Season 2, Episode 20
“Regular schmoes like us need to be nice.”
Many times on this blog, I have railed against shows – usually comedies – for relying on tired and/or clichéd plots, things that you've seen a million times, and know where the story is headed. However, I make exceptions to this rule when a show is able to use a cliché in a new or meaningful way, or to subvert the tropes original usage. “Big White Lies”, an episode whose title gives away the trope in question, manages to do just that, and it's becomes a fairly enjoyable episode because of it.
At some point in your academic career, your English teacher probably made you learn about archetypes, those narrative elements that are sort of like clichés, but not really, since archetypes are more adaptable to a variety of situations, and thus their iterations can vary much more from each other than they can with clichés. (Tropes are a slightly different matter, because while they are related to clichés , they are mostly highly specific elements, and while they can be easily adapted, their much easier to hide if the storytelling around them is good enough.)
The “out of control” lie is an obvious sitcom cliché, but Happy Endings was some how able to mine it like it was an archetype. Part of this comes from the Three's Company references that were dropped within an episode (TC being notorious for using general misunderstanding to drive just about every episode's plot), but to give it all the credit would be wrong. Many comedies have tried to use the “we're commenting on this trite setup while also using it” excuse over the years, a move which tends to range from creeping in just a few winking lines (I'm looking at you, Scrubs clip show), to actually subverting the tropes and mining real comedy from the subversion, not the cliché.
It's the shows that fall to the latter side of the spectrum that tend to be more successful, and “Big White Lies” was one of the them, though not necessarily for the subversion aspect. Instead, the show used this cliché to tel us something about the group. There pathological inability to lie, out of a supposed sense of humanity, but actually egged on by a sociopathic sense of misanthropy, harks back to the darker center of the group that we saw in “Everybody Loves Grant”, and I was happy to see the show return to this idea of damaged and socially harmful people. Of course it helped that Mary Elizabeth Ellis played her character just intense enough to be slightly off-putting and thus a believable excuse for the group to lie, but reigned in enough that it was clearly the group who was in the wrong for lying to her.
Of course it also helped that the show was on fire tonight comedically, what with the running subplot of Max's trashcan/stove combo (he calls it a “trove”), Alex's Ellen get up, Brad being excited about tiny baby clothes, and pretty much every over the top thing Penny did to keep the lie alive. Even better, the show managed to find a way to weave this A-lot with the B-plot about Max and Dave's landlord (Ben Falcone), which gave the episode the chance to cite Three's Company with so much ease. Sure, it showed off that perhaps the B-plot didn't have enough legs to go the whole episode on it's own, but considering how well everything turned out, that's just a minor quibble.
Quotes and Other Thoughts:
“Oh, I get it. I was supposed to say 'African-American dock'.”
“So little that the mice are like 'What's up, it's small in here,yo.'”
“The only people who can get away with being mean are rock stars and brain surgeons and Mr. Phil.” “It's Dr. Phil.” “It's only a PhD people, let's calm down.”
“I'm super gay.” “You better be. I don't know why I care so much, but I do. I DO!”
“You can barely see my baby in her.”
The “out of control” lie is an obvious sitcom cliché, but Happy Endings was some how able to mine it like it was an archetype. Part of this comes from the Three's Company references that were dropped within an episode (TC being notorious for using general misunderstanding to drive just about every episode's plot), but to give it all the credit would be wrong. Many comedies have tried to use the “we're commenting on this trite setup while also using it” excuse over the years, a move which tends to range from creeping in just a few winking lines (I'm looking at you, Scrubs clip show), to actually subverting the tropes and mining real comedy from the subversion, not the cliché.
It's the shows that fall to the latter side of the spectrum that tend to be more successful, and “Big White Lies” was one of the them, though not necessarily for the subversion aspect. Instead, the show used this cliché to tel us something about the group. There pathological inability to lie, out of a supposed sense of humanity, but actually egged on by a sociopathic sense of misanthropy, harks back to the darker center of the group that we saw in “Everybody Loves Grant”, and I was happy to see the show return to this idea of damaged and socially harmful people. Of course it helped that Mary Elizabeth Ellis played her character just intense enough to be slightly off-putting and thus a believable excuse for the group to lie, but reigned in enough that it was clearly the group who was in the wrong for lying to her.
Of course it also helped that the show was on fire tonight comedically, what with the running subplot of Max's trashcan/stove combo (he calls it a “trove”), Alex's Ellen get up, Brad being excited about tiny baby clothes, and pretty much every over the top thing Penny did to keep the lie alive. Even better, the show managed to find a way to weave this A-lot with the B-plot about Max and Dave's landlord (Ben Falcone), which gave the episode the chance to cite Three's Company with so much ease. Sure, it showed off that perhaps the B-plot didn't have enough legs to go the whole episode on it's own, but considering how well everything turned out, that's just a minor quibble.
Quotes and Other Thoughts:
“Oh, I get it. I was supposed to say 'African-American dock'.”
“So little that the mice are like 'What's up, it's small in here,yo.'”
“The only people who can get away with being mean are rock stars and brain surgeons and Mr. Phil.” “It's Dr. Phil.” “It's only a PhD people, let's calm down.”
“I'm super gay.” “You better be. I don't know why I care so much, but I do. I DO!”
“You can barely see my baby in her.”
“Serbian tradition. We always do things early, in case we have to pack up and murder a populace.”
“You're the only one childlike enough to believe it will work.” “I know, I love that about me.”
“Alex, it's a baby shower, not a bachelorette party.” “Right, right, so what kind of penis stuff should I get?”
“What's so bad about her?” “Well, it's hard to say really. She's sweet, and she's nice...” “Ugh, enough already.”
“Alex loves guys that shows up at baby showers uninvited.”
“Hey, Top Gun.”
“Why does a baby need a suit? He doesn't have a job. He's not fooling anybody, he's a baby!”
“Unfortunately, he'll also be living on a train, which would make it really hard to do all the cocaine, what with all the bumping.”
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