Wow. Huh. What was that? I'll tell you what it was. It was the sound of opinional (that's a word!) whiplash. It was the whooshing sound my expectations made as they were lifted and fell again. That was the fastest I've ever lost enthusiasm for a show since I found out Samantha Who wasn't the Doctor's next regeneration. Okay maybe that's not fair. It wasn't completely horrendous. But damn, where did it go wrong? Let's find out! Or not. I'm pretty much committed to this whole reviewing thing now, but that doesn't mean you have to follow me down this dark path, dear readers.
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| "It's cool, I didn't give him stock options..." |
We pick up more or less were we left off last week, Caroline's second day at the diner. She's running late because, I guess, she felt the need to respond each of the 18 "hola chicas" she got on her way over. See, if i can interrupt the recap for a little commentary for a second: this is a perfect example of a joke not thought through, but pushed out, maybe because it sounds "edgy"? If she was getting catcalled the entire way over, wouldn't that have made her walk the two blocks faster? Whatever, I can't give this half of the episode anymore thought than absolutely necessary. Caroline conveniently recaps the premise of the show and the first episode (presumably for those viewers who are tuning in just now to see what all the fuss is about) and proudly announces that homeless "Bob Near The Bridge" gave her two dollars
to shut the hell up as their bakery's first investor.
Caroline tries to push Max to brand and advertise her cupcakes (not. going. for. that. joke.) up on the specials board, but, understandably, Max is a little hesitant to put her name up on a giant sign in public. I'd just assume she was trying to keep the skeevy chef from knowing her name, but I'm pretty sure he already knew it as of the last episode. Plus there's her nametag. Speaking of nametags, Han (I guess he changed it back from Bryce) proudly brings Caroline her own "Carolin" nametag. She politely points out the mistake, and Han takes it about as well as a kicked puppy. Man, I still can't decide if this character is horribly offensive or just offensively racist.
Still annoyingly effervescent for someone who's had her entire life taken away from her, yet well-meaning, Caroline follows Kat around (instead of, you know, working), and offers to do anything she can to help her get over her break up with Robbie. Seems she mistook the sounds coming out of Kat's room the previous night as crying over the breakup. In an effort to just get her to lay the hell off the touchy issue, Kat reveals that those weren't so much crying sounds as...well let's just say she didn't exactly
need Robbie back.
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I've had dreams that look exactly like this. Specifically the
hostile and disappointed looks on the womens' faces |
Caroline, though perturbed enough to agree to respect boundaries, doesn't. She continues hounding Max about putting her name up on the specials board, when they get back to their apartment. Then at night, unable to sleep on the peasant's couch two whole nights in a row (was seriously expecting a joke about a pea underneath the cushion), she comes into Max's room, stumbles into what could've been a funny bit with a knife under Max's pillow, but instead is ruined by a badly chosen delivery and laugh track, and asks to sleep with Max in her bed. For some reason this is about the point where Robbie comes back in, apparently unaware that getting caught with another woman means you're out on your ass for more than 12 hours. Of course, he assumes what we would expect him to when he seems Max and Caroline in bed, tries to invite himself over, gets rebuffed, and leaves.
The next morning, chipper Caroline falls face first into a human-sized puddle of horse shit.
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| Pictured: classy |
There's more to it, leading up to it, subplots were laid, jokes were made, and blah blah, but really, that's what really matters. Apparently, while keeping her horse in the yard seemed like a nice idea, nobody actually thought about what they were going to do with the
massive amounts of shit the horse produces daily. Caroline tried to blame the smell on Brooklyn, but nice try Richie Richette, that's Staten Island. The water is inconveniently out, and Caroline is covered head to toe in shit. This bit really should not have been as funny as it was. And yet...high point of the ep. Maybe because it was the one time both Caroline and Max reacted realistically. And in the grand tradition of "Tragedy is when I stub my toe, comedy is when you fall down an open manhole cover and die", watching two people deal with something so horrendously disgusting was high-larious. I'm not proud.
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If you didn't smile at this (nor then proceed to the sink to
scrub your hands clean in scalding water for 16 minutes straight),
you, sir or madam, have no soul. |
Max has to take Caroline up to the city to take a shower at her fancy UES mom's apartment. Now I was about to wonder how they hell they got from Brooklyn to Manhattan covered in shit, but let's face it, I've had to sit next to worse on the subway. Those poor commuters.
