Cougar Town: "Something Good Coming"

Season 2, Episodes 21 & 22

How to use a special locale effectively

There is something about episode being set in Hawaii that tends to set off alarm bells in my head. The locale has been used in so many sitcoms of yore – most of the time involving treasure hunting and/or tribal curses – that the plotlines have become tired, mostly because these episodes tend to be about how cool it is to be in Hawaii. Cougar Town luckily avoided all these traps, because unlike say Glee’s season finale, very little about the plot was specific to Hawaii, and some of these plots could have easily taken place back in Florida, though none of it would have looked quite as pretty.

“Something Good Coming” was all about hiding, something that was both literal and metaphorical in tonight’s episode. Travis is hiding from heartbreak, Jules and Grayson are hiding from the baby elephant in the room, and Bobby is trying to hide from his feelings of loneliness. But all of these emotions – just like Abed in the background (!!!) or Tom sneaking around the group in Hawaii – aren’t really hidden; they are just masked by the more overt action that happens to be going on. It’s quite remarkable that a show given the chance to film in Hawaii wouldn’t make the episode about Hawaii itself; instead the island here serves as a metaphor, the pretty mask that these people use to disguise their problems.

The most obvious of these storylines was Travis’, whose escape to Hawaii was the impetus for the group vacation. Sure, Travis’ initial taking off to the island was a bit unmotivated, but considering that the Hawaii setting (and the one hour episode) was ABC’s way of making up to the show for bumping it off the schedule for a few months, and that the transition to the island did little to derail the ongoing narrative, it all worked out in the end. But what was especially great about this storyline is that it managed to give everyone, even Laurie, a reason to go to the island. Laurie often feels like the least connected member of the group (though I guess that distinction now goes to Tom) since she is the newest; but having her be the one to splash the cold water in Travis face in order to get him to come home was a nice touch, and all that preceded most likely filled all those ‘shippers out there with hope.

Yet the far more powerful storyline here was that of Jules and Grayson, a far more nuanced take on the whole “should they have a baby issue” than I thought the show was even capable of. Given how controlling Jules has been in the past, and how stubborn Grayson is about the big issues, it seemed almost inevitable that this argument would end up in a stalemate, and that the two would soon break up. But thankfully the show avoided that manufactured drama, and had the two of them sit down and have an adult conversation, in a scene that was both sweet and moving. We still don’t know how this storyline will play out, but that’s okay, because we can count on it taking us to places that TV normally doesn’t visit and that in and of itself is exciting.

Bobby’s storyline gets the award for most surprising, mostly because I never expect Bobby storylines to be all that good. Bobby seems the most marginalized in terms of character development, as if the show is more interested in using him as a joke machine above all else. I’m not saying that the show doesn’t give him nice moments to play, but they don’t really delve into what makes him tick like they do with other characters. So I was pleasantly surprised with this story, both in the stealth nature in which it was set up, and the deep, hurtful, emotional truth that it unearthed. We often don’t think of Bobby as a lonely guy, both because he has Dog Travis and because he’s so eager to throw himself into other people’s lives, but this reveal makes sense, and it’s one that I hope the show can use this plotline to great effect going forward.

One final note: TED BUCKLAND’S BACK! Scrubs has long been one of my favorite shows, and I was quite excited to see him return here, and I thought the fact that he could make any song – including “Love Shack” – sound like the saddest thing you ever heard to be just a top-notch joke that kept on giving. I am a bit confused as to what this means for the matching of the two’s show’s universes. Alan Sepinwall got an answer from Kevin Biegel, but it still makes my head hurt a bit.

See you back here in November, when Cougar Town moves to Tuesdays at 9/8c.

Quotes, Etc.:

Apologies for the lateness of this post. I was really tired last night and lacked the brain power to complete this review, and then Blogger was acting up all day and wouldn’t let me sign in. It was a whole big mess, and I apologize.

That was co-creator Kevin Biegel as The Seinfeld Guy, in case you were wondering.

This Week in Title Cards: We will never stop mocking the title…

“Nobody who say ‘coolio’ is cool. That’s why Coolio is named Coolio.”

“I don’t believe in ghosts. Because if they were real, I’d like to believe they’d feel me up all the time.”

“Tom is out inter-house shuttle. I pay him in head pats.”

“COCO ROCK!”

“It’s like last Thanksgiving when I decided to make the pumpkin bread, but much better.”

“Yeah, we want to be inside friends.”

“I hope I never pee this out.”

“Well who wouldn’t want to brush their teeth by the ocean?”

“Baby in a suitcase. I love it.”

“No I did not. Hooch is crazy.”