Tag Archives: Jonathan Kite

2 Broke Girls, S5E8 “And the Basketball Jones”: A TV Review

basketballjones

I’m gonna start by reminding all of you nice people that this show’s creators were paying so little attention to last week’s episode that they didn’t even bother changing the “Current Total” or the “New Total”, features that were once the entire crux of 2 Broke Girls. Once upon a time this show was all about Max and Caroline saving up for something big, and it’s very telling that this once important detail was recently overlooked.

As for this week, well, it’s another one of those episodes. And by “those episodes” I mean that not a lot happens. I was going to add more to that description, but it says it all. At this point the overarching narrative of the season appears to be Sophie and Oleg’s efforts to have a child together, and to that effect they take a significant step forward while the titular characters just live their lives as usual. Continue reading

2 Broke Girls, S5E7 “And the Coming Out Party”: A TV Review

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Honestly, it’s been so long since the show has referenced the fact that Caroline Channing is a formerly wealthy heiress that it’s weird to think about how classism was once the foundation the show was built on. Now obviously the premise of the show is found in its title, a pair of young women struggling through near-poverty, but the first season really capitalized on one of the two leads having been filthy rich.

That also means that it’s been a very, very, very long time since 2 Broke Girls has decided to retread the plotline of Caroline ending an episode with a realization about her new life being, in some ways, far superior to her old one. Until this week, that is. Continue reading

2 Broke Girls, S5E6 “And Not the Regular Down There”: A TV Review

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Before we get right into the review, I want to spotlight a fact you may not be aware of: there’s a chance 2 Broke Girls may be cancelled. According to the aforelinkedto TV By The Numbers the CBS sitcom has recently received ratings below Mike & Molly, another three camera show from the same network that was axed in 2015.

On the flip side of things, it’s been reported that over in mainland China the show is actually doing quite well2 Broke Girls is actually the number one most-searched American TV show on Baidu, the search engine of choice for people living there. Following behind it are such programs that you would expect to top the list, like Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones. Unfortunately a Chinese audience is not going to convince CBS to keep the show around, which is why I’m going to start approaching these reviews from a particular angle, specifically: what can 2 Broke Girls do to save itself?

Snag plotlines straight from reddit? Continue reading

2 Broke Girls, S5E5 “And the Escape Room”: A TV Review

escaperoom

With “And the Escape Room” 2 Broke Girls continues its penchant for covering topics long after they first rose to relevance. That’s not to say that the concept of escape rooms has faded from the public consciousness [I’ve seen new ones popping up in downtown Toronto], only that they’re not exactly newsworthy anymore.

Having reviewed one such establishment for this blog, and having gone to other vastly better places since, I was actually excited to review this week’s installment of the show, primarily as an actual escape game. Things actually started out pretty well in that regard, too, with the diner staff [this entire scenario is a team-building exercise cooked up by Han, which is not an uncommon event] entering into an almost completely dark room. Over on the wall they see the following:

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Oleg didn’t recognize the man in the portrait, surprising no one.

With 26 light switches on the left the gang connect that number to letters in the alphabet. Han surmises that the right one might be “L”, for “light”, but Caroline more accurately suggests that it might be related to the equation Albert Einstein is most well-known for. They flick the fifth switch and the room is bathed in light. As mentioned, a promising start. Continue reading

2 Broke Girls, S5E3 “And the Maybe Baby”: A TV Review

maybebaby

Now I’m not television executive or anything, but scheduling a sitcom to regularly air on American Thanksgiving seems unwise to me. Then again, the one and only time I’ve ever celebrated the holiday with a family in the US we gorged ourselves in the early afternoon, opening up our evening to whatever we wanted, so what do I know.

On the other hand, maybe some kind of holiday episode was called for? I guess its absence is what happens when CBS’s comedy lineup is in such flux that 2 Broke Girls‘ season premiere is announced just one month before it airs. At the very, very least you’d think that given the title this week would be covering some sort of pregnancy or infant-related incident.

Nope, this week we get the return of Candy Andy.  Continue reading

2 Broke Girls, S5E2 “And the Gym and Juice”: A TV Review

gymjuice

A lot of the time, when I wish I had implemented a grading system into these reviews when I first started two years ago, it’s because I want to underscore how truly bad an episode was. Not this week. This week I wish that I was able to qualify how good 2 Broke Girls usually is so that I could give “And the Gym and Juice” an A.

And no, this isn’t a particularly groundbreaking twenty-something minutes of situation comedy, but it is exactly what it needs to be, which is to say that it’s funny. Just two episodes into their fifth season and 2 Broke Girls appears confident in allowing its titular characters to truly carry the show, and they do so in a truly admirable fashion. I’m not sure if there was a shake-up in the writers room, but whatever happened it has me generally looking forward to future installments of the show. Continue reading