The Funny Stuff: The Middle(2/6,2/13,2/20)

Oops, got a bit of backlog to catch up on…

The Smile(2/6)

Sue has an incredibly crabby teach, the kind who goes off on rants just cause he can, the kind who should really have retired years ago.  Anyway, he tells them to find something they are actually excited about, and make a science experiment around it.  Sue decides to test if smiling is contagious.  After a mid-experiment update in which her teacher is a complete and utter jerk, Sue is more determined than ever in her experiment.

In the end, she wasn’t able to prove her hypothesis, but the paper she wrote put a smile on her teacher’s face(and it actually was a decent paper), so all’s well that ends well, I guess?

Axl is getting bummed, and his parent worried, about not hearing anything from any of the colleges he applied to.  He can’t even get enthused about the prank he and his friends are planning.  Frankie accosts the mailman and everything in hopes of finding a possible lost letter.  But!  Axl chose to get the e-mail notice, and finds out in class that he got in!  After a couple of non-starters attempting to tell his parents at a noisy restaurant, the three of them group hug, and it’s cute.

Later, he and his friends are going to paint the water tower for their prank, but Darren forgot the paint.  As the three friends look over their town, Axl is glad he had his experiences in Orson.

Brick really wants an iPad, and is super obnoxious about it, seeing as Mike is heating up his coffee with a hair dryer.  After an entire month of saying no to getting an iPad, Mike and Frankie realize that Brick is a good kid, and there are tons of cheap ones on eBay and whatnot.  They get him one, and everyone is happy.

This was an ok episode.  Lots of character development, not a lot of laughs.  No funny lines, though

Valentine’s Day IV

Aww, this episode was sweet.

Axl decides he wants to grow his BossCo business, and so has a new plan:  they’ll break up with girlfriends for boyfriends who don’t want to.  They make tons of money, but the girls on the receiving end are not impressed.  The guys, though, start to realize that they are doing a truly terrible thing, but how do they make up for it?

Sue, in trying to avoid thinking about the fact that she doesn’t have a boyfriend, volunteers for clean-up duty at the dance.  That is, until Matt calls, and asks her to the dance!   She’s all excited, but as she’s getting ready, Matt calls, and leaves a message on the answering machine, which Axl and co overhears.  The boys nominate Darren to tell Sue the bad news, and Sue starts to have a breakdown.  But nice guy Darren says that he’ll go with her, and it is about the sweetest thing I’ve ever seen in my life.  They dance, and talk, and eventually kiss over the garbage can.  Aww!!

Brick makes a really tacky card for Frankie, but she doesn’t save it, and Brick is incensed.  Frankie goes to the OCD neighbor next door, and borrows one of her meticulously organized kid projects, but there’s no way in hell it was made by Brick, as Mike is quick to point out.  Frankie goes to apologize to Brick, but he is having none of it.  That is, until Frankie gives him a cad with a nice note.  Which he promptly throws away.  As you do.

Oh, and Mike accidentally texted a Valentine’s note to an employee instead of Frankie, and his other employees are not impressed.  They all want Mike to call them special, so he finally breaks down and tells them it was for his wife, and not the employee.  All his staff try to therapize him, and it gets into Mike’s head to do something, so he gets her flowers, and tells her…you know.

I was literally awwing through much of this episode.  It was super cute, super fun, and even had some character development, which I’m sure will be completely forgotten next week, but it is a sitcom.

I did get a funny line, which I have meme’d for you:

(Axl just called Sue a cat lady in training)

 

Winners and Losers

And finally, we have the Oscars episode, mandated by ABC for cross-promotion.

Let’s start with…

Brick, who is very excited about his class Chicago trip.  Frankie is terrible apprehensive, seeing as Brick will be alone in Chicago with only the chaperones, and since she won’t be going, she tries to convince Brick not to go.  Brick calms her down and convinces her that he can be responsible in going to Chicago by himself.  But then, Frankie forgets to pick him up at the end, and Brick is pissed.

