So, How I Met Your Mother is finally over. And the internet is pissed.
Spoilers below, obviously.
This is what everyone wishes they could do to the writers.
Here’s something regular review readers don’t get from me very often: I wish this episode had been longer. After what was basically a filler issue last week [and one that seriously had me picking apart Han’s place on the show] this Monday night had us returning to the narrative that this half of the season has built itself around: the pastry school and Max’s relationship with Deke.
That’s right, Eric Andre is back after his character had the flu and went on a skiing trip. Every move this show has made so far, including the mild inconvenience that was Max finding out he was wealthy, has pointed towards him sticking around. She’s not one for relationships or even trusting others, and the way they’ve grown closer has made it seem like nothing short of death/something truly dramatic could break them apart. So this week the two girls meet Mr. and Mrs. Bromberg [as in the Bromberg Elevators, the ones that are in every building in the city, as in the Bromberg Colo-Rectal Centre at the New York Hospital].
Posted in Comedy, money, race, review, television
Tagged 2 Broke Girls, And the Not Broke Parents, Beth Behrs, Brombergs, Caroline, Cast, CBS, characters, Current Total, dancer, David, Deke, from the block, Genet, Jeff Garlin, Kat Dennings, Max, money, pastry school, poor, review, rich, S3E20, Sheryl Lee Ralph, Stripper, television, Todd VanDerWerff, TV, wealthy
Right at the end of 2011 Todd VanDerWerff, who I unofficially inherited these reviews from after Pilot Viruet passed the torch, wrote an article on the AV Club discussing how some shows on TV existed as “Nice places to visit”.
While the initial focus was on dramas he turns to sitcoms and describes how he divides them into two categories: “shows that aim for greatness and try to push the boundaries of the form, and shows that just want to create a bunch of characters that are fun to hang out with.” Happy Endings is my personal benchmark for the latter, with Parks and Recreation coming a close second. It’s not to say that neither show exhibits good writing [both do, in their own ways], more that they’re half hours of television in which viewers can relax, content to spend time with characters who are familiar and comfortable to them.
2 Broke Girls appears to want to be one of these shows. Continue reading
Posted in Comedy, review, television, writing
Tagged 2 Broke Girls, And the Kilt Trip, Beth Behrs, Blarney Bill, Caroline, Cast, CBS, characters, Current Total, Deke, Earl, Garrett Morris, Han, hang-out show, hang-out sitcom, Happy Endings, How I Met Your Mother, Kat Dennings, kilt, Matthew Moy, Max, Oleg, review, S3E19, St. Patrick's Day, television, Todd VanDerWerff, TV
We open up with the last Buck Marshall ad we’ll ever see, the IFIB rep. letting us know that shows like the one we’re about to see “worry the public about the dangers of industrial food production.” The issue with this, of course, is that “[their] research shows that worry leads to stress and depression, which is detrimental to your health.” That’s actually great to know, since I was worried going into the season finale.
Last week’s installment was extremely shaky, scoring points for being informative and funny at the same time but ultimately failing when it came to raising the stakes [ironic given the episode title]. Things ended with Chip in jail believing that Sophie had stabbed him in the back, and so things start with him sitting in an interrogation room. A promising enough beginning, I suppose. Continue reading
Posted in advertising, Comedy, environmentalism, food, health, review, television
Tagged Animoil, Buck Marshall, Chip Randolph, Chipotle, comedy, Ends Meat, factory farm, Farmed And Dangerous, finale, Hulu, IFIB, Industrial Food Image Bureau, John Sloan, Karynn Moore, Nick Clifford, nightmare fuel, Oleyum, PetroPellets, Ray Wise, resistant, review, S1E4, Sophia, Sustainable Family Farming Association, sustainable farming, TV
This week we have an ad courtesy of Chip Randolph, who states that although this show is poking fun those involved hope that it “helps to start an important conversation about industrial agriculture.” Then Buck Marshall and Mick Mitcherson throw tomatoes at him that are rock hard, because “that’s how [they] engineer them.” A pretty funny start to a lacklustre twenty-two minutes.
It is with a heavy heart that I must break the news that Farmed and Dangerous‘s third episode is very easily its worst, and it’s heartbreaking if only because so much is riding on it. With a four episode season this is the installment where things were really supposed to ramp up, I mean, just look at the title. Unfortunately the poop doesn’t quite hit the propeller, or at least not with the gravity you’d expect. Continue reading
Posted in advertising, Comedy, environmentalism, food, health, internet, review, television
Tagged Agent Banana, Agent Orange, All About Me, Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, Animoil, antibiotics, Buck Marshall, Chip Randolph, Chipotle, comedy, documentary, Dr. Van Riefkind, factory farm, Farmed And Dangerous, Food Inc., Hulu, IFIB, Industrial Food Image Bureau, John Sloan, Karynn Moore, message, Nick Clifford, pesticide resistant, PetroPellets, pigweed, Raising the Steaks, Ray Wise, resistant, review, S1E3, Sophia, Sustainable Family Farming Association, sustainable farming, TV
This week opens up with the strangely comforting scene of a table of eccentric [see: easily mockable] diners and the two girls’ reactions to them. Instead of hipsters or, I don’t know, bronies, we have half a dozen cumberbitches fresh from Sherlock Con. I had planned to live the rest of my life without ever typing out that term, but that’s behind us so let’s move on-
What you all have to understand is that I take everything I watch on TV very, very seriously. This means being extremely perplexed upon hearing Max insinuate that she never went to high school, particularly because it makes the story of how she lost her virginity [see the Stray Observations here and here] that much more disturbing. The thing is, I don’t think you have to be a stickler for continuity to see the gargantuan staring-you-in-the-face error in this episode. Continue reading
Posted in Comedy, review, television, writing
Tagged 2 Broke Girls, And the Near Death Experience, Benedict Cumberbatch, Beth Behrs, Caroline, Cast, CBS, characters, Chef Nicolas, continuity, Current Total, Deke, Earl, Garrett Morris, Juliette, Kat Dennings, ledge, Max, Oleg, open marriage, open relationship, review, S3E18, set, sex, Sherlock, television, Tumblr, TV
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