Sunday, January 27, 2013

The Funny Stuff: All the rest(1/13-1/23)



Ok, here’s a bunch of episodes I didn’t catch in my previous write-ups!  This is MASSIVE, since I am a lazy slacker.  Sorry about that!

Happy Endings-Sunday(1/13)

Ok, apparently, this episode was meant to play last season, but was shelved for one reason or another.
Anyway, we open on a slo-mo kickball game, with most of our group shown watching some sort of play in amazement…72 hours earlier, though…

Alex lets everyone know she signed her store, and by extension, them, up for the north side kickball tournament.  Everyone is kind of…apathetic, but with a series of bribes, she gets everyone to play besides Jane.  They get a random guy named Scotty to play, and get pumped up to play kickball.

That is, until Penny and Alex find Jane getting her uniform from the rival team, which brings up some harsh childhood memories for Alex.  She remembers the time Jane stole her spotlight away at a kid’s show, when Alex was called to the stage, but Jane pushed her away and stole it.  Alex gets even more pumped to beat Jane’s new team, as we make our way to the tournament.

Unfortunately, Team Xela(pronounced Shayla), does not get off to a hot start.  They are down 3-0 and only have 3 outs left, and Dave is set to kick.  And considering he has the yips from hitting Penny last year, things do not look good.  He heads to the plate, and misses miserably.  It’s a good thing they still had two outs, and so Alex, Max, Penny and Scotty bring it home, and they win their first game, and the next two go pretty swimmingly as well.

Then, they face Jane’s team in the semi-finals.  Jane is predictably fierce, but Alex has a trick up her sleeve: a Chicago Bear goes to Brad’s gym, and he is taking Dave’s spot.  Dave is not nearly as angry as one would expect, and they get right to the game.  Once they get to the last out, Alex is up, and Jane is pitching.  Jane pulls a dirty trick, and has the kid’s show shirt on under her uniform, and completely distracts Alex as Jane throws the ball, hitting Alex in the feet, and causing an easy out.  Team Xela lost, and is super sad.

It’s a good thing, then, that Jane saw her team’s cheating ways(steel in the boots) and turned them in, getting her team disqualified.  Her friends gladly take her back, and Team Xela makes their way to the final…where they find themselves in the same position they were in in the first game, down by three, and one out left.

Max accidentally takes out Scotty, and their only recourse is the yipper Dave, who gladly takes on the challenge.  He focuses, and manages to kick the ball!...right into Penny’s face.  Again.  The other team catches the ball, and Team Xela loses.  But they get the moral victory with Dave getting over his yips, yay!

This was a fun episode, and really funny, too.  You could tell it was from season two, as the jokes were rapid fire and great, and the group didn’t split into four different groups. 

I got so many funny lines, it’s ridiculous:

Brad, on discovering a favorite store closed: “Wait, they closed All Dogs Go To Evan’s…Bakery?”
Brad, when Dave is extolling his eye black: “Melanin, baby.  It’s what makes me brown.”
Brad, in reminding Dave of his yippy nature: “Remember when you forgot the words to Gangsta’s Paradise? To this day, you can’t perform a eulogy.”
Jane, when called on her dependability: “When I send $25, I expect a letter, Adolpho.”
Brad, observing Jane on the other team: “I’m gonna hate her like five times tonight”
Max, giving his team a pep talk near the end of the first game: “Well, we had a good run.  Actually, we had no runs.”
 
Happy Endings-Tuesday(1/15)

And we’re back to season three!

Jane and Brad are having fun with exes.  They have a deal where if an ex comes into town, they can have one dinner with that person, and the SO can come if they want, or not.  Jane’s ex is coming to town, and Brad has opted to not go with.  That is, until he finds out ‘Ryan’ is a girl.  Then he is all about being there, if only for the threesome possibilities.  Jane immediately puts the nix on that, and all three get right into dinner.   They tell boring stories until Ryan lets it drop that they said they love each other.  Brad freaks out just a tiny bit, and makes a huge show of how he and Jane love each other now.  Jane calls him on his childishness as Ryan leaves in a huff.  They makes plans for dinner the next night, but Brad is still being a child, and he invites one of his exes over, under the pretense of business school reunion.  It seems that this deal they have is a new thing, because when Brad’s ex tells Jane she has nothing to worry about, her and Brad’s relationship was purely physical, Jane silently flips out.

Jane decides she needs to make Brad jealous, and she starts being all suggestive with Ryan, and so Brad reciprocates with his ex.  The exes decide that enough is enough, and head to the porch while Brad and Jane suss out their issues, which they do, once they notice the exes making out on the porch, because of course.  

