Playing my mom against my dad.
Very sharp. Cowboy also had a fairly good triplet of crustacean, libation, penetration, although the line felt a little rushed and a touch forced.
I was excited when a reference was made to hot coffee, the x-rated mod for Grand Theft Auto. I was disappointed that this reference was then explained twice over the course of the episode. The problem here is that a pack of videogame coders wouldn’t have to explain what hot coffee was to each other. There must be another way to bring the audience up to speed – it’d be funny if they paused the action and told the home viewers to go Google “hot coffee” and “grand theft auto” while the rest of the jPoders stared at the screen and waited. Or they could not explain the reference much at all. (To the show’s credit, the GILF reference went unexplained.)
Klownsly, or whoever, made another appearance. I wasn’t super excited to see the clown character again, but there was a great scene near the end of the episode where Kaitlyn and the clown (they’re on-again-off-again boyfriend/girlfriend) talk about their shared dysfunctional bonds. It was a good moment, and it “sold” me on their relationship, something that has been missing, in general, in the show. Often times the audience is simply told the situation (Kaitlyn dropped out of school) without providing any convincing proof of a character trait or plot development.
Carol continues to be the best thing on the show by an order of magnitude. Her delivery is so crisp, so Swiss-like in its precision, you could use her to teach a class on comedy.
I think there should be a moratorium on homages to the Say Anything ghettoblaster scene. I laughed hard when George Bluth Sr. did it in Arrested Development, but I did not chuckle so much this time, even though Steve’s off-key singing was a good idea. (They also didn’t use the Peter Gabriel song In Your Eyes, for better or for worse.)
I find that the computer animation sequences are rarely as funny as the build-up to them would lead one to expect. I also find that the computer animation invariably involves a number of people having to watch it and react, which is like a laugh track, and almost as forced.
I was super-pumped to hear Sons of Freedom during some of the biker scenes. I bought the two best songs from their album Gump through iTunes yesterday (which will earn the band about 30 cents per track, I believe). I also downloaded their first album for free through their website (link). I’m not a music journalist or anything, but god-damn is The Criminal a good song. Ditto the songs Mona Lisa, You’re No Good, and Call Me. I saw Sons of Freedom live, at the Town Pump (if I’m not mistaken), many years ago, and it was tremendously f’n good. Hearing SOF me feel fond about Vancouver again.
That’s saying something.
