Call Him Pop-Pop

New Girl, S02E13

Nick's dad came into town and got Jess involved in a scam to buy a horse and sell its sperm.  Nick got involved with the shady deal, worried that Jess would be bled dry if he left his father alone to do as he pleased.  Schmidt also teamed up with Robby to scheme to get Cece back and the two unexpectedly bonded with each other.

I really liked Nick's dad.  Mostly because he drove Nick crazy.  His appearance also explained a lot of why Nick isn't the most put together adult you would find.  But as Jess commented at the end of the episode, it's really impressive that with a dad who would just roll into town to con some people out of money and not really try to connect with his son on any level, that Nick isn't running the streets operating crooked games or something.  More important than that, Nick, who is usually a little high-strung about less serious things ,was extra strung out with his father around.  I love to see that, so I welcomed Walt's presence.

One of my favorite things that frustrated Nick was that Winston was in love with Walt.  I guess not having a father around himself he sort of adopted Nick's dad as his own.  He even gave him an adorable nickname, "Pop-pop," which Nick absolutely hated.  I really loved each time he would call Walt that and any time that Nick would plead Winston to stop doing that.

It was also funny how Jess was the absolute worst person to be hanging around Walt.  He was playing her like a fiddle and Jess had no clue until she had given him hundreds of dollars on a horse of questionable value.  I sometimes forget how trusting and guillible Jess is until someone comes along to take advantage of her good nature.  My favorite example of her excessive faith in anyone was best illustrated when Nick showed his dad:

[Nick] Dad, she will believe anything.[Jess] That’s not true, Nick.
[Nick] My real name is Jamil.[Jess] It is?
[Nick] No, my name is not Jamil![Jess] Nick, that was not fair.[Nick] It is Nick, you know that![Jess] You told me in confidence.[Nick] How could you think my name was Jamil?

 It's sweet and makes you laugh that someone could be bordering on stupidity with how much they want to trust people at their word.

In the Schmidt story, I expected that I was just going to see him make an ass of himself and make Cece hate him even more, but instead he started a weird friendship with Robby.  I can see how they would bond over their mutual love for Cece (neither of them is probably a great fit for her--they were both dating up).  However, it was ridiculous how they were stalking her and showed up at her house uninvited when Cece was having a family get-together with Pavun and her relatives.  Weirder than that, Schmidt thought an orgy was going on--what??  I think he just had dirty things on his mind from the beginning because he saw Cece in the sari and got excited, which was evident from him trying to describe one of his gross sexual fantasies--eww.  They were lucky that no one ended up kicking their asses for their rude and unwanted appearance.  I think their man-hug made them guess they were more stupid than they were dangerous.

The best thing about Robby and Schmidt getting together was that although Schmidt was dedicated in helping Robby, he made it very clear that he was going to help him to help himself.  He kept talking about smiting him when the time was right.  That was really funny, especially because Robby made it clear he wasn't going to go along with that part, but he didn't mind trusting Schmidt until that day came.  Robby is an amazingly easy-going guy.  If it was me, I'd not join forces with a guy who kept talking about destroying me in the future (but Robby might believe that Schmidt won't win even if he tries, so maybe he's just confident himself).

This was a pretty cute episode.  I liked getting an idea of how Nick's childhood might have been, and why he's been committed to acting like an old man his whole life.  It was really funny to have Walt around to see Winston showing him misplaced affection and Jess eating up any lie that he threw her way.  I'm looking forward to him coming back for another con some day.  Schmidt and Robby are lucky they have each other because neither of them has Cece, that's for sure.  They might want to just concentrate on their friendship rather than getting her back--don't think any plan they would come up with has a shot in hell to work.

Steve's Wild Night

American Dad, S08E06

Stan and Francine's regular babysitter got injured and they decided to let Hayley watch Steve so that they could go to the horse show they were looking forward to.  Steve wanted to prove that he was wild, so he snuck out of the house to a party and Hayley spent the night trying to get him back before their parents figured out how irresponsible she was.  Stan and Francine hired Roger to drive them in a horse and carriage to the horse show, but his reckless driving on the highway made them miss the show when he wrecked the car.

There isn't much that I liked or disliked about this episode.  In general, I liked that Stan and Francine didn't trust Hayley to watch over Steve at all.  I sometimes forget that they don't find her to be really reliable.  It must be because she tends to be the one most concerned with what's morally right that it makes me overlook the fact that she is sort of a flake and a wildcard.  However, she would have had an easy time watching Steve if she hadn't pushed his buttons in the first place.

It was nice to see Steve have a pretty successful night.  He managed to run away from Hayley (which was easy because she wasn't prepared to chase after Steve in the first place), get alcohol to ensure his ticket to a party, get a cute girl's number, and spend a few seconds at a cool party.  For him, that was about as good as it gets, even with a methhead threatening him with a gun because he didn't give him a receipt and said addict getting his head shot off in the room of the girl he just met.