Axl and Sue have a rather intertwined story this week.  Sue passes Darren in the hall at school, and is her normal self about it, that is: completely awkward.  She wonders if anything is going on between them, and Darren is super cute about the whole thing, though Axl tries to throw a wrench in the budding relationship at every turn.  Beyond the part where he is just trying to get rid of Sue, and has no idea they might like each other.  Darren eventually sings a horrible song that shows Sue how he feels, and it is adorable.   He comes over later to watch the Oscars, and he and Sue flirt like mad men.  Axl slowly catches on to the fact that they like each other, and is not impressed, and tries to forbid them from dating, even going as far as to tell Frankie and Mike, but they are happy for the kids.  And then Sue and Darren are super cute, the end.

Man, I enjoyed the heck out of this episode.  Beyond the shoehorned in Oscar crap, the storytelling was great, and I really like Sue and Darren together, especially since the writers have been building it up for a few episodes already.

I got a funny line for you, too!

Darren, singing to Sue: “It was a moment of bliss, my magical trash can kiss!”

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.”

The Funny Stuff: A week in review

So some of you may have noticed I’ve been slacking pretty hard core.  I apologize, and in penance, have reviewed every episode of comedy shows I watched in the last week, which started on Sunday, with…

Happy Endings

So, this was a thing.

Jane and Dave tried to find guys for Max to date.  Jane had the perfect guy, and so did Dave, and they set Max up right away.  Max was not terribly impressed with either guy, mainly due to the fact that Jane’s guy was guy-Jane, and Dave’s guy was gay-Dave.  Max didn’t like either guy, but he did find another guy he liked, Marcus.

When they are on a date, Dave and Jane crash with their gay dopplegangers, and completely scare off Marcus.  Max calls them out on their BS, and storms out of the bar.  Dave and Jane try to get Marcus to talk to Max again, but are harshly rebuffed.  When they see Max again, they apologize, and Max accepts, letting them know that he already has an awesome Jane and kick ass Jane in his life, and so doesn’t need another. Aww.

In other news, Alex is going to Rom-Com Con, and Brad and Penny manage to break a keepsake plate as she is leaving, and then Alex’s racist parrot Tyler kicks the bucket while they are gluing it back together.  Brad and Penny stage a ‘plausable’ death scene, and Alex totally buys it, or she will, once the parrot autopsy comes back.

At Tyler’s funeral, Alex talks about the human hand that caused his death, and Penny and Brad can’t handle the pressure, and spill the beans.  Alex is obviously pissed, after her confusion fades(she thought Tyler committed suicide due to the argument they had), and goes to verify with the autopsy, revealing Tyler died of alcohol poisoning…as a picture of Alex and Tyler scrolls across the screen, them drinking a martini together.  Alex resigns herself to knowing she killed Tyler, and the gang reminisces about the horribly racist bird.

So this episode felt like it was hitting beats, and occasionally finding punchlines, but the character pairing didn’t really ring true for me.  There were definite funny moments, but the whole thing didn’t gel for me as Happy Endings normally does.

I did find a couple of funny lines for you, though:

Jane, to Alex, wondering why she brought her parrot out to a restaurant: “Wait, I’m not surprised, I once saw you put sunscreen on a grape so it wouldn’t become a raisin.”

Jane and Max, as Jane and Dave snuck into Max’s apartment: “How did you know we were here?”  “I smelled testosterone—and Dave, you smell like peppers, bud!”

The funny stuff: ABC Wednesday(12/12)

Man, I feel like such a slacker.  This is just a little late, and we only have one show to go through.

The Middle

So, we have two main arcs this week.

