The group has existed in their own isolation for so long, it makes you wonder why they would often go so far out of their way to exclude Dee from any of the activities, since it’s not likely that they’d find anyone else to replace her. And seeing as how the most recent entrants seem to be Charlie and then Frank, the screening process is aimed at scraping the absolute dregs of humanity. God help them if they find anyone worse than Frank.

But they couldn’t have always been that bad, right? Earlier in life Dennis, Dee, and even Mac were perhaps semi-decent people, with a higher-class group of friends and shared equally semi-decent goals for the future. And that’s what The Gang Gets a New Member explores.

Opening a time capsule the four buried 10 years earlier, The Gang relives some of their glory days before they became misanthropic alcoholics, discovering some long-forgotten relics, which include a laserdisc of The Cider House Rules; a note from the younger Dee that includes a million-dollar check made out to her high-school drama teacher (made out, that is, under the assumption that her future self was by now a famous actress); and some photos of the old days when the fourth-and-a-half member (I assume Dee only counts for one-half a member), Schmitty (guest star Jason Sudeikis).

Continue Reading →

At its heart, Eastbound & Down is about the redemption of Kenny Powers. On the surface he’s vulgar, crude, and clearly delusional. But deep down there is kind of a decent person Kenny can drag out when he needs to. And even though he can screw over others without looking back, he still deserves some sympathy—after all, he did used to be Kenny Powers!

Following last week’s first-rate (and my personal favorite of the series so far) episode, Chapter 12 has a lot to live up to…and it does, right in the first few minutes, which bring back Pat (guest star Adam Scott), the agent who screwed Kenny over in last season’s finale. Pat’s finishing up a 12-step program and is on whatever step has you make amends to all the people you’ve wronged (the most egregiously wronged being Pat’s sponsor, whose wife Pat slept with…while his sister watched).

Pat heads down to Mexico to seek out Kenny, the second-most-wronged on the list, who’s in the process of packing up his gear in preparation for his departure. But Pat’s arranged for a Mexican talent scout to stop by one of the Charros games and see if Kenny still has his stuff.

Meanwhile Kenny’s tying up loose ends, which includes severing ties with Vida (Kenny is, after all, a tit man, not an ass man), settling the score with Aaron, and apologizing to the Charros for his grandstanding antics. It’s heavily backhanded and full of rather strange expressions (George Washington is never gonna cut down that beanstalk), but, like the rest of the episode, there’s sweet sincerity to it. You can’t help but smile when Stevie asks Kenny’s permission to marry Maria.

Continue Reading →

I’m always happy to see what the office is going to look like each Halloween: Dwight’s going to be something topical (The Scranton Strangler—check); Angela’s going to be some kind of animal (a penguin—check); Michael’s going to be something hopelessly unfunny (MacGruber—well, you get the idea); and Jim’s going to be apathetic.

The costumes are always fun because they’re great reflections of the characters themselves—Kevin always tries desperately to be cool but never quite succeeds (this year he’s Michael Moore); Creed’s always a step behind the times (Dracula, the Mummy); Pam’s a dork (Olive Oyl—and is it a meta-joke that Jenna Fischer is waaaay too busty to pull off the outfit?), but this year’s standout is the weasely Gabe, who comes dressed, to many a cringe, as Lady Gaga.

On one level I can see him going for the popular choice (never mind the gender differences, or should they matter?) because of his fleeting hope to fit in, but on another, more plausible level, I said it’s because there’s a much darker side to Mr. Lewis.

I haven’t gotten much enjoyment from the season so far, but it was a nice touch to joke around with the characters’ personalities—that’s the kind of humor that made The Office a great show, and it’s either been missing or fallen flat for much of season 7.

But as for the actual episode, the bulk is dedicated to a rising tension between Michael and Darryl, who took an idea to have the warehouse workers/drivers suggest other products when making their deliveries straight to Gabe, bypassing his obligatory running it by Michael first. Michael had previously rejected the idea, and when he finds out that Darryl “Took him from behind” (“Went behind his back”), Michael throws a tantrum and pretty soon has ditched his MacGruber costume to dress up as Darry and ruin the Halloween party by openly mocking him.

