Peter's Cheating Helps Their Marriage

Family Guy, S11E14

Peter got sued for stealing someone's property and the financial loss made it necessary for Lois to take up a job.  She thought she was getting an opportunity to do voice-over work, but it was only a job for phone sex.  Lois eventually got used to it, but she was shocked and hurt when Peter became one of her customers and seemed to get emotionally attached to her persona "Classy."

Somehow Lois getting into the sex industry didn't seem outrageous.  After all, being married to Peter is expensive with all of the random damages and fees that he builds up from his day-to-day mischief.  She basically needs to do whatever she can do to keep the family afloat, even if it's catering to people who need sexual relief over the phone.  Naturally, Lois didn't take too long to get the hang of it, nor even let her family know what she was doing.  I guess that's why she couldn't bust Peter right away because she would have to admit that she was doing phone sex in the first place.

As for Peter's infatuation with her over the phone, I felt like it did dance the line between cheating and being completely linked to Lois for life.  I would probably just call it a technical cheating because Peter was subconsciously falling for his own wife.  I do think it's weird that he would so quickly want to meet the woman and commit adultery, though.  Even if he felt strongly about her, he should have given it some time.  No wonder Lois wanted to fool him when he was being so impulsive about throwing their marriage away (as far as he knew).  Sure Lois was being distant lately, but that was no excuse for him to prepare to leave his family after what seem like a few phone calls.

However, I liked how Lois and Peter came to terms with the odd situation.  Sometimes, because Peter is always making jokes about Lois being old and unattractive, I forget that Peter loves Lois at all.  They have been married for over a decade, so they shouldn't be without their quarrels or complaints about one another.  Still, I liked seeing them reaffirm their feelings for each other in this story, no matter how twisted it was that Peter thought he was actually cheating on her.  For this show, it was sort of sweet that Peter fell in love with her voice and knew deep in his heart that the owner of the voice was the one that he was meant to be with.  It makes me wish that they had more sweet moments like that more often.

As for the jokes in this episode, there weren't many that I liked.  One that did work for me was when there was a cutaway to a man on a plane who decided to go back to coughing in a very annoying way when his magazine had a toenail in it.  It was funny that he grabbed a random baby and coughed in its face too.  I like how this was an exaggerated version of those types of people who seem to have coughing fits just when they happened to be trapped in a plane for a few hours.

Another that I liked was when Lois talked about Peter being in his anime phase.  It's not the first time that I've seen a cartoon poke fun at anime, but I still liked seeing Peter being drawn in a different way.  He had those too-shiny eyes and his body was all shaped like a big block.  He looked ridiculous, and I liked it.  I guess I enjoyed it because it was just so random for what was going on, like most good cutaways.

The last joke that I liked was when Peter was saying goodbye to his kids.  When he got to Chris he was unexpectedly abrupt with him:

Chris, people are gonna tell you you're stupid and that you're no good.

He totally left him hanging just like that.  Wow.  If those were the last words my father said to me, I'd be so struggling with that the rest of my life.   It was even funnier because he wasn't as mean with the other two (I mean, him farting on Meg is basically how he shows his love for her).

This was a pretty good episode.  There wasn't anything too gross and irritating about it, so I liked it a lot better than most stories I've seen.  Also, this was an unusually sweet story between Peter and Lois that involved being unfaithful.  It's strange that their night started off as Peter planning to go to bed with a woman he just met and Lois coming to see if her husband was going to go that far.  Instead of having a horrible and depressing ending, it turned out to make Peter and Lois stronger for the experience.  They may not be the sweetest couple in the cartoon world, but at least they do take the time every once in a while to remind us why the two of them have bothered to get married in the first place.

What Really Happened?

How I Met Your Mother, S08E17

Ted told his friends about the last time he saw the Captain after receiving a call from him that Ted felt was angry.  Robin retold the story, revealing that Ted's version was skewed, but Lily finally told the real story and proved that Robin also was fuzzy about the details of that night.

I wasn't sure why they had brought the Captain back into picture until the end, but I was thrilled to see him.  I love how he frightens the hell out of Ted and the other guys.  My favorite part, of course, was when Ted replayed the message for Marshall and Barney and each time he replayed it, the Captain's tone and overall image kept getting darker and more foreboding.  Ted really turned a simple message to call him back into the beginning of a murder plot.

I also liked that Ted's story wasn't true at all, but I should have known.  The Captain doesn't seem like the type to rudely end someone's sentences and pull out a harpoon at someone.  When we saw the Captain and Ted together in other episodes it was just Ted imagining all the "terrifying" things that the Captain was trying to do to him.  I should have known that Ted was lying or something.  I wouldn't have guessed that he was high off his mind, though.

I also wouldn't have guessed that Robin was drunk as hell at the gallery either.  I mean, she's used to having guys hit on her, so I could believe that the Captain came onto her.  I don't know about him lying all seductively on his bed in her story, though.  That should have been a clue to me that her story was a little less than true.

