The Funny Stuff: Fox Tuesday (11/27)

Tonight, DWTS overtook the 8 o’clock hour, so we only get:

Raising Hope

The plot this week was not terribly strong.

Jimmy and Sabrina run into Sabrina’s ex, Wyatt, and she and he get into a massive pissing contest which ends with Jimmy volunteered to race in a 1k charity walk to regain Sabrina’s honor, and her ice cream maker.  Sabrina is fully convinced any gift she gives while in a relationship only stays a gift as long as the relationship continues, which is her motivation for demanding the ice cream maker back from Wyatt.  Jimmy knows she’s wrong, but Burt gives him the advice to just go along with what she says.  He does, but during the race, he realizes that Wyatt probably needs the win more than Sabrina does, and so Jimmy throws the race.  But he makes up for it by getting Sabrina another ice cream maker.

Burt and Virginia are feeling old, and so try to make themselves younger by buying new clothes and saying ‘totes.’  They eventually realize it’s okay to be old because they’ll be doing it together. D’awww.

What this episode lacked in plot, it definitely made up for in funny. From drive-by shrimping to hair dye in the eye, the physical comedy was great.  The running gag through the show was A.B.S, which stands for angry bowel syndrome, which was used to great effect when Jimmy revealed he had it as a kid, and used it again when his parents were putting him in the middle of their arguments.  I really think this show would so well with another family comedy, one that doesn’t have characters that clearly hate each other(*cough*Ben and Kate*cough*). 

I got several funny lines, as well.

Barney, after spouting off several inadvertent poop jokes: “Ricardo, could you please stop pinching that loaf?”

Maw Maw, when Sabrina described her breakup with Wyatt and subsequent hookup with Jimmy: “In my day, they called women like that whores…but it never bothered me.”

Virginia, after the table chef flipped a shrimp to Sabrina instead of her: “What kind of man shrimp-teases a girl like that?”

Virginia and Burt, when both are hurting after a long day: “I’m not getting on top!”  “Well, I’m not getting on top!” “JIMMY!”

Virginia: “You’re right, if those 40 year old on Glee can act like teenagers, so can we!”

Glee: Dynamic Duos (S4E7)

So for some reason, Fox decided it would be a good idea to play a new episode on Thanksgiving, and since I actually do things on Thanksgiving, I didn’t catch this until a couple of days later. 

The overarching theme of this episode was superheroes.    Everyone dressed up as one, and it was possibly the stupidest framing device this show has ever used.  It came basically out of nowhere, and for some reason, every single person in Glee club was in the Secret Society of Stuporheroes, as I decided to call it.

Starting out with Blaine, he’s been feeling like a terrible person since his little tryst, and doesn’t know what to do with himself.  That is, until the national trophy has gone missing, replaced with a laptop.  If it were me, I’d keep the laptop, seems like a good trade to me.  But no, Blaine uses his super detective skills to deduce that the boy with the blurred face in the video on the laptop is from Dalton, because who else would just leave a laptop?  Of course, the Dalton blazer, or the choir room background gave no good clues as to who could have done the deed.  Snerk.

Blaine decides to take a trip to Dalton to retrieve the trophy, and the new captain tries to entice him into returning by starting an impromptu song, which Blaine joins in with, of course.  This leads him to decide he needs to martyr himself to assuage his guilt, and he decides to go back to Dalton to finish off his senior year.  Both Finn and Sam try to stop him, and Sam is successful due to showing Blaine that McKinley kids are super nice or something, as they do a day of volunteering, and Blaine decides to stay at McKinley, after getting the trophy back with Sam in tow, of course.

In the pointless Finn story, he feels like he isn’t going to be a good advisor, and after a disastrous attempt to define the sectionals theme (‘Foreigner’—they’d sing Foreigner songs in foreign languages while dressed in foreign clothes), he seeks council from Coach Bestie, who is dressed up as a superhero as well, for Reasons.  She tells him to get his own costume, and be the superman she knows he can be.

He decides to make the theme Dynamic Duets, which leads into our new character stories.

FPuck and FFinn(“the ‘F’ stands for faux!”) fight over Marley, and and Finn uses this as an excuse to pair them in the duets, and he pairs FQuinn with Marley as well.  FQuinn and Marley spar a bit, and FQuinn continues her campaign to make Marley bulimic, but then tells Marley she’s rockin’ her spandex superhero outfit.  It was odd.  Anyway, they do their song, and their plot is done.

FPuck and FFinn do their duet, and get in a giant fight.  Real Finn breaks them up, and tells them they have to tell each other their deepest secret.  FPuck tells how he feels like he doesn’t fit in anywhere, what with being black, Mexican, and Jewish.  FFinn is kind of a jerk, but don’t worry!  It’s all better cause he can’t read!  FPuck tells Real Finn, who gets FFinn tested, and it turns out he has Dyslexia, of course.

Real Finn tells FFinn that it seems like FPuck really has his back, and so when FPuck nearly gets into a fight when bullies tease Marley’s mom, FFinn magically shows up with his posse of stuporheroes and scares off the three huge guys with the power of bitchy-bee Becky.

Oh, and Marley and FFinn have a date, but he blows it off to go see a dyslexia doctor, so FQuinn pushes her to ask FPuck out to cause strife, and Marley totally does, cause she’s dumb.

This episode felt totally pointless, because you know none of the songs they did will be included in sectionals, and there was literally no character movement.  Hopefully next week actually is sectionals, so the plot can move forward even one small iota.

