Jul 10, 2020
Releatable.
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Releatable.
Close Enough Review and Recap: Prank War and Cool Moms
Josh’s stupidity lands a man in the hospital and puts his wife in legal danger then Josh and Alex go on a best buds road trip with Hologram Tupac and Randy... sadly not this one...
While Emily tries to impress the cool mom of a scary girl in Candace’s class. Also we finally find out Candace’s Teacher’s name! For Valhalla under the cut!
Prank War: We open at Plugger Inner’s josh’s place of work and the best best buy parody name since the Buy More.. anyone else remember Chuck? Anyone? Starred the future Shazam as a nerd whose college rival sends a computer into his brain? Was pretty good but had a weak finale? HOpefully someone said yes so let’s move on. Anyways Josh’s younger co workers are doing pranks, and Josh wants in but they all feel he’s too old but really he just sucks at it and his attempt just ends up with water on his head. Meanwhile Emily is forcing Bridgette, with an utterly bored Candace forced to watch, to take self defense lessons from Pearle with her as when the two were recently approached by a stranger, Bridgette took off without her. Thankfully he was just playing pokemon go which gets the great gag of Emily screaming “No one plays that anymore!”. I mean I only don’t because I don’t have phone room.. also he’s after Polliwrath. You have to respect him. Just look at that face.
That’s a face that will MURDER YOU IF YOU DON’T RESPECT HIM RIGHT NOW DO IT DO IT NOW FOR YOUR OWN SAFETY!
Anyways, Josh comes in after what HAD to be an agonizing car ride for alex with invetations to a prank war. No one is on board and we come to why this episode really dosen’t work for me: Josh is kind of a dick, trying to shove eveyrone else into a prank war he’s not only not good at but no one else wants and is visably annoyed by. Yes including Candace. While his attempts at pranks that follow are funny for the sheer pain they put him through overall their just not that intresting and Josh’s final prank of putting snakes in his wife and roomate’s guitars during a performance is just..e xtra dickish. Emliy and Bridgette work hard on their perofrmances probably and it’s really stupid to bring your dumb bullshit into that. It clashes with Josh’s usual preferable aura of “Stupid but loveably so” and the one time he has been a real dick outside this ep so far was understandable. It just feels out of character which should feel weird to say this early but with 6 episodes before this , it’s really easy to tell what his character is. He can be a dick by accident, but he’s usually good natured. The snake prank just takes it a bit too far and while the episode acknowledges he’s being stupid it dosen’t feel in character enough to really work. There is a great gag where Emily chasitises him for acting like a teenager and a delivery man shows up with his crossfire refills. That was great. Josh is depressed he’s failed and leaves Candace with Josh who admits his small talk with children is limited.. and while he dosen’t admit this I sure will it’s comedy gold.
Anyways Josh runs into a guy who jumps him from the bushes.. whose also 32. I’ts also how I learned the characters ages at all.. I mean I do think Bridgette is slightly younger and Alex seems slightly older, even if they met in high school given I had friends above and bellow me in grades it’s easy to assume Alex could’ve been a grade higher or two, but it still is nice to have a ballpark you know? Anyways Bush Guy , since he dosen’t get another name, soon sees bridgette and is extra triple horned up and thus agrees to scare them.. which only gets the poor dude beaten into a coma as what the hell did either of them exepect. And yes this series is Zany. So far we’ve had stripper clowns, meat mafia’s, emily getting trapped in a sitcom, logan’s run but with a giant murder fan, and giant rats. But it still just feels dumb in a way that dosen’t fit the series. At the hospital Josh regrets being a dumbass and sends Alex out with Candace which he grumbles about. THen Emily and Bridgette get arrested for beating the guy up for some reason even though he jumped the fuck up at them.. I mean they still put a man in a coma but still. The two think it’s part of josh’s dumb prank war but soon find that nope it’s real. There’s even a gremlin in there. Great cameo. Back at the hosptial Candace Tricks josh into giving her sugar which she’s not allowed to have.. because she soon goes nuts and develops radioactive spider powers and climbs up walls. Great stuff and I genuinely wish, like I did back in the “Quitly Pleasures” review, back when I didn’t know what it was called, that we just got a full or at least most of an episode of Josh babysitting Candace as this episode shows that yeah, it’s pretty damn great. Josh soon finds a way to get his wife out of jail: turns out mentioning bridgette causes the guy to stir, because she’s fine so fine, and decides to rush him to the jail so she can use that sex magic to wake him up and we get the above as Alex uses candace to propel them to jail. Also alex gets another golden line with “It feels really weird holding your daughter while my ass is in this guy’s face!” Back at jail, CHAOS REIGNS.. people die and one inmate flashes everyone and it works just like the arc of the covenant. Thankfully help arrives as Josh barricades the door , and Alex sucesfful distracts the guards and knocks out candace by