Continue Reading →

Ah the Halloween special, long-honored tradition among sitcoms, when everyone—writers, directors, actors—can go hog wild and abandon the show’s official canon, tossing them into movie parody, having the cast pursue some horrific monster, or even killing them altogether.

Roseanne comes to mind as having some of the best Halloween Specials (one favorite had Roseanne and Dan competing at the annual Lanford costume party and introduced with the great line, “Well, it wouldn’t be Halloween unless the Conners overdid it”); The Simpsons Halloween specials are pretty much the only episodes I watch anymore (I suspect I’m not the only one); and who doesn’t look forward to seeing what everyone will wear on The Office? (Incidentally, this week’s episode takes the cake with Angela’s Sexy Nurse outfit—yikes!)

And now we have Sunny’s inaugural Halloween episode, “Who Got Dee Pregnant?” And it’s no schumlp. In fact, it even adds a new twist with theRashomon-esque story.

But I’m getting a bit ahead of myself. The episode opens with Frank, Mac, Charlie, and Dennis discussing their plans to spend the night in an eerie mansion/warehouse/swamp/insert any Scooby-Doo-inspired location here before taking a quick break to mock Sweet Dee’s recent sandwich binge only to find that she is, in fact, pregnant, and…you ready for this? One of them is the father (OoooOoo!). Even before it’s out of the gate, Sunny gets points for hinting that it’s going down the usual cheesy fantasy route most sitcoms use for their Halloween Specials before taking an abrupt turn to something truly horrific: unwanted pregnancy.

Continue Reading →

Is there any show that stays as true to its principles as Eastbound & Down?

Last night we finally met Mr. Powers, Kenny’s dad, and he’s played by Don Johnson as pretty much the same trash-talking vulgarian as his son. I knew EB&D wouldn’t go in for cheap sentimentality when they reunited father and son, but I was in no way prepared for this one.

First off, this is easily the funniest episode of the season, which has been hitting hard all throughout. Johnson finds just the right note for Mr. “Eduardo Sanchez” Powers as a crude Jimmy-Buffet-like layabout, and right from the introductions, you know he and Kenny share blood. Likewise, I don’t remember the last time an episode had so many quotable lines (“She keeps me on time, and I keep her wet in her underpants” is just a sampling), and they flew by as Powers and Powers sling bullshit while everyone just sits back and watches.

Even the initial scene where the two are reunited, the conversation is all one-upmanship: “Yeah, I saved up all the money from playin’ ball and invested wisely in stocks and bonds and fine pieces of arts,” “Well, I store all my valuable stuff in holes around here, and only I know where they are,” “Well I know where this one’s buried,” “Nope, because it’s a false hole—I started diggin’ it when you drove up.” The outright obviousness of each man’s lies and their mutually adolescent maturity levels pay fantastically well off—it’s funny and totally convincing.

Continue Reading →

Did I miss something, or isn’t The Office company Sabre now and not Dunder-Mifflin? Yeah? Then why did they keep referring to it as “Dunder-Mifflin” all this episode? Was it part of the ruse? I don’t know. I couldn’t follow this episode too well and am apparently one of the few people who didn’t find it particularly funny.

The basic rundown is that hotshot salesman Danny Cordray (guest star Timothy Olyphant—but wouldn’t it be awesome if it were Rob Corddry?), who apparently is the best salesman in the Dunder-Mifflin company (ah, maybe that’s what was confusing—but then Sabre bought out Dunder-Mifflin, right?) is competing with Jim and Dwight to land an account with a high-profile potential client, so to hit heavy, they bring in Michael, who, despite all his incompetences as a manager, is still a first-rate salesman.

Nevertheless, Sabre still loses the account, so Michael and Dwight set up the titular “Sting” to learn his sales secrets and enlist Meredith to pose in a wired room as a company head and potential client. Danny falls for the bait while Michael, Jim, and Dwight watch from another room, but the plan goes awry when Meredith starts coming on to Danny, prompting Michael to intervene and try to patch things up by offering Danny a job at Sabre (or was it Dunder-Mifflin?).

Danny’s greeted coolly by the rest of the office, who are worried that he’s going to steal their clients, and apparently he has a past history with Pam, which puts Jim on the defensive.

