far less contempt for Jules than Dr. Kelso ever did for Harrison.

But aside over. Since Cougar Town often mixes humor and heart, it attempt to avoid falling prey to tone-deafness by using one storyline to carry the majority of the humor, and another to carry a majority of the heart. While Jules and Bobbie carried most of heart, a majority of the humor rested on Ellie and Laurie, perhaps one of my favorite of the show’s pairings. And tonight the humor played out as hilariously as always, even if it ended up harking back to two standards: in-laws and the friend-of-a-friend. With Andy’s family crashing in the Torres household (because once you invite one family member, the floodgates open), Ellie need to have a punching bag to let out the steam from watching Andy’s sister-in-law (Nia Vardalos) hit on him.  But with Jules busy with Travis, she ends up taking out her anger on Laurie, in an action that is nothing knew but takes on a new level of ferocity when Ellie’s hurting. The heart was still here in this storyline, as Ellie lets Laurie know that she does actually consider her a friend, but the focus was mostly on the punch lines, and that’s okay too.

Grayson’s storyline – as often happens when the show feel a need for a third one – rest somewhere between the other two on the heart-humor ratio scale. (The other route that the show often takes is to just turn the C-story into a runner, but that’s a bit more of a hit-or-miss strategy, as runners on this show have to be particularly funny/enjoyable to feel worth the screen time they take up.) It also inhabited a newer territory that the show has been intent on exploring lately, as Grayson’ rollin’ with a toddler (who may or may not have been real) was a surreal bit of storytelling. But it did allow the show to address a recent problem it’s been having, as Grayson’s continuing emasculation for the sake of his relationship with Jules has lately been taken to a bit of an extreme. Plus, it did so in a way that worked for the character, as we all know that Grayson has a soft spot for kids, so it makes sense that he would open up to one like he did.

Granted, it’s still not clear whether this storyline is over or not, as Jules giving into to just one of Grayson’s more childish impulses is just too easy of a solution to a big problem – though there are larger one for them to deal with – but even if it the end, I’m willing to accept that. Part of the packaged deal with comedies (especially those with pathos like Cougar Town) is that sometimes something that seems like it could be a continuing storyline gets dropped once a solution is found. But as long as that story does have a solution, and it helps to serve the characters, well then at least you can’t say that the show isn’t trying. And Cougar Town does that, often and to great effect, while still never failing to make us laugh in the process.

And that Wes, is why you should give Cougar Town another shot.

Quotes, Etc.:

This Week in Title Cards: We Pretend to Call It ‘Wine Time’

Mole people are real you know. They live in sewers and…

“Sweetie, you mom is dead. Plus, there’s boobs everywhere.”

“Your mom had the most beautiful boobs.” “She really did.”

“I like a nice 3 dollar drizzle.”

“I bet I could cram a whole turkey in your mouth.”

“Not as much fun as Destiny, but he does have a feminine frame.”

“And even though I am now jonesing for a Wiener Schnigilitz, whatever the hell those are…”

“Well, look at her. One boob’s great, and the other’s perfect.”

“I even ate a lot of salt, so those porkers are bigger than usual.”