Max, Dave, and Alex are have roommate issues.  Specifically, Max’s new roommate, who is super cool, and super missing.  And super Mark Paul Gosseler.  They dig through his stuff and figure out that his credit card was last used at a fancy restaurant downtown, and they go to confront the person they think stole his card.  Turns out, though, that the roomie is using the apartment as a sex shack , and he was taking his WIFE out to a nice dinner, where the threesome confront him.  The roomie’s wife was NOT aware of this newest sex shack, and is leaving him effective yesterday.  The (former) roomie is very pissed, especially considering his job was through his wife’s dad.  Whoops.

Lastly, Penny is hanging out with Pete’s super boring friends, who have boring discussions about the debt ceiling, and don’t lead messed up lives with crazy antics, so clearly, Penny needs to get away from them ASAP.  She leads Pete first through Jane and Dave’s story, only to be dumped into Alex, Max and Dave’s story.  In the end, Penny promises to hang out with Pete’s friends too(when hers are busy, of course).

This episode was a lot meta for me.  Sometimes that is funny, but this just did not hit for me.  I think the meta wasn’t big enough, not a huge a nod to the audience as it needed to be.  It was more, ‘gosh, we so cray-cray, isn’t that funny?’  Which, not so much.

I did get one funny line for you:

Max, when Dave keeps bringing up a past missing roomie incident: “Ok, a real gentleman saves someone from a well and never mentions it again!”

How I Met Your Mother(1/14)

Previously on HIMYM, Barney and Robin got engaged in an hour long slog that I didn’t recap, but the only relevant part was that Barney had a four-episode long plot to make his proposal plan come to fruition.

So Barney and Robin are fully engaged now, Barney’s panic attacks are getting less and less frequent!  But it turns out he didn’t ask permission of Robin’s scary scary dad, so they have lunch with him at an Italian place, since he’s moved to New York.  And then, he comes in in a Hawaiian shirt.  Barney doesn’t make a good impression, and Robin’s dad says no. 

Barney goes back the next day, intent on making a good impression, and Robin’s dad tells the story of how he killed a bear for Robin’s mother.  “It’s called manners.”  Meanwhile, Robin finally accepts her father’s Facebook friend request, and learns some surprising news: daddy’s married!  She goes to Barney’s apartment, where her father is trying to get Barney to kill a rabbit as tribute, but Barney can’t.  Robin storms in, and tells her dad that if he can’t keep her involved in his life, then she doesn’t need to involve him in her life decisions.

Later, they meet one more time with Robin’s dad, and he apologizes, and agrees to the wedding, and a dance with Robin.  It was cute.  Cut to four months later, and Ted is on a train talking to Rachel Bilson, who mentions that her former roommate’s band had a gig for that weekend, but it fell through, which was perfect, since the other wedding band dropped out at the last minute.  And that’s how Ted met the mother! Finally!

In other news, Ted and Lily are battling over planning Robin’s wedding.  It’s kind of super lame, until they get to the real reason they are fighting over band versus DJ: Ted doesn’t think Robin and Barney should be together.  Lily gives him an out though, and says sometimes she just wants to run away, and stop being a mother.  They hug it out, and Ted feels better about having those two get married.  Oh, and Marvin is constipated, but he finally lets out his stream of ‘confetti’ all over Marshal.

This was such a filler episode.  They keep on teasing the mother, but I doubt we’ll ever actually meet her this point, it’s pretty much ridiculous.

There was one funny line, though:

Ted, regarding Robin’s dad: “A little?  Dude’s a stone cold Slytherin.”

How I Met Your Mother(1/21)

OMG, this was such a creepy episode, appended with a recycled plot from Scrubs.

So Ted has a new girlfriend, and she is much younger.  As in, can’t go into the bar younger.  Ted does all the hipster stuff she wants to do, like rollerskate around, and eat weird combo foods, but he realizes that a)she’s only into him because he’s old, and b)they have nothing in common.  Then comes Barney to the rescue, telling Ted he needs to stay with this girl, and ‘proxy bang’ her for him, and EWWW.  And this doesn’t even take into account the third act reveal.  Ted and this girl have nothing in common, but Ted gets with her for Barney.  Ted finally gets a picture of her and dun dun DUN!  It’s Barney’s half sister, and now Barney is skeeved out, and insists Ted marries her.  But on the bright side, Barney’s over his need for one-night stands, so his wedding can go on!  Woo-hoo?

In other news, Robin is invisible cause she has a engagement ring, a plot that was done much better on Scrubs.  Robin realizes that the ring symbolizes how Barney and her only have eyes for one another.  Like I said, kinda lame and stolen from Scrubs.