The main arc is Mike and Frankie’s 20^th wedding anniversary.  Sue wants to throw them a surprise party, but Axl and Brick are less than enthused.  Sue tries to throw together a party for them, even has a party planning binder, but every single thing she plans falls through.  The venue gets double booked, all the guests decline to attend, and the skit hasn’t even been written.  To top it all off, Frankie finds the binder, and is super stoked for the party, with all the ‘done’ things Sue has crossed off the list, not knowing those things are out, not done.

On the night of the party, a severely cut down party ensues, and Frankie is very disappointed, though she tries to hide it.  The disappointment is amplified by her anger at Mike, who ignored a cell phone call from her(and she saw him ignoring it through a window).  But it’s made all better by a ring, of course.

In other news, a series finale book is coming out, one that Brick as been reading for half his life, and he is super excited for it.  He’s also super excited for the guitar he won off Axl in a air hockey game.  After he gets the book, Axl takes it, and reads the last chapter, spoiling the ending for Brick.

I gotta admit, I would be SUPER pissed if someone did that to me, and Brick’s collapsing on the floor seems like a totally appropriate response, to be honest.

Brick spends a bunch of time moping around, being pissed at Axl.  That is, until Axl tries to make it up to him by writing a new ending for the book to make up for the ending he ruined.  Brick glances through it, determining it sucks almost immediately.  But he does have a better idea:  he helps Axl gain an appreciation of books and reading by reading the entire seven book series to him.  It was a good ending, and hopefully will stick with Axl in the long run, and help make him a better student.

This was a cute episode.  It was almost fully family-based, with only a couple of scenes even set outside of the house, and the character actions were things you would expect them to do. 

I got a funny line, too:

Axl, after spoiling the ending of Brick’s series: “Brick? Brick?!?  I think I killed Brick!”

The funny stuff: ABC Wednesday(12/5)

So I was a bit of a slacker on these, sorry about that.  We had a couple of fun shows tonight, starting with…

The Middle

This episode was kind of the standard ‘we’re poor’ story line, but it worked for me.

The main arc of this episode involved Mike and his brother Rusty(played by Norm MacDonald), and furniture that was less than legally acquired.  Mike agreed to help him move out some furniture from Rusty’s old place, but when they get it back to the Heck’s garage, since Rusty didn’t actually have room for it in his new place, it turns out the furniture was ‘won’ in a bet, according to Rusty, but not anyone else.

Axl spends the majority of the episode arranging the furniture in the garage to make himself a bachelor pad while Mike attempts to get Rusty to move it out, unsuccessfully.  He finally gets so frustrated that Mike disinvites Rusty to Christmas, and gets a couple of guys to help him move the furniture back.

Frankie, on the other hand, has a plan to pay for all the Christmas presents: she got a job at JJ Mackies, a Target/Walmart-type clone.  All the gifts they would normall get are there anyway, and she gets a 30% discount!  As she’s getting rung up after her first shift, thought, she learns a little unfortunate truth: the discount doesn’t kick in for 20 days, due to people taking the job for one day just for the discount.   She spends the next three weeks hiding away Christmas presents in the store so other people won’t buy them, only to be thwarted by a coworker finding every single last one of them.

In the end, she give the kids pictures of what they are going to get, and they buy it all the day after Christmas, when everything is on sale anyway, so it’s a win-win for everyone.

Lastly, Brick and Sue are at a youth group meeting, and Pastor Tim-tom asks Brick to be in the Christmas play.  Brick, oddly enough, agrees, and Sue even gets in on the action by becoming the concession stand operator.  Brick is actually rather enthusiastic about his part in the play, and even gets an upgrade to Wise man numbers 2 AND 3, because wise man 3 couldn’t figure out his line.

But, as usual, Brick completely fails in the end, when he gets utterly distracted on stage, and doesn’t even say his one line.  BUT! It makes the rest of the family get to be in a better mood, laughing at Brick’s antics, and getting back into the holiday spirit.  It helps Mike remember that Brick is the weird brother of Axl and Sue, and that he wouldn’t want them to ever get angry at each other like he did to Rusty, and so he calls and makes it up.  This is also where Frankie gets her present idea, and Sue has fun giving away her 1200 cookies.

