Grid Effect

We forgot to mention this in the Entourage post and it bears mentioning, that last night was an amazing night of television. All three series (including Mad Men) manage to pull off their finest work of the season to date. This more than makes up for the crapfest of good series’ we saw last Thursday, especially since we were still hungover when 10pm rolled around.

But enough semantics and self-importance, that was a damn funny episode of television last night. We have nothing bad to say about it or what it could entail for the future of the series. The first half, “Mad Dog Tim” was probably the funniest 12 minutes of television I have seen this season. Everything from the boss not asking, but rather expecting Tim to cop to the dog’s actions, to how the dog looks to all of Tim’s reactions and the scene in which he confided to Stu, we were laughing hysterically.

In probably one of the more obscene misunderstanding this series has portrayed (the dog taking a shit in the lobby, followed by Tim trying to own up to it while not looking bad), the series seems to hit on the awkwardness yet realistic reaction an office would have if someone claimed to such an act. There wouldn’t be any outrage or vitriol, just a lot of shell shocked expressions. Sure, TIm would have probably been fired and everything else, but in that instant, when he first made the announcement, everyone would just be kind of weirded out.

Clearly the problem is he is just so flashy.

In the second half of the episode, Monday Night Confession, the series revisited the priest since his leaving the convent, and it was about as depraved as one would imagine. One thing we like about the priest is the way he speaks with such self-assurance all while being completely misguided, even though you can understand why and how he arrives at the conclusions he does. Occasionally he lies to everyone for his own benefit (like the notion of pounding a sixer being in the bible), but he has a swagger about him that makes his idiocy all the more enjoyable. He’s like the GOB Bluth of the animated world.

But the escalating confessions followed by Tim’s which actually seemed mildly tame in comparison (even with the extremity of it) might be our new leader for best scene in one of these to date. The high five, the stunned reaction after the priest’s girlfriend announced she sold all of his bible’s for coke money and the debate on what quantifies being at church where comedic gems that we hope continue on for the rest of this most likely short lived series. Our only issue would be that we didn’t get to see Amy’s family’s reaction to Tim’s confession.

But if this series is indeed short-lived, which it probably will be because HBO has done virtually nothing in way of marketing it, this could really go the way of Family Guy and either be brought back to HBO after an influx of DVD sales or land on another cable network looking for something affordable in its prime time lineup. Because this series is simply too funny for it to not have a home.