Continue Reading →

One of the gags in Sunny that’s always impressed me (mainly for the fact that it seems so obvious, but I’ve never seen anyone else do it) is making a joke out of the title: There’s a cold open, some back-and-forths that set the stage for the episode’s plot, and then WHAM the title screen hits and hints at how this week’s scheme will go horribly, horribly wrong. Kind of a bleak reminder of the Gang’s ongoing spiral into self-destruction (“Frank Sets Sweet Dee on Fire” comes to mind).

Other times, when there’s an especially bizarre title, it’s satisfied to simply leave it at that (“The Gang Dances Their Asses Off”). And while all your thrown-in-the-towel English teachers told you to never judge a book by its cover, you can often tell whether an episode of Sunny is going to be good by the title alone.

Unfortunately that means that when there’s a kind of “meh” title, there’s usually a “meh” episode to follow (such as last week’s “Mac and Charlie: White Trash”). Fortunately, even a Sunny “meh” is still pretty good by “meh” standards, and that’s what “Mac’s Mom Burns Her House Down” is: not great but still pretty good.

So this week Mac’s Mom indeed burns her house down, which spurs her son’s maternal instincts (instincts that seem far more developed than her own, and I suspect the former were a direct result of the latter), and he takes her and her apparently indestructible dog in to his and Dennis’s apartment, something Dennis is obviously uncomfortable with. In the meantime, Charlie, despite his being the moral center of the Gang (did I just write that?), feels no such duty toward his own mother, who’s become a wreck since his Uncle Jack moved out. And the less said about Dee and Dennis’s paternal loyalty, the better.

So Mac and Charlie come up with the brilliant and inevitable idea to have Mac’s Mom move in with Charlie’s. Meanwhile, Frank, worried that his kids won’t take care of him when he turns into a drooling mongoloid, tries to cement his relationship with Dee, who’s nursing a cold and trying to get well for the upcoming Josh Groban concert.

Continue Reading →

I’ve never thought much about the class dynamic of the Gang—Dee and Dennis representing the upper crust of society and Mac and Charlie bringing up the dregs. God knows where Frank fits in. How did they all join up and decide to open a bar? What made Dennis break the barrier and allow himself to manage a business with two degenerates (I always figured Dee was a tag-along)?

It’d be prime territory to mine the origins of the group (and who doesn’t love seeing the early family lives of the four? One of the highlights of the Christmas Special was the glimpse we get into each one’s childhood memories). But “White Trash,” while it brings up the class differences, doesn’t explore it too deeply.

As the episode opens, there’s a heat wave in Philly, which gets the Gang itching for a dip in one of Philadelphia’s three pools, the first being at the local Country Club (which seems odd that they haven’t been banned from it yet).

Mac and Charlie show up, a six-pack and Charlie’s adorable little inflatable fish in tow, only to be rejected for not being members, and when they ask how to become members, are told that the Club’s already at capacity.

Back at the bar, they pitch a plan for fixing up one of the dilapidated old pools of their youth to Frank, who isn’t interested, while Dee and Dennis maintain that real reason the Country Club wouldn’t take M&C is because they’re white trash (hence the title).

Mac and Charlie head to the fixer-upper pool while Dee and Dennis try their luck at the Country Club…and meet pretty much the same response as Mac and Charlie. Crestfallen, they hit up the public pool, which is a massive step down (“They’re wearing sneakers in the pool!”), complete with broken glass, children throwing rocks, and Frank’s pool game of “Grease the Watermelon” (I also like how Frank borrows a towel from one bather by letting him take a bite from his hotdog).

Continue Reading →

Of all the characters in The Office who’d seem prime candidates for an STD, I’d say Creed and Meredith probably top the list. Michael, albeit hopelessly naïve, seems to gravitate toward women more mentally, rather than physically, questionable.

So when he shows up with a cold sore and the rest of the office immediately leaps to the conclusion that it’s the result of herpes, it’s kind of odd. Nevertheless, his condition goes mostly ignored by the rest of the gang save Dwight, who takes it upon himself to oversee Michael’s informing his past exes about his new (though undiagnosed) STD.

First on the list is the love of Michael’s life, Holly, who’s since gone on to a more rational plane, still seeing her current boyfriend AJ and noting that Michael over-romanticized their time together. A bit at a loss for words, he hangs up without delivering the news and moves on to the next, Donna, the bar manager who would be the most likely candidate (if, in fact, Michael actually has an STD).