I really liked this episode for the religious elements.  Not that there was a whole lot of actual theology or anything, but moreso in the fact that the Hecks to church things, and they are not weird because of it.  They are weird for other reasons, yes, but the fact that they go to church, even on non-Sundays, it’s treated as though they should be mocked or ashamed because of it.  It reminds me of Boy Meets World in that way, to be honest.

I did get a couple of funny lines, as well:

Sue and Brick, to their parents regarding the card they both have: “Oh, it’s the invitation to Axl’s Christmas party, didn’t you get one?”  “Hmm, awkward.”

Mike, after Frankie starts to talk about her new job: “Why do people say guess who?  I already know it’s you.”

The Funny Stuff: ABC Wednesday(11/14)

Wednesday was Thanksgiving for ABC, so we got a couple Thanksgiving episodes to tide us over until the deluge, starting with…

The Middle

This episode was kind of annoying.  It seemed like there was a lot going on, but not much happened at all.   At least, not much of consequence.

Frankie decided to sign up to have Marines come over for Thanksgiving dinner, not remembering she lives in a nuthouse.  She goes crazy trying to get everything perfect, but the world is standing in her way.  First, the Bickersons, ie, her parents, come for the meal, and fight the whole time.  Axl is mopey because he has a crush on his new tutor, but she has a college age girlfriend.  Sue is manic because the rival high school stole her chicken head, and Brick is his normal weird self, this time by being engrossed in a behind the scenes of Love Story book, even though he has no desire to see the actual movie.

Axl’’s story was the most trope-worthy, in that his tutor broke up with her boyfriend to possibly be with Axl, because reasons. 

Sue actually went a completely different direction, and first confronted the rival high school guys, but they beat up her gay best friend.  When that was a complete failure, she just wore a bear head, and still did fine in her mascot duties.  I was definitely expecting a meltdown, or unmasking of Sue as the mascot, but the writers when a different direction, which was nice.

The episode ended with the Marines leaving as fast as they could, trying to get away from the craziness that is the Hecks.  Completely unsurprising, but true to the characters, so nice enough, I suppose.

I did get one funny line:

Frankie’s Mom, about Frankie’s Dad, and his movie watching technique: “How would you know, you slept through it like every movie we’ve ever seen, and then you woke up and complained it didn’t make sense!”

The Funny Stuff: ABC Wednesday(11/7)

This was kind of a lackluster night, filled with filler.  We started with…

The Middle

There really wasn’t a whole lot going on in this episode, beyond following sitcom clichés and tropes.

Frankie started Dental Assistant school, and her teacher is a real hardass.  Frankie is consistently late, and attempts to suck up, horribly.  Then, she has to study for a test, and does poorly at that, too.  In taking the test, she suffers through, and then pulls up her sleeve to reveal notes on her arm, written there when she was studying with Axl, and accidentally took Tylenol PM with him, drugging them both.  She ended her thing with a mediocre motivational speech, basically saying she’s a quitter, but not today.  Tomorrow, maybe, but not today.

Mike’s story consisted of him walking around the house, bemoaning the fact that it was falling apart, and they had even less money than normal due to Frankie’s tuition.

Axl’s story was him getting a tutor, and the tutor being cute, and him liking her. It was about as boring and pedestrian as you can imagine.

Sue and Brick went garage saleing, and found a doo-dad that was worth a bit of money, so they sold it to a pawn shop, and bought a safe with their earnings, under the assumption that there was something awesome in the safe.  When they opened the safe, they found a car rental receipt for Gerald Ford.  Except, on closer look, it was for Gerard Furd.  So that was it for them, until they came across another garage sale.

Basically, this was a total filler episode, and a rather boring one at that.  I only managed to find one funny line:

Sue, four days after an angry Axl switches her shampoo for maple syrup: “Bright side: it smells pretty nice!...except, bees chase me.”

