Grid Effect

Well, this was an improvement but it simply isn’t great (or even all that good) television. Not that I’m expecting it to be, at least their was some new material here with Andrew and Ari, but every scene with Mrs. Ari (just give her a first fucking name already) and Andrew’s wife were cringe-worthy. Not to be all oddly feminist or anything but you can always tell when a writer’s room is overloaded with men when scenes like the one with them drinking after a “mani-pedi” are produced from them.

As usual, though, the best material came from Miller-Gold and not the Vince Chase camp. The notion of fraternizing with underlings has always been joked about on this show but never broached, and some sort of conflict regarding Andrew was inevitable since he’s getting so much camera time, I just happened to guess wrong as to what it would be. Also, expect to see Lizzie (do 26 year-old aspiring agents working for powerful Hollywood agencies often refer to themselves as “Lizzie”) having a more prominent role in upcoming episodes, as she’s played by Autumn Reeser, who is supposedly someone people have heard of before.

But from “the boys” side of things, I’m just not that interested unless it involves work in some capacity. I like looking at Emmanuele Chirqui, but I couldn’t care less about Sloane and Eric’s relationship. Vince’s love life is back to being superfluous, just like it should be and Drama was especially douche-y last night (though I liked Kevin Connolly’s take to Drama’s date inviting him for a threesome).

If this show is going to start to focus so heavily on their relationships, about the only one redeemable at the moment is Jamie-Lynn and Turtle, and I’m pretty fucking certain that’s only because the two actors are also dating (it doesn’t hurt that Jerry Ferrara is arguably the best actor of the four of them and Turtle is easily the least developed character). Am I alone in this or there actually people who care what’s exchanged between Eric and Sloane? I guess if the alternative is Eric dating his thirteen year-old neighbor, then yes, I care quite a bit.

Honestly, who made that casting decision? Did they think it would go unnoticed if they paired Eric off with the girl from Boy Meets World? There are things about this series that are simply bewildering at times, and this is one of them.

I get the feeling that’s going to be the dominant theme this season, seeing as how everyone’s career is oh so successful at the moment, all we have on our plate is the respective love lives of the entourage and Ari’s reaction to whatever transpires with Andrew and Lloyd at Miller Gold. Which isn’t terrible television, but its not all that inspired either, specifically since we know that none of this will permanently afflict our core cast of characters. If the show was funnier, then we could forgive it, but it’s rarely as funny as it thinks it is, so we need some more substance, writers.

Hung recap later.