Same Old Story Again

The Cleveland Show, S04E11

Cleveland voluntarily took a severance package and quit his job, but kept it secret from Donna and had fun spending the money while only pretending to use that time to find a new job.  Roberta and Federline broke up, and Rallo was happy to see Roberta start dating a black guy until he found out that Devon was too strict and boring.

I can't say what's much different in this story about Donna and Cleveland compared to most stories about the two of them.  Cleveland does something wrong and enjoys himself in the meantime before Donna figures out that he's been lying through his teeth.  This formula for a story isn't unique to this show (Homer Simpson does it on a regular basis, as well), but what I dislike about when Cleveland chooses to do it is that he usually does it for selfish reasons.  It's not that he wanted to save himself from embarrassment or felt not so confident about finding another job, but he just didn't want Donna to make him do chores or whatever around the house (and he probably didn't want to have to use the money on his family).  I was surprised at first that he was going to tell Donna exactly what he had done at work until he used the time-rewinding technique from Superman (I don't know which one).  Unlike when I had seen Stan Smith use this on American Dad, Cleveland successfully went back in time to prevent himself from letting Donna spoil his fun.  I wish that Cleveland had only imagined he had done it, like Stan (I don't much like that they used the same reference like that).

Also, per usual to this setup, Cleveland's deception was revealed through his own carelessness and stupidity.  Much like when he was pretending to be homeless, he was too busy having a good time to remember that he shouldn't dine in the same restaurant his wife was working in.  I guess since Cleveland will never be the type to admit what he did wrong without being caught in the act first, we have to wait for his lies to catch up with him.  I wish they had caught up sooner--he wasn't doing anything that exciting with all that money.  He then spun the situation to look like he was going to end his life due to the hopelessness of the current job market, making him look even more like a selfish ass.   It would have been a great lesson to him if Donna had won in the end when she punched him off of the ledge.  Instead, Cleveland's seemingly joke to sue Donna wasn't a lie at all, and the money that he won in that settlement allowed him to return things back to status quo.  I didn't like that ending.  I hate when Cleveland appears to win in the end when he was the one doing wrong all along.  Unless they can do that in a very humorous way, which wasn't achieved this time, I'd rather see him get his just desserts.

There was only about one thing I liked about this story and that was when Clevleand was making some speech on the ledge to the "unemployed hippies."  He was getting a little long-winded and Rallo shouted out:

Wrap it up!

I had to laugh at that because the time was perfect and the sentiment was apt.  Cleveland was just having another bullshitting session that wasn't important in the least.  If only Donna could have gotten up  there sooner to knock him off.

The side story involved Rallo, but sadly he wasn't put to good use.  The focus was mainly on how Ferdeline reverted back to his non-poser self (a sight that was a bit eerie for some reason) and how Devon sucked the fun out of Rallo's life.  The latter should have been decently funny, but it wasn't.  I guess because there wasn't anything more to Devon than following the rules and reforming Rallo.  I actually didn't even feel like he was dating Roberta--it was more like he was Rallo's 24-7 babysitter.  I might have found Rallo's situation funnier if he complained to someone about Devon, but they didn't believe he was an unpleasant guy.  Instead, it just became clearer and clearer than Devon was as about as fun as counting blades of grass.  He was making Rallo's life hell, but to me it wasn't anything personal, so it didn't tickle my funny bone.  Also, Rallo didn't have any chances to turn the tables on Devon or anything.  He just had to get Federline back.  As much as I dislike Federline, he's the lesser of two evils, I guess.

This episode made me feel like I was watching a different but similar episode with just a few of the pieces changed.  I'd like to see Cleveland have more times where his lies seemed necessary rather than a reflection of him protecting his own best interests.  I would have also liked to see Rallo get more revenge on Devon than bringing back Federline to take his place.  While it's better to have Federline at Roberta's side than Devon, I would have ultimately preferred a story without the two of them in the first place.

Winston Loves Fruity Drinks

New Girl, S02E01

Nick, Winston, Schmidt and Jess returned Tuesday night back in full comedy action!  Jess was fired from her job and did her best to hide how much it devastated her.  Schmidt threw a rebranding party to celebrate the removal of his penis cast.

This was a great episode to start things off.  I was just glad to see things back to normal (after Nick almost left the group last season) with everyone acting crazy.  Of course, with Jess losing her job it seemed that this event might mess up their whole dynamic, but really it's all about Jess acting a-fool in the most awkward way, and she had no problems doing that while unemployed.  My favorite thing, actually, about her getting fired is when she selected a tiny silver glitter hat from the lost and found box.  Nick hated it and tossed it away at one time, but Jess brought it back when she was attempting to do a sexy shot-girl dance toward the end.  But it was nice to see that she didn't give up on being a teacher.  I think that her childlike qualities and weirdness are best suited for dealing with kids, so I wouldn't want to see Jess in a different occupation.  Hopefully she can just get another education-related job, preferably one that causes more situations like that hilarious science fair fiasco from last season.

The best thing about the episode had to do with Winston, although Schmidt's fire dancing that he couldn't quite control wasn't bad either.  Before the party where we saw Winston acting crazy over some fruity drink, there was a good quote between him and Schmidt:

[Winston] I'm a changed man.  I mean, look at me--I'm wearing a suit.
[Schmidt] A suit?  Please, that's something they put on Morgan Freeman when they let him out of Shawshank.

But that was nothing compared to Winston from the first time he took a sip from Nick's special fruity drink.  I don't know if you want to call it drunk or if a special switch had been turned on inside him, but Winston was acting as fruity as the drink he was inhaling at that party.  Nick warned us beforehand that Winston was going to get weird, but he went beyond what I even expected--it was so funny!  Him talking about being "naughty" and his facial expressions just killed me.  I think that Winston sometimes ends up being the funniest now because he's the one who usually stands in the background around all the crazy doings of his roommates, so when he actually falls out of line and starts "joining the party," it tends to be so freaking funny.  My only complaint was that the focus was so much on Schmidt and Cece and Jess' unemployment that there wasn't so much time to see Winston under the spell of his most favorite cocktail.  However, I can't be too mad because there was this great scene where Winston stared at Schmidt's fire dancing while twisting a straw in his mouth:

This was probably one of the best Winston scenes of all time and it was in the first episode!  It's times like this that I can't believe that I didn't like Winston at all.  He's the wildcard on the show, where everyone is pretty unstable to begin with.

This episode would have been fine to start with on its own, but FOX gave us a bonus episode last week to enjoy as well!  But this one was good enough that I couldn't possibly be unsatisfied whether the next one was just as good or not!  It's great to have New Girl back on the air again!