Lastly, Marshal got a leather cuff, which hardcore turns Lily on, but he’s allergic to it.  He’s willing, though, to suffer the pain if he gets some.  The end.

Such a skeevy episode.  They really need to not so much talk about ‘banging’ all the time, especially in the context it was given.  I did get one funny line, though:

Barney and a random barfly, after Ted talks about how he changed to get a younger woman: “Yeah, pretending to be someone else to get laid is embarrassing!”  *bow* “Your highness!”

Raising Hope(1/15)

So, Jimmy, Sabrina, Burt and Mawmaw are watching a ring commercial, and Sabrina comments how she thinks the diamond industry is a bunch of hooey, that they cause a Pavlovian response in women to need a ring, but she’s above that.  When she leaves the room, Burt tells Jimmy she’s not being truthfull, and he should get Sabrina a ring ASAP. 

Jimmy tries to come up with a plan, most of with involve medical testing, and he get right on that, first getting electroshock, then taking anti-seizure meds for the seizures he’s getting due to another set of pills. He finally has enough money to get a ring, so he goes to the pawn shop where…

Virginia had been pawning her ring to have a bit of extra cash until payday.  There is a whole lot of back and forth with the ring, and Jimmy trying to buy it, and Virginia trying to get it back, but it is super convoluted, and hard to explain, but it ends with Virginia telling Sabrina the importance of her ring, and causing Sabrina to want one.  After all the back and forth, Virginia gives her ring to Jimmy to have as a family ring, so he uses that for the engagement ring, and it’s super cute.

This was a nice episode, with lots of laughs and a ridiculously convoluted plot that was fun to track.

I did get a few funny lines:

Maw Maw, on the virtues of a ring: “Of course [Burt’s] right…a nice diamond ring gives you something pretty to focus on when your fat sweaty husband’s is wheezing on top of you like a dying walrus!
 Maw Maw, on Jimmy’s plan to get money: “Nothing says romance like buying your fiancĂ© a ring with money you earned by knocking up dozens of lesbians.”
The pawn shop owner, in trying to get Jimmy to understand who pawned the ring: “You couldn’t get it out of me if you dragged me all the way to VIRGINIA!  Not a CHANCE!”

Raising Hope(1/22)

Hee, this was a huge shoutout to the Hangover, and it was pretty fantastic.

Jimmy and Sabrina are discussing their bachelor and bachelorette parties, and Sabrina tries to get him to have a crazy night too, but he doesn’t want to, since every time he gets wild, something bad happens, like having sex with a serial killer.

Burt and Virginia are also discussing the parties, and Burt is very sad that Jimmy doesn’t want anything fun.
Cut to the parties, and Sabrina’s is fun, with bananas and fake stripper, but Jimmy’s is as boring as expected, though Frank decided to get a videographer(Darnell!!!) for unexplained reasons.  Jimmy puts his hand in front of the camera, calling them off since nothing was happening anyway, and we cut to…

16 hours later, and everyone wakes up in disoriented in Howdy’s in a wedding dress.  The TV says press play, and Frank shows up on the screen with Darnell editing what happened for them to watch, and it started with…

Frat guys storming the Chance house!  They have a kegger, and Frank has a video of his own for Jimmy: Sabrina at her grossest.  Jimmy is not deterred, and Frank moves on to part 2,Sabrina’s party, where Frank hoped to find Sabrina cheating or something?  Weird.  Anyway, that was not so much the case, so they just partied in the bigger house until the keg ran out.  Luckily, Barney had a thought! He has the keys to the grocery store, where there was lots of alcohol!  The whole group went there and partied their hearts out, and Frank somehow tricked Jimmy into marrying him?  It was weird, and Frank is dumb, since Jimmy has video evidence of being tricked into signing the certificate, so this would never hold up in court, but…

Jimmy and Sabrina head to Frank’s house and try to get him to ‘fix this,’ but Frank has future plans for he and Jimmy, complete with a photoshopped montage.  Sabrina tells him that they can still do all those cool things, even though Jimmy doesn’t want to.

We cut to a chat in the living room with the Chances and their lawyer, who is also Frank’s lawyer, and Frank has an absurd list of demands to get the divorce done, which Jimmy refuses to sign.  They decide the only course of action is to make Frank realize he don’t want to be married to Jimmy, so Jimmy should move in with him, which Jimmy promptly does.

Both guys actually find it completely agreeable, with weird habits complementing each other.  But eventually Frank decides he wants to do this with a girl, so he’ll sign the divorce papers.

