[7.7/10] Very fun episode. Nothing especially groundbreaking or insightful, but it’s one of those episodes that tells a pair of great stories and has more well-observed bits to share about teenage life.
The A-story is Lindsay trying to brush off her guidance counselor’s admonitions to plan for her future, and score some fake IDs to get her and her friends into a rock concert at a local club. The misadventures she and the Freaks go on are hilarious. Jason Schwartzman (whom I think was post-Rushmore) was very funny as their initial, less-than-helpful supplier, and there’s just the right amount of awkwardness and creepiness when they try to get IDs from Millie’s slimy cousin. The fact that the concert they’re so desperate to get into is for a band fronted by the very guidance counselor they were trying to ignore is a nice ironic twist that ends the story on an amusing reversal.
But more than that or the laughs in the story, it’s just interesting to see the show dramatize Lindsay trying to be cool and in and caring more about that than her future in this way. It’s not necessarily subtle, but using birthday money that was supposed to go to her college fund on fake IDs is telling. There’s a sense that everyone here is putting off the inevitable, that as we not-so-young folk know, this sort of life can’t go on forever. And while that’s going on, you feel for these kids who are (cutely) debating whether or not they’re boyfriend and girlfriend, or realizing that Daniel’s been held back twice, details the show let's you in on in novel ways.
The B-story is fun too, with the geeks becoming enamored of a pretty girl who will actually talk to them, hang out with them, and join their activities, only to be deathly afraid that she’ll be sucked in by the popular kids and never pay them any mind. It’s a relatable story about how nerdy teenage boys are, both instantly enamored with any girl who will actually talk to them and partake in traditionally boy-like activities, and also desperately worried that their geekiness will soon disqualify them from her company.
There’s lots of great comedy in the conversations and one-liners among them. Their attempt to woo her with an all-you-can-eat rib dinner (replete with David Koechner as their waiter!) is a funny kid-like plan. And their “this is the end of days” reaction when she decides to sit with the popular kids, after all their scheming to create a buffer, works because of how it embraces the perspective of the geeks, while also tacitly acknowledging the ridiculousness of how seriously they take this whole thing.
Hell, I even liked the C-story where Mr. Weir laments how his kids don’t want to spend quality family time with him anymore. Joe Flaherty has been a consistent source of laughs on this show, and his lines where he’s angrily nostalgic for when his kids were kids, followed by his, “well...ok” response when his wife convinces him that it’s time to let them fly out of the nest and that they should have sex instead bring the funny.
Overall, it’s an episode where every story works, each one has a good comedy quotient, and each is revealing about the Weirs at the center of them, and the worlds they occupy, are trying to defend, or are trying to evade.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParent2018-02-01T03:06:36Z
[7.7/10] Very fun episode. Nothing especially groundbreaking or insightful, but it’s one of those episodes that tells a pair of great stories and has more well-observed bits to share about teenage life.
The A-story is Lindsay trying to brush off her guidance counselor’s admonitions to plan for her future, and score some fake IDs to get her and her friends into a rock concert at a local club. The misadventures she and the Freaks go on are hilarious. Jason Schwartzman (whom I think was post-Rushmore) was very funny as their initial, less-than-helpful supplier, and there’s just the right amount of awkwardness and creepiness when they try to get IDs from Millie’s slimy cousin. The fact that the concert they’re so desperate to get into is for a band fronted by the very guidance counselor they were trying to ignore is a nice ironic twist that ends the story on an amusing reversal.
But more than that or the laughs in the story, it’s just interesting to see the show dramatize Lindsay trying to be cool and in and caring more about that than her future in this way. It’s not necessarily subtle, but using birthday money that was supposed to go to her college fund on fake IDs is telling. There’s a sense that everyone here is putting off the inevitable, that as we not-so-young folk know, this sort of life can’t go on forever. And while that’s going on, you feel for these kids who are (cutely) debating whether or not they’re boyfriend and girlfriend, or realizing that Daniel’s been held back twice, details the show let's you in on in novel ways.
The B-story is fun too, with the geeks becoming enamored of a pretty girl who will actually talk to them, hang out with them, and join their activities, only to be deathly afraid that she’ll be sucked in by the popular kids and never pay them any mind. It’s a relatable story about how nerdy teenage boys are, both instantly enamored with any girl who will actually talk to them and partake in traditionally boy-like activities, and also desperately worried that their geekiness will soon disqualify them from her company.
There’s lots of great comedy in the conversations and one-liners among them. Their attempt to woo her with an all-you-can-eat rib dinner (replete with David Koechner as their waiter!) is a funny kid-like plan. And their “this is the end of days” reaction when she decides to sit with the popular kids, after all their scheming to create a buffer, works because of how it embraces the perspective of the geeks, while also tacitly acknowledging the ridiculousness of how seriously they take this whole thing.
Hell, I even liked the C-story where Mr. Weir laments how his kids don’t want to spend quality family time with him anymore. Joe Flaherty has been a consistent source of laughs on this show, and his lines where he’s angrily nostalgic for when his kids were kids, followed by his, “well...ok” response when his wife convinces him that it’s time to let them fly out of the nest and that they should have sex instead bring the funny.
Overall, it’s an episode where every story works, each one has a good comedy quotient, and each is revealing about the Weirs at the center of them, and the worlds they occupy, are trying to defend, or are trying to evade.