If I had to pick something I liked, it might be that Snot kept telling people "you're doing great," when they were being questioned by a police officer in Jeff's van.  Everyone was certainly not doing great, but Snot is so damn positive.  I'm still enjoying him from the previous episode and just thinking that he's such an upbeat guy that he has no clue that they were gonna get so arrested.

After seeing the grim end to the former babysitter, Lindsay, it was sort of nice that her ghost ended up helping Hayley and Steve move Francine's car back to the house in time.  I don't know why she chose to help them, but it was only slightly random, so I could go along with it.  Her good deed as a ghost sort of made her death seem a little less sad and unnecessary.

As far as Stan and Francine's story, I didn't care for the way they were so horny about horses.  It was almost too gross, but not quite there.  I'm just surprised that with Roger taking the carriage on the highway that no one got hurt.  I never expected them to get to their show with Roger handling their transportation, but they did get to see some kind of horse show.  However, I feel like their story didn't really add much of anything.  And Roger's role was minimum so it was lacking comedy for me.

This was an okay episode.  I certainly didn't have much to complain about.  It was nice to see things go pretty well for Steve and see Hayley and Steve sort of get along.  I don't know how I feel about Lindsay dying for the sake to help Steve and Hayley (it seemed), but at least it was something different to see.  However, I didn't see the point in Stan and Francine's story at all.  It could have been filled with more of Steve enjoying the night being "wild" for once.

You Make Me So Mad I Wanna Murder You!

Cougar Town, S01E02

Of course, this episode was the start of Jules' wedding planning.  I thought she might start with a lot of grand and crazy ideas of her vision, but she needed to accommodate some of her friends' needs first, like Ellie and Andy's need of a place to have sex during the event.  I liked that Grayson asked if he got a say about the wedding because it was his too, and the gang just laughs at him.  Only in a parallel universe would he be able to put his own two cents in.  I forgot that Jules is a people-pleaser and doesn't want anyone unhappy with her.  After all, she pretty much worn down Grayson from an disinterested neighbor to a fiance.

I admire Grayson for trying to fight back in the tiniest way, since his power is basically nonexistent with Jules around, by refusing to accept "Thanks, Babe" as an end to a conversation.  But I like how Ellie and Jules were confused at first why he was still there and hadn't listened  to Jules' command to go to go ask her dad for her hand.  Jules sweet talks him into going, so his little stand is pretty much pointless.

Grayson and Travis visiting Jules' dad was funnier than I expected because he soon asks Grayson to shoot one of his horses.  But in fact, he is just screwing with him and lets Travis in on the joke.  I wondered if it was just because he didn't like Grayson (which I could understand; he's not easily likeable), but it was because he wanted to test how far he'd go for the sake of his daughter.  Bobby had been a bad husband and he didn't want to see her with another unfit guy.  Compared to some other shows I've seen where the dad tested the new husband/boyfriend, I'd say Grayson got off easily.  Not that I wanted to see him shoot a horse, though.  But it was nice to see Travis and Jules' dad bonding together to play around with Grayson.  He got them back by almost shooting the horse.  Who wouldn't when Travis was questioning his manhood by asking how it was possible a grown man such as himself hadn't already killed a horse.  I loved when Travis said that in his monotone voice.

Also, Jules as an eavesdropping ninja, as Travis put it, was a nice joke.  I especially enjoyed her using his powers of stealth to pop up next to Bobby and Andy on the roof.  I would hate to have her as a friend because I feel like I'd want to talk about her, but would feel like I'd always have to check over my shoulder first.

Bobby was trying to express his approval of Jules and Grayson's engagement with the gift of zip-line, but that story was not that interesting to me.  I did think it was kinda cool when Jules finally used it and ended up landing on the hood of Laurie's car.  She took a pretty nice fall.

The best thing of the episode was Ellie and Andy's ritual of expressing murderous anger.  Whenever Ellie got so mad at Andy she wanted to kill him, she would just "do" it.  They would act out the killing moment, complete with blood and murder weapon, and Travis would photograph it.  Then they kept past "murder scenes" on their walls to remember them.  Man, I like that idea!  If only I could do that, but with my friends.  It's a pretty unusual, but entertaining way to channel out your fury.  And later you can laugh about it and realize how silly you were.  I mean, Andy just left the ice cream out too long; did he really need to be bludgeoned to death with a bat?

I won't really mention the whole co-maid of honor (Co-MOH) thing.  Of course, Jules would do that.  I do want to say that Ellie and Jules' relationship is so creepily close, it's funny.  Like how they both keep bags in their cars in preparation of running away together one day.  In a Thelma and Louise fashion?  They're a good match, though.  Someone very self-centered and someone who gets joy from making others happy.  You could easily imagine the two of them married, because they kinda are already (kinda like in Scrubs how Turk and JD were).

Wish there were more jokes that I liked, but that whole murder-pretending thing was good enough to satisfy me this time.  I wonder how ridiculous Jules is going to get soon about planning the wedding.  I hope it's something that even a whipped Grayson will have to fight against (though he won't win).