[7.5/10] As I mentioned in my review of the second Lethal Weapon episode, I’m pretty skeptical of comedy sequels, because so much of a great laugh, particularly for a show with this style of humor, can be tied up in the element of surprise. But our second helping of “Chardee McDennis 2” was enjoyable, with enough new twists and turns to make things fun and funny, even if it can’t quite match the out of nowhere, ludicrous joy of the first outing.
For one thing, I appreciated that you had Andy as the Mattel executive (whom I know best as David Wallace from The Office) there as another ingredient in the milieu. The fact that The Gang was trying to tone down their competitiveness and tamp down on their weirdness to impress him with the game was a nice way to change the atmosphere from raw competitiveness to one of trying to dazzle a potential buyer.
I also liked that there was very little repetition from the first time we saw the game. Adjustments like the flag ceremony in lieu of the war dance, or ingesting wine through IVs to thwart cheaters are characteristically out there twists The Gang would throw in, that had the right balance of the fresh and familiar.
There was an overall theme of escalation. The berating from The Waitress and subsequent recovery and stomping of gamepiece for Charlie was elaborate and petty in that awesome IASIP way. The ridiculousness of having to glue a bottle back together or touch Dee feels like the sort of deranged competitions this group would come up with. And having Frank try to play the metagame by not only going all Saw, but hiring Andy as a plant is another nice if completely insane layer to this whole thing.
Overall, this wasn’t quite the instant classic its predecessor was, but it’s still an episode that’s plenty of fun, which follows the spirit of the prior episode while doing things just differently enough not to make it seem stale.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParentSpoilers2018-05-13T17:52:58Z
[7.5/10] As I mentioned in my review of the second Lethal Weapon episode, I’m pretty skeptical of comedy sequels, because so much of a great laugh, particularly for a show with this style of humor, can be tied up in the element of surprise. But our second helping of “Chardee McDennis 2” was enjoyable, with enough new twists and turns to make things fun and funny, even if it can’t quite match the out of nowhere, ludicrous joy of the first outing.
For one thing, I appreciated that you had Andy as the Mattel executive (whom I know best as David Wallace from The Office) there as another ingredient in the milieu. The fact that The Gang was trying to tone down their competitiveness and tamp down on their weirdness to impress him with the game was a nice way to change the atmosphere from raw competitiveness to one of trying to dazzle a potential buyer.
I also liked that there was very little repetition from the first time we saw the game. Adjustments like the flag ceremony in lieu of the war dance, or ingesting wine through IVs to thwart cheaters are characteristically out there twists The Gang would throw in, that had the right balance of the fresh and familiar.
There was an overall theme of escalation. The berating from The Waitress and subsequent recovery and stomping of gamepiece for Charlie was elaborate and petty in that awesome IASIP way. The ridiculousness of having to glue a bottle back together or touch Dee feels like the sort of deranged competitions this group would come up with. And having Frank try to play the metagame by not only going all Saw, but hiring Andy as a plant is another nice if completely insane layer to this whole thing.
Overall, this wasn’t quite the instant classic its predecessor was, but it’s still an episode that’s plenty of fun, which follows the spirit of the prior episode while doing things just differently enough not to make it seem stale.