Suburgatory

This was another incredibly boring episode.  Complete filler, and strange subplot.

We started with George and Dallas, who are still dating, and go on a retread of last week’s episode: Dallas is weird, and George wants her to be herself.  This time, it has to do with their sex life, and Dallas trying to boost George’s confidence.  And in the end, they get normal, except it turns out George like a bit of confidence boosting, so they keep the giant foam #1 finger.

Daliah actually had a substantive plot tonight, in that she dumps her K’s because her dad is getting married to a Singaporian, and Daliah’s going to be her best friend, and maid of honor.  Until!  Her dad elopes, and Daliah is devastated.  So. Not as substantive written out, but there was a lot during the episode.

Lisa even got a cute little thing, though slightly odd.  Tessa herded the lost K’s to Lisa, and she sits them like puppies.  It was cuter than it sounds.

Tessa got the shaft this week, in that she was a supporting player in all the plots, master of none. 

This was another filler episode, and there was literally no plot movement, save for a weird moment at the end where Daliah is converting to Judaism, maybe?  It was very odd, and clearly just a set up for a joke in the next couple of weeks.

I did get a couple of funny lines:

Dallas’s gospel choir, pre-coitus: “Fess up, pot roast man!”

Daliah, as she talks to a nerdy boy when he asks her to assist in his magic act: “How bout I make you disappear, loser.”  *click* “ta da.”  *clapclapclap*

The Funny Stuff: ABC Wednesday(10/24)

Tonight, we had a couple of filler episodes, but one bit of plot motion in each to make things all better.

The Middle

We had a kid-centric episode tonight, with the Sue and Brick taking center stage, and Axl getting a bit of plot.

Sue is finally old enough to drive, but due to her crippling fear of driving, she is having trouble learning how.  First Mike, then Frankie attempt to help her, and get nowhere.  That whole almost stealing the neighbor’s car the year before as reeked havoc on  her confidence, and only one person can help: Axl.

After Sue unintentionally runs over Axl’s foot, she is incredibly apologetic, and was looking for a way to make it up to him.  When Axl realizes it’s election day, and has no one to drive him(and he can’t drive himself due to his bum foot), he recruits a old lady to be the adult in the car, and gets Sue to drive him to the polling place, and almost all is forgiven.  That is, until Frankie gets he news: Axl’s foot is broken, not sprained, and his chance for a scholarship have been dashed. 

Brick, on the other hand, had a good showing.  Frankie pawned him off on another parent for trick-or-treating, and when he came home, he had 20 pounds of candy.  Frankie told him to eat what he could in 24 hours, and they’d send the rest to the soliders.  Of course, Brick misunderstood, and went about eating all 20 pounds in that 24 hours, and completely succeeded. 

Frankie and Mike send him to school the next day anyway, fully expecting a call from his teacher regarding a very sick, very rambunctious child, and they are not disappointed. 

But!

When they get to the school, Brick’s teacher(TED!!), tells then he has been a model student, and to keep whatever change they did since Halloween, cause it was awesome.  Of course, they can’t keep Brick hopped up on sugar for the rest of his life, but they enjoy a non-tick-filled Brick while it lasts, which isn’t long.  He has a major crash, and is back to normal in no time.

Not only do I have funny lines, but I have a funny moment as well.

Sue, after Mike mentions her training wheels on her bike: “Oh my God! This situation is very similar to that situation!”

Sue, after she overhears players and cheerleaders saying what a horrible person she is for running over Axl’s foot: *Sue in chicken costume sadly walks down the street as ‘Everybody Hurts’ plays*

The Funny Stuff: ABC Wednesday Night(10/17)

The Middle

Frankie, fresh off of being fired, as taken to walking around the neighborhood, until she has a run-in with crazy Rita.  She thinks Frankie stole her hose, though Frankie is 100% certain she did not.  Frankie, in an attempt to appease Rita, buys a new hose to put in her yard, but Rita is not impressed, and they get in a tug-of-war over the hose, and Frankie chips a tooth.  But in a surprising twist, Brick took the hose!  He was using it to water the demonic bunny from the previous episode, so Frankie and Brick try to sneakily get rid of the stolen hose.

