Grid Effect

Not the most colorful of titles, and not the most colorful of episodes. We had issues last year with their only hour long episode and this year it was even more so. There was just so much filler that was trying entirely too hard to be funny. Admittedly, one could make the case that the entire premise of this series demands that those involved try too hard, but we do not have any qualms with it so long as it’s actually humorous. And this episode, much like all of them, had its moments. But there wasn’t enough of them to justify an entire hour when we felt it easily could have been condensed down to a half.

The series always breaks the characters into groups of two or three, this week they parted Mac and Charlie away from Frank and Dennis (Dee is always the third wheel if she is stuck with the larger pack).
In short, we tend to think Mac and Charlie is the worst one-two pairing the series has, and I think they realize that, that’s why it is happens with such irregular frequency. For whatever reason, the dynamic between the two of them isn’t nearly as good when one of them are paired up with Dee, Frank or Dennis. We can recall one exception and that was in the season two episode, “Dennis and Dee Go On Welfare”, and it is no coincidence that this episode is generally regarded as one of their finest.

It’s not that they are incapable of being funny, but Mac’s character just sort of mesh’s poorly with Charlie’s. Generally what happens is Charlie says something off the wall, Mac overreacts in typical Mac fashion because Charlie clearly has a learning disability, and then it delves into just the two of them screaming. Again, it is not always terrible, but when they never break stride from this for an entire hour it can grow tiresome.

There were certainly some quality scenes in this. Among other instances: Frank and Dennis divulging into the finer points of a “glory hole”, Charlie easily and randomly pulling out his teeth throughout the episode (one would think the ongoing joke of Charlie’s poor hygiene would have ran its course by now, but it hasn’t. Not by a long shot), Dee’s rebuttal to Frank pretending the guy on the other end of the glory hole could pretend he is with a woman (”How is he going to do that with some guy’s dick in his mouth?”), Frank being confronted about the mannequin, The Duster, and the suicide video.

I'm not sure which is more fucked up, this or what Dennis is referring to.

But all of this was offset by the scene on the bus which lasted about two minutes too long, the painstakingly long funeral scene that had little payoff, destroying the car, and virtually every exchange after the inaugural one Dennis had with the European.  It might not seem like much but hey, this series has set the bar high.

Apropos of that, for whatever reason we always find it necessary when criticizing an episode of this or Curb or any other comedy really, ti qualify it as not a complete failure. We just prefer to critique each episode against the bar that the series has set, as opposed to everything else on TV. We watch this series because it is good, we don’t watch everything else on TV because everything else on TV generally sucks nuts. So, when they have a subpar episode, we like to bring it hopefully someone’s attention.

It looks like next week they return to the regular one episode half hour format, followed by Testees, which we may or may not review. I can tell you one thing, that stupid double-entendre title isn’t helping their cause.

Mad Men recap might come later this weekend if not late tonight. We really got tied up at work and weren’t able to get around to it. This is for the best. Trust me.