This was an good episode, but it was paced really weird.  There were several funny moments, like when they were discussing Jimmy’s weird habits, but Frank really shouldn’t get more than a couple of minutes of screen time an episode.

I did get a couple of funny lines:

Sabrina, to Jimmy regarding their parties: “When we compare notes, we should both feel shameful!”
Burt, regarding Jimmy’s party: “I’m not sure exactly what’s going to happen, but I heard ‘mocktails’ and ‘jigsaw puzzles,’ so I’m not hopeful”
Jimmy and Frank, regarding Jimmy’s party: “this doesn’t need to be recorded.” “You could say that about every Matthew McConaughey film ever made.”
Frank, to Jimmy: “But as your bff-Best Friend Frank-I not only hear your words, I know your thoughts.”

The Middle(1/16)

This was a fun episode.  Lots of family moments that were fun, and a tiny bit of character development too.

Frankie and Mike are having issues with the kids: everyone is squabbling over dinner choices, and they are getting fed up.  After a dinner of cereal(a terrible compromise), Frankie realized that one kid would have been sooo much easier, but Mike reminds her what’s done is done, so Frankie comes up with a different idea: with the three day weekend coming up, each kid gets a day to hang out with them alone.

We start with Axl’s day, and he is not enthused.  What self-respecting senior wants to hang out with his parents, amirite?  He tries to sleep the day away, but his parents are having none of it.  Axl is fairly certain his parents won’t want to do what he wants to do, which is paintball.  They have a great time, until Axl disappears.  Turns out he’s making out with his girlfriend, and Mike finds him, and is super pissed he was ‘making out with some random girl.’  Axl sets him straight, that she is his girlfriend, and Mike is supportive, even so much as to give Axl a head start when Frankie arrives, so that Axl won’t have to deal with her million and one questions. “There’s one kid, done and done.”

Sue is next, and she is the exact opposite, waking her parents up to watch the sunrise.  They then head to the shelter to pet puppies, they go to the donut place, the looked for shapes in the crowd, they painted mugs, and then they head to an arcade, where Mike is worn out.  On the drive home from dinner, Sue reminds them that she wanted to see her mom’s old prom dresses, so they head to Aunt Edie’s.  Sue is so excited to see all of the prom dresses, she asks to try one on.  Frankie finds a box of mementos as Sue comes out looking very pretty, and then Sue finds Frankies old yearbook: turns out Frankie was a cheerleader, and Sue is upset Frankie never told her.  She sulks in the corner for a bit, but realizes that she has cheerleader DNA, so now she has something to work toward, woohoo! “Kid two, done and done”

Brick is next, and he has a different method as well.  He is up and ready to go, but he lets his parents sleep for a while.  When they finally do get up, they Brick wants to go to Indianapolis for a convention, but his parents complain until about halfway there, when a snowstorm starts, so they go to the shoestore instead.  Brick is not impressed: “This isn’t my day, we’re just running errands!”  He notes how he never gets yelled at, even as he is making a scene in the store, and that his parents are too tired from the other two to even care what he does.  Brick insists on going home, where he dumps his bag on the floor and begins to walk away.  Frankie and Mike take this opportunity to yell at him, and Brick is happy. 

This was a such a fun episode.   I really liked the contrasting approaches to the different kids, and I enjoyed learning a bit more about Frankie in high school.

I didn’t get any funny lines, but that’s not to say this wasn’t a good episode!

The Middle(1/23)

So the Hecks have new neighbors, and Frankie is bringing over chips as a welcome to the neighborhood gift.  When she gets there, it turns out the husband is has a great personality, and Frankie thinks that he would make a great friend for Mike.  Mike is ambivalent, but Frankie butts in, and asks Jeff to ask Mike to hang out.  They do, and Mike has a great time, but Jeff lets it slip that Frankie asked him to do this, and Mike is pissed.  He tells Frankie not to interfere, so of course, she interferes some more, by leaving approximately 50 messages for Jeff’s wife.  They are suitably weirded out, and avoid the Hecks for the rest of the episode, as you do.

In other news, Sue is excited for Wrestlerettes, but the real cheerleaders have decided that the wrestling team deserves their notice, and will be taking over cheerleading duties.  Sue tells the cheerleaders that their services are not needed at the wrestling meets, but thye are too stupid to figure it out.  Sue then resorts to desperate measures: a cheer-off at the next pep rally.  The cheerleaders have a great routine, and everyone is enthusiastic, as Sue’s face falls lower and lower.  That is, until her team gets on the floor, and they do their cracked out routine.  Think Romy and Michelle times three, plus a gay teenager.  At first, the audience is confused, but then they really get into it, and the cheering is much more than for the real cheerleaders, and Sue is super happy.

