Season 3, Episode 6
At the point, we all know the notes that Cougar Town is going to hit. It's going to give us some nice, weird humor for the first twenty minutes, then some pathos in the back two, and we'll all leave the show smiling and happy. Adherence to a formula for too long a time can break a show, but this particular formula is one that Bill Lawrence has had success with for many years, if you count all the way back to 2001 with Scrubs, and it's one that's still working today. This is formula that has an incredibly long shelf-life, assuming you know how to utilize properly and aren't afraid to adjust the humor/pathos ratio from week-to-week. So until the day comes when that formula breaks down and the episodes start to feel route and calculated, it will be up to us to discuss how the show uses the formula each week in order to deliver some stellar episode like this one.
The pathos ratio was much bigger here than it's been for most of the show's run, and not just because there's a baby involved. No, the real power of the episode came from the fact that it was willing to dig deep into the show's continuity (okay, deep for a show that's usually so purposefully plotless) in order to bring up two affecting stories.
So, about that baby. As you may recall, Grayson has wanted a kid for a long time, and it was a major sticking point in their relationship last season, one that the show sort of sidestepped in the finale with Jules sort of admitting that she may have kid with Grayson. It was the sort of halfway solution to a problem the show didn't really know how to solve just yet, and then just left hanging for the first five episodes this season.
Though if the handling of that plot prior to this hasn't been entirely up to par (regardless of the stall tactics, the show was very good at showing the standoff between Jules and Grayson over the issue), this episode found a great way to finish it all up. Was giving Grayson a child with some other woman a bit of a cop-out? Yeah, but it was a cop-out that led to some interesting places. While Jule's reaction to Grayson having a baby was a standard sort of freakout that worked all right as these things go, the real power here was seeing Grayson painfully give up something that he wanted (time with his daughter) in order to make Jules happy. That may have made her look like a terrible person for a little while (and that was the point), but her coming around and accepting this new daughter figure into her life was a sweet moment, and perhaps the best workaround solution to this plot the show could have come up with.
If we're being honest, I was much more interested in the Travis/Laurie subplot, which returned to that weird stealth romance between the two characters that's always been interesting to me. While their relationship was originally defined my Travis' crush on Laurie, somewhere in the second season that shifted towards a more equitable and reciprocal situation, though one that the show was afraid to legitimize lest the audience turn on it for being too creepy. But the show has swerved into that possible reaction quite nicely, teasing us with something that we may not want, and using it as a way to wear us down to the point where we say, yeah, I can probably get with that. (Besides, in a world where there are shippers for Jeff Winger and Annie Edison, is a Travis/Laurie relationship really that awful by comparison?)
There was a third plot tonight, which had nothing to do with any ongoing plot (aside from a brief appearance by Sarah Chalke as Angie), and was probably the least satisfying based on how light it was in comparison to the other two plots. While I always like Christa Miller playing mean, caustic characters because she's funny that way, I've never been as big as a fan of the times those characters are humanized because A) it's the most predictable move of pathos in Bill Lawrence's repertoire and B)I just like thinking of Ellie as being caustic all the time, even if it flies in the face of the show's logic. That being said, this was one of the more enjoyable iterations of that plot because it allowed Bobby in on the action, it ended up being more about Ellie herself than about how she loves somebody else, and it gave us that great runner about how nobody wanted Andy around.
Although now that I think about that, that was probably a meta gag about Andy's diminished role on the show. Somebody should fix that.
Quotes and Other Thoughts:
This Week In Title Cards: “You know what would be cooler than this title and bit? A new title.”
I would totally watch Everybody Loves Graymond.
“Holly, this is my fiancée, Jules, and her scary judgmental friend.”
So, about that baby. As you may recall, Grayson has wanted a kid for a long time, and it was a major sticking point in their relationship last season, one that the show sort of sidestepped in the finale with Jules sort of admitting that she may have kid with Grayson. It was the sort of halfway solution to a problem the show didn't really know how to solve just yet, and then just left hanging for the first five episodes this season.
Though if the handling of that plot prior to this hasn't been entirely up to par (regardless of the stall tactics, the show was very good at showing the standoff between Jules and Grayson over the issue), this episode found a great way to finish it all up. Was giving Grayson a child with some other woman a bit of a cop-out? Yeah, but it was a cop-out that led to some interesting places. While Jule's reaction to Grayson having a baby was a standard sort of freakout that worked all right as these things go, the real power here was seeing Grayson painfully give up something that he wanted (time with his daughter) in order to make Jules happy. That may have made her look like a terrible person for a little while (and that was the point), but her coming around and accepting this new daughter figure into her life was a sweet moment, and perhaps the best workaround solution to this plot the show could have come up with.
If we're being honest, I was much more interested in the Travis/Laurie subplot, which returned to that weird stealth romance between the two characters that's always been interesting to me. While their relationship was originally defined my Travis' crush on Laurie, somewhere in the second season that shifted towards a more equitable and reciprocal situation, though one that the show was afraid to legitimize lest the audience turn on it for being too creepy. But the show has swerved into that possible reaction quite nicely, teasing us with something that we may not want, and using it as a way to wear us down to the point where we say, yeah, I can probably get with that. (Besides, in a world where there are shippers for Jeff Winger and Annie Edison, is a Travis/Laurie relationship really that awful by comparison?)
There was a third plot tonight, which had nothing to do with any ongoing plot (aside from a brief appearance by Sarah Chalke as Angie), and was probably the least satisfying based on how light it was in comparison to the other two plots. While I always like Christa Miller playing mean, caustic characters because she's funny that way, I've never been as big as a fan of the times those characters are humanized because A) it's the most predictable move of pathos in Bill Lawrence's repertoire and B)I just like thinking of Ellie as being caustic all the time, even if it flies in the face of the show's logic. That being said, this was one of the more enjoyable iterations of that plot because it allowed Bobby in on the action, it ended up being more about Ellie herself than about how she loves somebody else, and it gave us that great runner about how nobody wanted Andy around.
Although now that I think about that, that was probably a meta gag about Andy's diminished role on the show. Somebody should fix that.
Quotes and Other Thoughts:
This Week In Title Cards: “You know what would be cooler than this title and bit? A new title.”
I would totally watch Everybody Loves Graymond.
“Holly, this is my fiancée, Jules, and her scary judgmental friend.”
“Yeah she gave me treats...and made me brownies.”
“I love me some counseling – I'm good at it!”
“Awww, you guys are making me miss my husband...He killed himself.”
“So what brings you to the phallus palace?” “That would make such a good name for a gay bar.” “Than we shall find a new house name!”
“That makes even less sense than non-alcoholic beer. Or soccer.”
“I don't think that baby's his. Have you seen how tight his jeans are? I think he's firing blanks.”
“Your fridge is full of nothing but beer and churros.” “Yeah, I just went shopping.”
“There's no dude-on-dude dancing in Wang Town.”
“The head nurse would only give it to me if I beat her at arm wrestling, so I had to steal it.”
“Two summers of pre-teen dance camp with my moms. What up?”
“Sitting there, all depressed, you look so beautiful. Why don't we go upstairs and make a baby that's even better than my other baby?”
“All you non-helmets think it's so easy.”
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