[6.7/10] This episode was another mixed bag, but it did just enough to be decent, even if it had some kind of bizarre storylines.
Oddly enough, my favorite part of this episode was probably Pete’s story, which is strange since it culminates in Pete being a giant jerk, something that normally turns me off. Still, Pete having a dilemma over whether he likes his new girlfriend more than he wants to prank Andre is just loony enough to work for me. Anna Camp does a good job in the characteristically underwritten role and brings some laughs, and the split screen bit of Pete remember all the awesome stuff that his girlfriend does and all the ridiculous stuff that Andre does is a comic highlight.
I also liked Jenny’s plot here. I know I’ve run this show down for its resorting to sophomoric humor without any wrinkles, and the frozen poop bit verges into that. But it has more of a degree of cleverness! The opening interactions between Jenny and her doctor over it is hilarious, and her trying to hide it and distract Kevin with pizza poppers is amusing as well. Sure, when there is, inevitably, poop dripping down somebody’s face, it’s a little too ridiculous, but this is as clever as the show has been with something like this, which may not be a high bar, but is still encouraging.
I was much less on board with all the priest stuff. There is humor to be had from a man of the cloth who is nominally good and pious but a jerk in certain areas (see: The Sopranos), but the basketball stuff was too cartoonish to really work. I did get a kick out of Kevin and Jenny trying to use Sunday School as a daycare and having it backfire on them when Ellie starts to take after Paige Jennings in her religious ferocity. Some of the “worshipping Shiva” gags were a chuckle, though the slut-shaming “you’re all going to hell” material was weak.
The same goes for Taco’s story, which I guess was a contemporary reference to Chinese hacking, but just felt dumb and a little backward in execution. And the closing set piece with the cat was underwhelming.
Overall, the bad parts held this one back a bit, but there were at least a couple of encouraging signs from this one, which I’ll take at this point.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParentSpoilers2019-10-04T16:26:21Z
[6.7/10] This episode was another mixed bag, but it did just enough to be decent, even if it had some kind of bizarre storylines.
Oddly enough, my favorite part of this episode was probably Pete’s story, which is strange since it culminates in Pete being a giant jerk, something that normally turns me off. Still, Pete having a dilemma over whether he likes his new girlfriend more than he wants to prank Andre is just loony enough to work for me. Anna Camp does a good job in the characteristically underwritten role and brings some laughs, and the split screen bit of Pete remember all the awesome stuff that his girlfriend does and all the ridiculous stuff that Andre does is a comic highlight.
I also liked Jenny’s plot here. I know I’ve run this show down for its resorting to sophomoric humor without any wrinkles, and the frozen poop bit verges into that. But it has more of a degree of cleverness! The opening interactions between Jenny and her doctor over it is hilarious, and her trying to hide it and distract Kevin with pizza poppers is amusing as well. Sure, when there is, inevitably, poop dripping down somebody’s face, it’s a little too ridiculous, but this is as clever as the show has been with something like this, which may not be a high bar, but is still encouraging.
I was much less on board with all the priest stuff. There is humor to be had from a man of the cloth who is nominally good and pious but a jerk in certain areas (see: The Sopranos), but the basketball stuff was too cartoonish to really work. I did get a kick out of Kevin and Jenny trying to use Sunday School as a daycare and having it backfire on them when Ellie starts to take after Paige Jennings in her religious ferocity. Some of the “worshipping Shiva” gags were a chuckle, though the slut-shaming “you’re all going to hell” material was weak.
The same goes for Taco’s story, which I guess was a contemporary reference to Chinese hacking, but just felt dumb and a little backward in execution. And the closing set piece with the cat was underwhelming.
Overall, the bad parts held this one back a bit, but there were at least a couple of encouraging signs from this one, which I’ll take at this point.