Where We Left Off

Happy Endings, S03E01

 To start off the third season, they had stories that addressed some things from the season finale.  Dave and Alex were trying to casually date.  Max was trying to keep Penny in a cast so he could get closer to her physical therapist.  Brad was lying to Jane about his new job.

I nearly forgot about this show entirely because its premiere was at the same time as New Girl, and there's no competition between which one I'd want to watch more.  I had also forgotten what had happened last time we saw the gang until I started watching.  Then I remembered that I hadn't been much interested in anything they left hanging, except I did wonder who Max would replace Grant with.

The worst story was, of course, Dave and Alex, who were failing miserably to act casually with their relationship back on.  I hated how they were speaking like stupid frat boys or something--it wasn't funny in the least.  Also, who cares about them together or not?  I have to agree with Max's assessment of hearing them back together, even though I didn't get the Frasier reference.  Haha.

The Brad and Jane story was better, but not by much.  I sorta liked that Brad had a dummy named Sinbrad because it made him a little creepy.  It was also kinda funny that he had a background of his house in his office to fool Jane into thinking he was still at home.  I just don't get why he didn't just tell her. There's no way Jane would be that upset about it, no matter how happy she was that he was taking some time off and getting time to spend with him.  His song with Sinbrad at the end also wasn't terrible.  I might have enjoyed it more if he had used a different song to parody.

Brad and Penny's story was the best, but it's not saying much because this whole episode was blah to me.  I liked that Max was "misery-ing" Penny all for the sake of spending time with Kent, whose ass he was admiring at one funny point.  I just like seeing Max's selfishness causing someone else a problem and in this case, it was almost psychotic the way he was doing, so that was nice.  But what I liked best was the way that Max ended his little charade with Kent when Penny told him everything that Max had done:

[Kent] Max, is this true?

[Max] Yes, but Kent I-I did it for us.  When we're together and we're looking into each other's face--you know what, forget it.  I'm a skeeze.  Get the hell out of here.

 I just love how easily he tossed Kent aside after going to the trouble of drugging Penny to get him.  Haha.  Good ol' Max.  Seriously, I think I keep watching because I just love him so much.  Plus, Jane and Brad have their moments too.  But Max picked up the slack, as usual.

This was a better premiere for this show than I probably would have anticipated, if I was even thinking about it coming back to TV.  I'm not so sure why it's not as hilarious as it was before.  However, it's too early to know if I'm going to have to give up Max for the sake of not dealing with everyone else's poor performances.  I really hope they step out of the box this year and bring back that comedy that attracted me to this show in the first place.

You'd Be A Dummy To Love This One

The Cleveland Show, S03E11

This was another rather uninspired episode.  It would have been a complete snooze if Rallo wasn't involved.  However, I still wouldn't call it anything memorable.  Cleveland and Rallo end up having a ventriloquist act that seems to bond them as a father and son.

I liked that Rallo was freaked out about the magic show he saw on TV to the point that he was running around shouting, "Help!" for a lady sawed in half.  He's such a cute little idiot.  His stepbrother explained the concept of magic to him, and Rallo became enamored with it.

Although Cleveland is so disinterested in Rallo's childish magic tricks, when Rallo calls him "Daddy" so that Cleveland will take him to a magic club, he gets so emotional that he cries.  Wow.  I didn't know that it meant so much for him to get along with Rallo in that way.  I felt like that they had an unspoken tolerance of each other, but they would never be able to have a real loving relationship.  This time they sort of achieved that.  In fact, Cleveland was being super creepy about loving Rallo.  Like when he kept sniffing his hair.  Eww.  But somehow it was cute if you can get over him putting his face all up in Rallo's fro.

There was a scene at the magic club where Rallo had a rabbit appear in his hat.  Cleveland told him that anything you found in there was yours.  Cleveland found a Ferrari in his and jumped into his hat.  Later we hear him crash it, and he jumps back out, claiming that the car isn't his.  That's when we see the police lights.  Ha.

The last thing I expected to happen when they met "Magical Johnson," was that he would hire the two to open his show.  I thought maybe Rallo would be offended that he was looked upon as a dummy, but he was the first to accept the offer before Cleveland could correct the man.

I was pretty much ignoring the conversation between Cleveland and Donna about them doing their ventriloquist show.  The only thing I did pay attention to was that Cleveland revealed that he had a tape recorder taped to his chest.  Um, total flashback to Family Guy when Stewie pulled the same thing on Lois.  Come on Seth MacFarlene.  Let's try not to use too many of the same gags.

The best parts of their "Porque and Bean" act was their first outfit (which Rallo said made him look like "Black Chuckie"), the fact that they bought a little coffin to "store" Rallo in, and that Rallo and Cleveland seemed to be getting along.  Of course, Cleveland got too big for his britches and boasted that he was the star of the show.  Classic diva problem among any group.  Rallo let him do the show by himself to see that Cleveland was hardly as funny without him (in fact, he was "turr-able").

The end was probably sweet with Cleveland admitting how important it was for him that Rallo looked upon him as another father, not a replacement for Robert, but I was too bored to watch carefully.  I just know that they made up and came clean about their act.  However, no one seemed to know what they were doing, and the crowd was horrified to see Rallo stand up on his own and bow.  I had to laugh at someone in the crowd shrieking that Rallo would "kill them all."

Speaking of the crowd, while Rallo and Cleveland were having their sentimental moment on stage, there was a creepily funny line from two people in the audience:

[Guy 1] This is getting a little too real.
[Guy 2]  Yeah.   And sexy.

 It was good that things ended relatively on a laugh.  This week, again, I wasn't too impressed by this show.  I'm wondering if it's just on a slump, or on its way out of my primary shows.  We'll see in the next couple of weeks.