But!

Rita stops them before they drive away: her hose was left on the front yard the night before, so the Hecks are coming to a pool party, since Rita hates owing anyone.  Frankie and Brick get rid of the hose anyway, just in case.

In other news, Sue was invited on a band trip as the mascot.  She is super excited and even wants to show off her new routine sans costume, with unfortunate results.  Apparently, Sue is only a good performer inside the costume.

When Sue is at Mike’s work, hawking her meaty wears(and no, that’s not dirty, get your mind out of the gutter), she gets a peek at Mike’s paycheck, and comes to the not-so-surprising conclusion that the Heck’s are poor.  Sue, being the worry-wart she is, decides she needs to single-handedly save her family, and cancels her trip to Cincinnati to save money.  Of course, she doesn’t actually tell them why, but makes up (several) excuses as why she’s not going, mostly involving the school putting the kibosh on the whole thing.

When Sue’s friends come over, and make it painfully obvious she told them about her family’s poor-ness, Mike goes and talks to Sue.  He has a very nice conversation with her, reassuring her, and reminding Sue that she’s the kid, and doesn’t need to worry about the grown-up problems. 

Of those grown-up problems, having ‘the talk’ is one of them, and apparently, Frankie and Mike didn’t have it with any of the kids, so when Brick has a sex ed unit at school, he’s a bit freaked out.  They manage to convince him to attend, and the information he got from Axl manages to get the group called into the nurse’s office to discuss ‘appropriate classroom discussion.’

This was a nice episode.  There was some funny visual gags, and the Brick made me laugh throughout.  This show deserves more attention then I think it gets.

I did catch a funny line:

Brick, after his first sex ed lesson, to his parents: “I guess I’ll go look at your bras now…apparently, that normal, and you guys are always on me to be more normal”

Suburgatory

This is another great show that finally had it’s season premier.

Tessa spent the summer in Manhattan with her grandmother, learning about her mother, and generally having much more freedom than she normally does.

When she gets back, George is much less hands-on than he normally is, and Tessa is appreciative, if a little distracted by all the mom memorabilia she brought back from her vacation, including photos, a leather jacket, and a tape of her mom singing.

In other Chatswin news, Noah’s surrogate(and George’s ex), had the baby, and since his wife is on a book tour, Noah wants a nanny.  But not just any nanny, Carmen, who currently works for Dallas and Daliah.  Dallas and Noah spare no expense to bribe Carmen to work for them, to no avail, and Carmen bugs out completely at the craziness that is Chatswin, and hides at George’s house.

George finally talks some sense into the two, showing them that sometimes, they may want to actually, you know, raise their kids themselves, instead of letting a nanny do it for them, since soon enough, their kids won’t need them anymore *cough*Tessa*cough*.

In the final story of the evening, Lisa is leveraging her knowledge of Ryan being adopted to get everything she wants from her parents, from Ryan doing all the chores, to getting the solo in the family act for the fall talent show.  Of course, this totally backfires on her when Sheila figures out that if Ryan knows about being adopted, he may want to go searching for his birthmother, leaving only Lisa for Sheila and Fred to dote on, horrors.

We end on the talent show, and Tessa channels her mother, and the guitar lessons her father gave her as a child, and sings the show’s theme song, in the guise of it being a song her mother wrote, and it’s actually very good, so that was fun.

I love how real this show seems, even as the absurdity of the behavior of the Chatswin residents is ratcheted to incredible heights.  The relationship hardships are exaggerated, but the reconciliations always feel earned, and the growth natural.

All in all, a good opening for a fun show.