throwing the candy bar as once she eats it she sugar crashes, and shoves the guy in. WHile BRidget talking to him, awkardly understandably, dosen’t wokr Alex suggests what they did on their wedding night.. and after Bridget tries “it happens to a lot of guys” Alex calrifies the viking stuff and BRidget sucessfuly saves htem all by grabbing the guys nips and screaming “For valhalla”.. huh guess tha’ts another thing I like. Thank you close enough. He drops charges, Emily pranks josh with a faked death btu accidently starts a prank war, and we’re mercifully done with this one. Final THoughts: This one as you can plainly see wasn’t very good. While the Alex and Candace shenanigans and the climax were really good, overall it just felt REALLY weak and while the premise wasn’t bad a combianton of the show having ALREADY done the “one of the cast feels their getting old” Schtick and much better, and Josh being dumbed down further just to fit one episode, something I really hope they don’t do again as Regular Show was at it’s lowest when it’d exagerate a character’s worst traits just to make th episode easier to write, it’s just a chore, and the worst episode so far.. still had great stuff, again the alex and candace stuff was really damn funny as was the climax, but overall not very good. Thankfully next we have...
Cool Moms:
Yup clearly an intentional pattern at this point.. wether it breaks I dunno but the better episode being second is so far the standard.
Anyways at School Emily barely gets through a boring conversation with one mom, with Mr. Cambell sliding in. And yes that’s candace’s teacher’s name! He has a name! He even gives his full name later , Timothy Rice Cambell. While I do think it was mentioned in “Room Parents”, I honestly wasn’t sure but nope this episode makes it clear. I celebrate not just because I love the guy as every scene he pops up in is magic, including this one but so I don’t have to dance around hsi name. Me Daughter Teacher isn’t a bad gag but i’ts still annoying to not have a name to attach to this mr.wonderman. Anyways emily’s annoyed at having to put up with boring morons because her daughter likes their kid and Mr. Cambell tries to help her find her clique: You have the single moms (one of whom’s on fire which Mr.Cambell says can’t be helped) the plaid ones and the cool moms. Naturally emily wants to get in with them and while too nervous to try talking to htem, one of them comes to her since her daughter seems to like candace, even if Candace isn’t as on board and a playdate is set up. Naturally being high strung as a motherforking stradivarius, Emily is busily cleaning and annoyed by Josh being messy while coding a new game and Alex is, in his own beauitful words “Beautiful Minding” on the windows. Thankfullys he gets a way out when Randy crashes his car outside then barges in demanding to use emilys. Randy has’nt really done much up to this point as you’ve probably seen, but this is his first focus episode. Turns out he’s worried about Pearle who left with some random guy for a retrat in the desert and wants to drive up. Emily uses this as a way to get rid of alex and josh for the day by having the two drive him framing it as a road trip. THe two adorably do a synchornized song and handshake about it and are clearly on board while Randy is annoyed. Good. So a road trip happens! Alex and Josh have a fun time, randy is annoyed and the two also buy a tupac hollogram which annoys randy furhter because of course. Every road trip should have a tupac hollogram. It’s a fun motange that shows both why the two are so close and is just really charming. Plus Randy isn’t that hard to root against as he’s following his adult mom into the desert for flimsy reasons and was rude in asking for help. And somehow has a girlfriend and alex dosen’t despite alex having way more charisma and both being human dumpster fires. Anyways back at the house the playdate happens. Candace gives Emily a cool mom hat to wear which she brushes off and it’s clear her new friend is kind of nuts, throwing away things her daughter makes, letting her daughter do whatever, bringing homeade beer to emily’s enjoyment before casually revealing she not only follows outback stake house promos as her philosphy but gives her kid beer. Also candace isn’t really a fan of her daughter, understdnably as the girl breaks her piggy bank and made mr cambell cry. It’s how we learned his name though at least. Anyways, Emily is clearly starting to wane but doubles down when her new pal invites mother and daughter to children’s wrestling where she promises the rest of the gang will bet here. Back in the desert randy is understandably frustrated as free ride or not he’s supposed to get to his mom. However we actually get some depth from him as it turns out part of the reason he’s so insanely worried is that as the son of a cop, as Pearle’s reitred LAPD, he always worried about her coming home and can’t stop now, his tears moving Josh and Alex and .. bringing a statue of a pterodactyl to life because fuck yes. Naturally the statue is a nice fellow who is sympathetic and when asked by Randy for a ride gladly agrees.. before not only turning out to be religious but the crazy extremist kind who thinks stoning women for adultry is okay.. but that line being said by a pink magical ptreodactyl casualy while the others fly on his back makes it really fucking hilarious. They make it to the retreat, getting naked since the guards are and sneak in.