By the time Max get back to the diner, Caroline has put Max's name up on the board, called Robbie to pick up his stuff, and generally gotten all up in Max's shit, now that she's developed an affinity for swimming in the stuff. Max gives her the what-for, makes a low blow about the Channing family, and that's the second breakup/moveout in Max's life in as many days.
Later that night, Caroline comes into Max's bedroom, drunk off her ass, and has significantly better luck getting Max to take her back than Robbie did. Not THAT significantly better though, unfortunately. That's an episode I'd have a much higher opinion of.
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The entire first half of the episode is almost entirely unwatchable. The jokes are obvious if not downright insulting, with none of the subtley or incisiveness of the pilot. A legitimate high point could be found in the masturbation joke, but barely begins to make up for such "gems" as
- "I'm already worried about me being late ... [chico accent] evahry monnthh"
- "Do you have anything special?"/"Not according to my high school guidance counselor"
- "You can't tell an Asian he made a mistake, he'll go in the back and throw himself on a sword" (REALLY??)
- "It's ginger apple strawberry"/"That was the name of the hooker who had this apartment before me."
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See, that smirk right there? You didn't earn that.
Not with that hooker joke. Stop it. It's not helping |
As much as it pains me to say. a lot of this falls on Kat Dennings delivery. The charming smartass tone has turned into a know-it-all smirk that always seems to be aimed at the camera. The lines come out awkward and in this "aren't I so clever" tone that really undermines whatever humor might've been salvaged from the horrible one-liners.
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| That kitchen is bigger than my entire place of employment |
Speaking of which, the writing really needs to stop going for the low hanging fruit. The first three jokes in that list up there came from a list of ten taken during the first ten minutes. After I got to ten I stopped writing them down. At least until the stripper joke, cause that one was so bad, I had to go to eleven. It's not just limited to the big jokes either. How many times do we have to hear that Max is "poor"? Oh she likes chips? It's because she's poor. She sleeps with a knife under her pillow? It's because it's all the security system she can afford. She wanted to stick it to her ex-boyfriend during the break-up scene? It's because, and I shit you not, she doesn't have money for proper entertainment. We get it, it's the premise of the show. It's the title of the damned show. But repeating it every other sentence just underlines how really weird that a lily white girl in Brooklyn with a huge apartment (and a yard!) is supposedly living below the poverty line.There's only so much that can be salvaged with good delivery and cast charm. Wait until the production and cast manage to gell before you start counting on them so much to bear the burden.
Production isn't blameless either. A lot of those jokes would be salvageable if you didn't *drown* every other line in a bad laugh track. Did we really need hilarous spasms of laughter after "And we're working. Or one of us is."? Either they're leaning on the laugh button a little too hard, or [insert bad joke about pumping a theater with laughing gas, then cue the laugh track].
None of this is necessarily terminal though. It's the second episode, filmed months ago. For all we know it could've been filmed months before the first even. Second episodes always show the disconnect between proof of concept (pilot) and production. I'm hopeful that as the series goes on, they'll find their groove a little better and things will start to gel.
The second half of the episode was actually okay. It was great, it wasn't awesome, it didn't make me laugh out loud (not even the shit swan dive), but it was good enough to make me come back next week. As usual, it's the quiet, emotionally honest moments that I like. All of the Carloine and Max in bed scenes were great (hey-o). Caroline was pushy without being annoying, and she does drunk pretty well. Kat does contrite and forgiving pretty well. All in all, it rung true. Unlike Up All Night, which I mentioned should stick to the quiet moments, I think 2 Broke Girls can successfully pull off the raucous laughs, if they just stop with the horribly obvious jokes and weak delivery. The writers need to play to whatever Kat Denning's delivery strengths are, and vice versa.
My one final complaint isn't really their fault. The very last joke of the episode would've made me laugh out loud (with the horse and "he doesn't know I'm a waitress"), if they hadn't spoiled it a dozen times during the commercial breaks.
My own fault for watching commercials.
And because I feel bad for being so negative this time around, here's a list of the jokes I did think were pretty funny this episode:
- "There's all these weird sounds outside and I don't have my white noise machine"/"That's Puerto Rican noise, you'll get used to it"
- "If I was a lesbian, she's the last lez I'd be in" (delivery could've used work, but I'm a sucker for a bad pun)
- "Shouldn't you be writing this down."/"I'm afraid if I started writing it down, it'd turn into a suicide note."
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