Past Purges
The Bridge "Harvest of Souls"
I'm too close to stopping this show to say much about it. I'll miss the prosecutor after his "accident" and I'm starting to fear that both Daniel and Adriana aren't making it out of this season alive. They are scaling back on Eleanor the past couple weeks. That's a good move, becuase she was starting to be more of a "big bad" than this show can handle.
Married "The Playdate"
There was an odd structure to this week, as we get to see Jess, AJ, and Shep without Lina or Russ stopping by. It's not a meaty story, just Shep being angry about missing brunch (The struggle is real!) because AJ has an emotional 19-year old to deal with, but it means that the characters can exist independent of the leads. That's good, as I like all of those actors. As for Lina and Russ, I don't have much to say. They are trying to get a lot of mileage with Russ as the sex-crazed (and denied) husband. There was no payoff to the family living in a famous porn house, although Russ' enthusiasm over it was fun. I don't get the mechanics of that family's porn blocker either. If the sites are getting blocked, how can the dad be concerned about how much the son is looking at it? It's nice to see Michaela Watkins on something other than Trophy Wife (Jackie annoyed me a lot). She balances perfectionist mom with exhausted one very well. A weird side-note a want to make: It's refreshing how often they are referring to Lina as being attractive. Judy Greer has been subjugated to less than flattering roles for so long that it's nice to see someone finally acknowledging that she is quite pretty.
You're the Worst "Sunday Funday"
It was always a matter of when this show would take on hipsters, not if and they did it as well as I imagined. Edgar's rivalry with the hipster group leader was entertaining and ended with an enjoyably brutal victory for Edgar, when he realizes that his issues stem from his dead friends and his competitor is just trying to look cool. It's kind of an ignored, telling fact that the Sunday Funday that our protagonists are having fits a hipster Funday perfectly. Hmmm...
Jimmy and Gretchen are a functional couple pretending not to be. He's jealous of her and she's worried about hurting his feelings. That's not really them being the worst. Mostly, they just seem to hate other people. I know I find myself associating with Jimmy far too often, such as his response to the others singing the Sunday Funday song. Gretchen is similar to Jimmy, but she can suppress situations long enough to have some fun. I originally assumed the season would end with them breaking up. I'm doubting that more each week.
Also, I can't be the only one who is reminded of Clara from The Guild every time Lindsay is with her husband?
Girl Meets World "Girl Meets Maya's Mother"
"My dad says that actors are just a bunch of people who never grow up." -Student
"Well what does your dad do?" -Maya's Mom
"He's a director." -Student
I had to get that out of the way because I was legit laughing for a while after that part happened.
Girl Meets World is not a subtle show. The episode begins in art class where the art teacher makes some rather inappropriate passes at Lucas which I assume only land as jokes to kids, not borderline creepy, which it did for me. Pretty quickly, we see again that Maya is good at art, because of course she's going to be.
A more adult show would go ahead and make Maya's mother a drunk. Struggling actress waitress is more right for Disney Channel. After they do the required big, embarrassing moments with her, there's an amazingly sweet scene between her and Riley that basically sums up to "I'm not a great mother, but you're a great friend. I may fail her, but you won't". That's some deep shit for a Disney show. The touch about the tuna fish sandwich was simple and effective too.
Ben Savage and Danielle Fishel are having fun with this show. Neither have done much in the downtime between shows (I won't assume whether it's by choice or by circumstance) and they appear to really enjoy being back. The energy in the dinner scene, Corey with his close-up magic, and Topanga with her hips that don't like was great.
The return of Minkus, while not a surprise, was more great fan service. I knew he was Farkle's dad but I didn't realize how much they do look alike. And, I realize I say this nearly every week, but again, I love how nice Riley and Maya are to Farkle, benignly going along with Farkle's lie to his dad that he is indeed a ladies man. Oh, and the touch about the combined parent/child As. Brilliant, although I didn't get the impression before that Riley was a straight A student. I always took her for a Corey-level average student.
Maybe I just don't give children the same pass that other people do, but was I supposed to be impressed by Auggie doing opera?
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