But the call consists of little more than a quick, “Get tested,” before Michael moves on to meet up with Carol the real-estate agent (played by Steve Carell’s real-life wife Nancy) and Pam’s mother Helene.

Back at the office, Andy decides to host a Sex-Ed/Pizza Jamboree, which devolves into a flimsy list of the good and bad aspects of sex (“Looks cool” is by far the best of the “good”), but it quickly becomes clear that the session is a guise through which Andy hopes to discover whether Gabe and his old flame Erin have or have had sex.

Continue Reading →

Ed Helms has kind of gone back and forth on the show, trying to find where he fits in. He’s gone from the angry guy, to the preppy guy, to Dwight’s romantic rival, and nothing’s ever quite stuck, save for his singing, which has been the basis for some good jokes (his a cappella group Here Comes Treble is a personal favorite), but it’s a trait, not a character.

But it’s still his most defining characteristic, and “Andy’s Play” runs with it by casting him in a local production of Sweeney Todd to flaunt his vocal chords and impress Erin, who’s moved on from him to office drone Gabe. (I hope wherever Andy ends up it’s not as the new pre-Jam Jim.)

Andy invites the rest of the office to the production with a showstopper featuring him and several other players (in a surprisingly plot-relevant cold open), but each of them stumbles to think of an excuse not to attend—Jim and Pam because they can’t find a sitter and Michael because he also tried out for the production and just now realized that’s he’s not the lead (or even in the play).

But the rest of the gang just up and decides to go anyway (not sure where that came from). However, Andy’s original plans are dashed when Jim and Pam explain that their last-minute babysitter was, in fact, Erin.

Continue Reading →

The episode opens with Mac and Charlie calling in to a local radio station to correctly answer a question about the Philadelphia Flyers for chance to score two VIP tickets to the station’s private beach house. Pulling the answer out of his ass at the last possible second, Mac now has to score a goal from the center of the rink and in front of several-thousand Flyers fans.

Back at the bar, Frank’s taken to recorded the “Jibba-Jabba-Jibba-Jabba” banter of Dennis and Dee, namely because he likes listening to it when he’s driving. Dennis and Dee get the idea to do their own podcast and set up an impromptu recording studio in the back room but get stuck on their first topic (and Frank’s constant cracker munching).

The dead air spurs Frank to bring in his first special surprise guest, the ever-devolving Rickety Cricket (David Hornsby), his latest ailment being a speech impediment brought on by a throat infection from when Frank hit him with a trash can. (I almost forgot that actually happened.)

Cricket talks about the homeless situation in Philly (and makes some alarming suggestions about his current occupation as…uh…”dog prostitute”?), but the discussion quickly devolves into a barrage of insults (“Ugly Homeless Bitch!”) between Cricket and Dee.

Continue Reading →

Thanks to Eastbound for coming up with the most disturbing opening imaginable: Stevie having sex. He’s been on Kenny’s trail and hired a prostitute (one, presumably, among many) to, ha ha, pump her for information.

Kenny’s back to pitching fastballs with his new Mexican team (the Charros).  He’s contacted by a mysterious man (whom Kenny believes to be the only rich man in Mexico, as well as the only Asian), and the two discuss buying a Mexican team. I’m guessing that since not much is made of this for the rest of the episode, it’s a setup for some of the subsequent episodes.

Anyway, Kenny returns home to find (in one of the funniest, darkest moments of the show) Stevie. I’m not going to describe all that occurs, but the sheer awkwardness, morbidity, then jarring tenderness of the sequence once again demonstrates why Eastbound & Down is one of the finest shows on television.

Stevie moves in with Kenny, who takes the opportunity to rob him blind and go through his grotesque cell phone photo album (warning: Newcomers to the show may find some of the pictures traumatizing). Stevie also fills Kenny in about the situation back home (“Your brother says I can’t come by and play with the boys when he’s not there anymore”), dealing the blow that after Kenny left, April got back together with Cutler, and the two are now married.

Though shaken, Kenny takes Stevie out for a night on the town (“This is me every night: staring at buttholes and gettin’ my buzz on”). Stevie gets beyond drunk, which was Kenny’s plan, and the next morning Stevie awakes in the back of dingy bandito-esque truck, bond for the States (or at least away from Kenny).

Continue Reading →