The surprises kept rolling in when it was revealed that the one that the Captain was interested in was Lily.  He clearly knew that she was married, so it made me confused (I guess I thought that Robin's story was just her mistaking herself for Lily).  I liked that it wasn't obvious that Lily had stolen an ashtray from him year ago because he belittled her opinion in art because she was a kindergarten teacher.  It still didn't all tie together until Lily started talking about how she regretted never doing anything with art in her life.  The Captain had reminded her of that and even a year later it was still a sore spot for Lily.  I started to feel for her, even though she has a pretty good life with a great husband and an adorable son.  I was happily surprised that Lily didn't have to put aside her dream because the Captain was going to give her a taste of it, possibly, with his job offer.  I would have sooner believed that the Captain was about to harpoon Ted than think he was going to ask her to work for him.

I liked this episode.  It was funny to see the Captain through Ted's terrified eyes.  I don't think I could ever get sick of Ted imagining the worst of him.  It was also interesting that the different versions of that night at the art gallery kept you wondering what the real story was.  Once we found out that it was all about Lily, it made all the storytelling seem worthwhile.  Especially because the Captain ended up giving Lily a way to enjoy her dream again.  Lately, we've been concentrating on the joy of Marvin and we've neglected that Lily might want more out of her life than a wonderful family.  I'm glad we'll get to see her expand her horizons, and the Captain should prove to be a very entertaining boss for her.

Ya'll All Need Part-Time Jobs

Bob's Burgers, S03E14

Linda took a job at a grocery store to help the family with finances, but Bob failed to encourage her and show that Linda was crucial to the restaurant.  She started off part-time, but when Bob gave her a bad employee review, she took the full-time job as shift manager. Tina also met a mysterious boy in the dairy fridge and used his band-aid to find him when the two parted without exchanging information.

I can't believe that with the way that Linda has to bounce so many checks with their debtors that Bob thinks that they hadn't gotten to the point where they needed another income from another job.  Seriously?  They should have had Linda (hell, even the kids selling newspapers or something) working a long time ago.  I think that Bob was just too proud to admit that his restaurant simply doesn't do well enough to keep his family afloat.  After all, he has a wife and three children to support.  It's no time to be prideful.

Anyway, Bob could have had Linda back at the restaurant sooner if he only realized how much Linda does for his business.  One of the most interesting things she does is keep the restaurant at the perfect temperature.  I think that Teddy was overreacting when Bob was adjusting wrong, but he definitely doesn't have the thermostat finesse that his wife has.

Speaking of Teddy, the only part of this story that was really funny was when Bob had to close his restaurant down because of lack of meat and electricity and Teddy refused to leave.  Bob was treating him like a cat and shouting at him to go, and Teddy just wouldn't leave.  What the hell does Teddy even do?  He always seems to have time to lounge about Bob's restaurant all day with unwanted and dubious advice.

One other thing that was sort of funny was when Linda told the customers that she didn't like them.  One guy commented that of course he could hear her because she was on a microphone.  I liked that Louise sort of made that guy feel bad for making her mother look a little dumb:

[Louise] She told me that she hates you the most.
[Customer] Whaaat?

It was sort of sad that Linda thought she was showing Bob a lesson by leaving the restaurant to himself (which she was), but she ended up showing that she is not management material.  She usually manages her own kids, who have good reasons to listen to her orders, unlike employees who will use any old excuse to get out of work.  I can't believe that she actually gave everyone the day off and was left alone in the store.  It was strange to me that people didn't start rioting and leaving with free stuff sooner than they had.  I feel a little bad for the boss who had to come back and find his store in ruins, thanks to Linda.  Bob couldn't run his restaurant too well without Linda, but he didn't exactly destroy the business.  Linda probably put Fresh Feed out of business.

Tina's story was so weird.  Not surprising, but still.  That was completely gross that she kept that kid's band-aid and was using it like a glass slipper on some random kids that showed up to the restaurant.  And who the hell are these kids who were enticed by that flyer she put up?  I can't believe that she got that many people in the first place.  Must be nothing else going on in that town.

I guess her nasty efforts were fruitful, though.  She met the boy again, learned his name, and got a kiss.  I don't know if it will develop any further than the dairy aisle, but since it's Tina, who cares?  That's a victory for her no matter how she got there.

This episode wasn't too bad.  It was sort of nice to see Linda out of the restaurant for a change.  It showed that there is a worse place to work than Bob's restaurant.  This story also showed that Bob would be shut down in a second if he didn't have Linda handling the banks and such.  He really is thick-headed sometimes.  Tina's band-aid version of Cinderella was a little gross, but at least it had a cute ending.  Tina could use a boy in her life to concentrate all of her weird affections on.

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.