At children’s arm wrestling, Emily meets the crew, which incdlues a woman who gave usher herpes and a reporter for goop kids. one is a legend if a bit gross the other is oh god no incarnate. That said it’s really sad that GOOP is not only still around, but that that joke from a show that sat on the shelf for a bit is even more relevant after their disasterous netflix show last year.
Back at the soundless retreat the guys fight some more guys and Alex agrees to “naked wrestle these guys while you go save yoru mom” Alex is the best. What a guy. Makes you cry. And I did. Randy rushes in.. and as you’d probably have guessed, Pearle’s just on a date with a rather nice elderly gentelman who takes randy trying to attack him in stride. Turns out they met when she was undercover and he took 13 bullets for her. What a legend. Also he’s treating pearles aches with sound waves. Randy admits he jsut gets so worried because he’s used to the reassuring click of the door. Pearle assures him that if the streets of LA couldn’t take her out nothing can. And really she was a black police officer in a city that I’ve heard could be very racist, trying to work within an inhernetly corrupt system to do the right thing for her people while also raising a white son. The woman is a fucking legend. I did worry a bit about how the show would handle pearle: With the horror cops have been putting on people of color, and such stellar depcitions of cops of color like brookyn nine nine, the show had a LOT of pressure on it that wasn’t it’s fault, but I like Pearle, she’s a godo character and a good example of what police SHOULD be and could could be if we just do waht needs to be done and rebuild the system from the ground up. Defund the police, take away their army weapons, get cilvillian volunteers in, and fix this system so officers like pearle dont’ have to fear that their backup wont’ be there for them due to their color or that their own coworkers will murder an innocent person of color for racisit and stupid reasons. And yes I am bringing up black lives matter in an otherwise goofy review of a goofy show but I felt it needed bringing up at least once. Randy cryingly hugs the guy accepting him as dad, which he may not be but it’s sweet and alex and josh naked hug. Back at the terrible mom olympics, Candace is up against her new friend and clearly terrified. Thankfully emily realizes she done fucked up and stops things before her daughter ends up in a cast. And this is really a good contrast to the josh episode above: Both have one of them screwing up royally and realizing it but here, Emily is far more relatable: we all want to belong and it’s probably 10 times harder when your a parent to find other parents you like and not just tolerate because your kids are friends. But ultimately you have to put the kid first and Emily does so when it counts most. Emily then ups the ante when insulted by her now former friend and when told “You could never be a cool mom” gives the badass response “Maybe but I can beat a cool moms ass so the fights back on but with new combatants. What follows it he most dramatic arm wrestling bout since over hte top or regular shows arm wrestling episode where Skips murdered Rigby. Emiy breaks her fucking arm, the other mom accept sit resets her arm and has her daughter drive and Emily and Candace earn a happy ending, as the one mom who wasn’t completely insane out of the group ends up befreinding her. Final Thoughts: A complete 180 this one is possibly the best so far, tied with “The Perfect House”. Both plots while seperate are really damn good. The road trip plot has Alex and Josh being adorable but the real focus is on Randy who while we still don’t get a godo sense of who the hell he is, we do see he’s a loving son whose simply having trouble letting go of a lifetime of worrying his mom will come home safe. We also get more of pearle as we see she’s a good mom, we’ve barely seen the two interact so far, but also a capable badass who can take care of herself.. she dosen’t DO anything badass but it’s her voice and tone that make it clear she’s as unkillable as she says. The emily plot is also great.. while most of the resoultion was easy to see the climatcitc arm wrestling fight wasn’t, and overall it was well done.. while it’s outshined by the subplot including the wonderful one seen what the fuckery of the religious ptreodactyl, it’s still a good grounded plot. As I said my only real complaint is that Bridgette’s absence isn’t even given a throaway line. it’s one thing to not explain her and alex being around when the episode’s plot really dosen’t involve them but here it feels weird for her to just be gone in the middle of the day.. it’s in character but that’s why the lack of a throaway line bothers me more: bridgette is a realy easy character to write out for the episode with her freewheeling do anythign ways and it could’ve been a great joke.. but it’s a really small complaint in a REALLY damn good episode. Speaking of episodes i’ve still got 4 more to go, so until we meet again, later days.