Featuring:

“Dark Side” as sung by Blaine with the Warblers

“Superman” as sung by FFinn and Fpuck

“Holding out for a hero” as sung by Marley and FQuinn

“Heroes” as sung by Sam and Blaine

“Some Nights” as sung by everyone

The Funny Stuff: CBS Monday(11/26)

It’s Monday, so that means…

How I Met Your Mother

This was a decently funny episode, and had some major movement on pushing Marshal into his final arc.

We opened with Marshal sitting in front of a Judicial Review Committee, ostensibly due to his performance in court the previous week, which we all remember is the trial with the water pollution, and the ‘friend’ that stole the strategy.

He goes through the entire trial, from his friend playing the sympathy card to the  (oddly) all female jury, to his friend doing the bend(minus the snap) to show off his rear end to that same jury, as well as the judge who was really into it for some reason.  His friend brought out a crackpot expert witness, and Marshall brought out a duckie with a rash.  His friend played a video he made about the polluted lake, and Marshal asked him to take off his shirt, showing the rash his friend had due to the lake.

This won Marshal the trial, but the judge only fined the company $25,000, instead of the millions Marshal was hoping for.  That brought Marshal to chat with his friend, who decided to get back to his roots, and managed to get a job at Marshal’s firm, for reasons.  But he put a seed into Marshal’s head…

In that, Marshal decided to request a judgeship.  Oh snap.  He figured if he had that position, he could enact the change he so desired, cause that is totally what judges are for, not to determine if someone broke the law, but to create law.  Nice, show.  Hopefully they don’t really go that route, cause I would not be a happy camper.  But I am glad they finally are getting Marshal to that flashforward we saw in season two or three.  Only took four years.

In other, less interesting plot news, the rest of the gang got into a pissing match about who was the biggest badass. 

Lily said she was generally rude to everyone, browbeat Scooter, and the whole block was scared of her.

Ted said something about being locked up and yelling at a cop.

Barney was very friendly with the bailiff, and was implied to know his way around a pair of handcuffs.

Robin supposedly got drunk, had noise complaints, and threw a TV out a window as a precursor to passing out on and getting arrested for driving a zamboni.

Of course, Ted was at a Ren fest, and got put in one of those head/hand tomato throwing things, Barney was the youngest member of the magic appreciation society, and Robin got a trophy for being just the nicest hotel guest in the whole country.

Lily, on the other hand, still scares people as she walks down her block.

Anyway, the main star of the episode was Marshal, and honestly?  If this were The Marshal Show, it would probably be much better.  He really is the best character, and it’s fun watching him grow, and be funny at the same time.  The rest can one or the other, but not at the same time, and the show really suffers for it.

I did get a couple of funny lines:

Marshal, after his friend gloats he knows Marshal’s strategy: “But I still got some tricks up my sleeve that you know nothing about!” “Really?”  “No.”

Ted(I think), after Barney’s badassitude is revealed: “See ya round, baby hands!”

Amazing Race: Fishy Kiss (S21E9)

So last week, the amazing editors teased us with Abbie and Ryan failing at the airport again.  Did it come to fruition, leaving my least favorite team out to dry?  Let’s find out, shall we?

Jaymes and James started first, and had a rather unremarkable leg, right up til the U-Turn.  They hemmed and hawed for a bit, but finally made a decision, and moved on.  They did manage to crack me up this week by asking the duck on the lake for directions: “hey duckie, you know where the Poffertsjesboot is?” but didn’t get to keep their first place streak going due to…

Natalie and Nadyia, who, after a very lucky one hour layover that didn’t leave them stranded, took the fast forward, and finally one another leg after missing since the second leg.  They were not seen very much at all in this episode, and so I don’t have a lot to remark about them, beyond the fact that their earlier misdeed is one of two things keeping them from being my choice team(the other would be the adorableness that is Jaymes and James, but who’s counting?)

Trey and Lexi actually left before Natalie and Nadyia, but I wanted the fun transition, so they get to be third in the write up.  The only thing of note for these two was that they U-Turned Jaymes and James knowing full well that they had already passed the U-Turn, just to make sure Abbie and Ryan didn’t use it on Josh and Brent.  I’m not sure if I like this tactic, it really seems like it ruins the point, and I have to echo what others have said, in that I wonder if the producers are somehow going to make sure that can’t happen in future seasons.

Anyway, Abbie and Ryan left next, and they had the leg from hell.  They got stuck in Frankfurt again due to poor check in skills, they barely squeeked by Josh and Brent in the detour, only to find out that…Jaymes and James U-Turned them!  I was so happy when they decided to do that, and that Trey and Lexi took out A/R’s recourse.  It was fantastic.  And Ryan was such a sad sack through the entire leg, “Oh, woe is me, the airlines hate us, and the Chippendales cost us two million.”  Go whine into some cheese, ya narcissistic loser. And speaking of…

Josh and Brent nearly foiled the top three’s plan, in that Josh was almost willing to wait for Abbie and Ryan to finish the other detour before moving on.  Yes, it was about as ludicrous as you can imagine.  Luckily, Brent talked some sense into him, and so we have our top three all but locked up.

I think it’s going to be Jaymes and James, Natalie and Nadyia, and Trey and Lexi in the top three.  I really hope the boys can pull it off, but much crazier things have happened.  Just watch Brent and Josh win it all.

Finishing Order(Average Place)

1. Natalie/Nadyia(3.11)

2. Jaymes/James(4.22)

3. Trey/Lexi(3.56)

4. Josh/Brent(5.33)

5. Abbie/Ryan(2.78)-eliminated