Lastly, Axl has been making out with his girlfriend all over the place, but Brick get in his head, wondering if she’s not going to want more intellectually stimulating conversation.  Axl takes this to heart, and has Brick tutor him on a couple of things, including Van Gogh and To Kill a Mockingbird, so he can talk to Cassidy about things.  Axl goes to her with his new knowledge, but she’s not as impressed with that as she is with his desire to do things for her to improve himself, and they start making out.  Again.

This was a decent enough episode.  The Frankie/Mike stuff kind of dragged, but Sue’s wrestlerette drama was really fun, especially with her misfit group of friends.

I did get a funny line, too:

Sue’s friend, when she explains she wants to challenge the cheerleaders: “Wait, we’re gonna fight?  Cause I got a sock full of batteries in my locker…I call the blonde one!”

Suburgatory(1/16)

This was kind of a lame episode.

Tessa needed to get her wisdom teeth out, and she is laid up for most of the episode, but she does get to make a total disaster of George’s relationship for a while.  But first, Dallas give George a glass engraving of them on a couch.

In other news, Fred Shay won salesman of the year, and is headed out for a few days.  The next day, Tessa has her surgery, and has a bad reaction to the anesthesia.  When they get home, George hears weird noises from the basement, and discovers Fred Shay in the basement.  Turns out that Fred did not win salesman of the year, and so is hiding out in a tin foil suit(since Sheila can read his mind, natch.)

After George goes to the store, Fred goes up to the kitchen, and manages to freak Tessa right out, and in her drug-induced haze, she thinks he is an alien that captured her dad and Dallas in the glass engraving.

Dallas comes over, and finds the glass engraving in the garbage where Tessa put it, and is all sad.  Also, it turns out that Fred Shay was demoted to junior secretary, which netted him flowers, since it’s junior secretary’s day.  This freaks him right out, since Shelia doesn’t know he was demoted, and so Fred sends George to his house to snag the flowers.

Oh, and Ryan is very sweet to Tessa, and they start dating again.  Aww. 

The appropriate amount of time passed for Fred, and he goes home to a doting wife, and when they lie in bed, she wishes him a happy junior secretary’s day. Dun dun DUUN.

And finally, Tessa and Dallas talk about relationship stuff, and Tessa lets Dallas know that SHE was the one who threw out the glass engraving, and Dallas is very relieved, and so gives Tessa advice on her new relationship with Ryan.  Aww again.

Like I said before, this was not a very strong episode.  It felt very filler-y, and the conflicts were forced at best.  No funny lines today either.

Suburgatory(1/23)

Sometimes this show teeters on the line of kind-heartedly making fun of suburban living and mean-spiritedly doing so.  This one felt like the latter, which is a bit unfortunate.

Tessa and Ryan are now officially dating, and she is totally cool with the school knowing.  What Tessa didn’t know was that being an out couple means she is now part of the football girls club.  All the girls are stereotypically over-supportive, and of course, it is up to Tessa to save them from themselves, by getting on her feminist soapbox.  She manages to get most of the girls over to her side, and the pep rally is not so peppy.  Ryan is not impressed, but he and Tessa have a discussion, and she lets him know that she likes to be thought of too.  Ryan actually takes the hint, and decides to make a paper banner for Tessa to run through so she knows how it feels.  Tessa realizes she really likes it, and so she decides to help out some with the pep stuff.  Aww.

George and Dallas, on the other hand, are having cheerleading issues too, in that George is feeling too smothered by all of Dallas’, when she makes him flyers on her brand new expensive printer.  George decided that he needed to do something for him, so he, Noah, and Fred Shay decide to start a dad band.  It’s really too bad they kind of suck, and Sheila calls them out, and then proceeds to rock out on Barracuda.  George wants to invite her into the band, but the other guys are not enthused, and quit.  George hires some session musicians, and he and Sheila rock out some more.  Dallas walked in on them, and is a bit perturbed that the dad band now is mostly he and Sheila hanging out.  This leads to them sussing out the flyer thing, and it turns out Dallas doesn’t want to change him, she just wants to justify her $7000 purchase!

So, some of the band stuff was fun, but Tessa is always so unwilling to even see another person’s perspective until she’s already made of huge mess of everything that it’s really offputting.

I did get a couple of lines, though:

Fred and George, on naming the dad band: “Shall we call our band…Sheila’s Pets!?”  “No! That’s a terrible name.”
Noah, on other possibilities: “I was also thinking: Mein Fatherband”

And thus ends my MASSIVE post.  Thanks to those that made it all the way through, I hope you enjoyed the many reviews I missed in the last few weeks!

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