2 Broke Girls - 1x04 - And the Rich People Problems

Another episode better than last weeks. There's continuing decrease in the ratio of bad jokes to good ones (though hoo boy, there are some stinkers). This show is slowly inching it's way to the potential it showed in the pilot.

And Earl gets lines that don't have to do with being black! Oleg makes a decent joke! Han's entire subplot doesn't revolve around not knowing the nuances the English language like a native speaker! It's a miracle!

"Jesus, Earl. There hasn't been one reference to 'you never
go back' in like four sentences. You're fired."

First off, let's pay special attention to the most shocking, unexpected piece in this entire episode: Earl's actual non-black-sex-machine-related lines! Hallelujah. Let's give a round of applause here people. They weren't all great. Most were pretty mediocre. At least one was wince-worthy. But it's still a major step up! These game-changing lines were all delivered in the midst of Han's own subplot: a light, airy little piece about Han trying to bring karoke (and later open-mic) to the diner to attract customers. Hey, at least it's a Han joke that isn't completely about how this funny little Chinese man doesn't know English. It's still about karoke, but baby steps, people. Caroline, of course, doesn't fail to be the pin in Han's balloon as she sabotages and unilaterally shuts down Han's heroic (in my eyes) attempts to drum up business in a low-margin industry in what's reprotedly a poor neighborhood. Seriously Max, what's your problem here? We're in a recession. Also, at my last job, pulling the plug on your boss' was grounds for immediate dismissal, blacklisting, and sanctions by the American Medical Association.

Look at his sad face. You're mean, Max.

"No no, we don't get wisdom teeth, see? We get money
molars."

In the midst of Han's attempt to survive the recession Caroline displays the possibly superhuman ability to chart the minute movements of her teeth. Is...is this something all rich people can do? Is that why they have such nice teeth? Her self-diagnosis (aided, in part, by analyzing her bite marks on an apple) leads her to declare that she needs a new bite-guard to replace the one she left at her town house when she fled. When a store bought bite-guard proves insufficient for Caroline's (self-described) "freaky Tim Burton Mouth", she bravely attempts to cowboy up and go to a subway dentist, a move even Max is steadfastly against. It's soul-deadening place. One man is screaming inconsolably while tearing at his lip. Another is limping(??). Even Max gets in on the action when Caroline starts dropping tissues on the floor to step on, to avoid catching something from the floor. Max tries to talk Caroline into using the cupcake money to buy her a ...sterile dentist. But Caroline holds fast, and is determined to make the most of it. Of course, after one near miss with a shaky-hepatitisy-gas-pushing-maybe-dentist later, Max drags Caroline out before he manages to fill her mouth with foam. I still have no idea if that was a euphemism on his part or not.

I... have nothing more horrifying to say than this picture.

Faced with the prospect of...actually I'm not sure what the end game is here. Probably serious, but I'm too lazy to plow through the episode a third time to write down whatever her condition was to wiki it. Let's just assume it's something like that Simpsons episode.

Anyway, faced with THAT ^, Caroline is forced to come up with her most daring plan yet. Going back home and grabbing the bite-guard she left behind in the first place! Wait, why wasn't this option #1, you ask? Because it's been locked down by the ... asset police? I'm not sure. Again, don't feel like wiki-ing the Madoff disaster to find the appropriate parallel. Suffice it to say they have to break into the townhouse

Unfortunately we don't see her honest to god caper involving cut alarms, skylights, and a daring night time infiltration plan, because when we next see the girls, they're already inside Caroline's closet. Hey-o? The lights come on and Max flips her fucking shit. She literally OMG's when she realizes the small SoHo studio apartment-sized room she's in is actually Caroline's CLOSET. She literally keeps repeating "Oh Em Gee." It's kind of annoying, but she's kind of right. Caroline's closet has closets. And a rotating shoe rack thing that she named the Ferris Heeler (she also says she designed it, which...wait, what?). I'd love to say something snarky about Max here, like "what, you never saw the Nanny?", but I'd probably flip out too if I was ever in a closet like that in real life. Then again, looking around this apartment and my less than stellar housekeeping skills, it kind of looks like a closet. Right size anyway. Once they reach the BATHROOM IN THE CLOSET, Max starts to be won over. Specifically, she embarks on an hour long scandalous affair with Caroline's bubble-bath-slash-jaccuzzi, while Caroline is doing the smart thing packing up everything useful that she can (bed sheets, pillows, tampons, toilet paper).

Despite being literally luxuriating in the lap of luxury solely because of her, Max still feels the need to snot off about how they have nothing in common when Caroline tries to bond over the mutual lack of parental figures. Seriously, Max? When a woman let's you use her happy fun time tub, the least you can do is not talk down to her about how not knowing your daddy is way worse than never knowing your mother. Why are you supposedly my favorite character again?

...oh, that's why.
(source: Imagery by Pete)

We're going along just fine, and then BAM!
Tampon commercial.

Max's ungratefulness is puntutacated by finding Caroline's bathing music, which happens to be a song they both absolutely love. Oh storytelling cliche, how surprising you are. We then smash cut to them having an absolutely horrid "cute" dance for about 2 hours 30 seconds. This thing was just...why? This was the first time I believed this show was created by SatC producers. I honestly thought it was going to turn into a montage. That might've at least been amusing. But no, just Caroline booty-dancing and crumping (crump-what? damn kids and your lambada) with Max until the music stops and Max snots again that what they had in common couldn't last.

Caroline brushes it off and has another brilliant idea to start packing any clothes they can resell for money. Seriously, it's starting to look like Caroline is the real brains of this outfit. She's the one putting all these ideas out there, Max is just bitching and complaining about everything, usually undeserverdly. Of course when Max goes for the furs, everything goes to hell, alarms start going off (because "everyone knows you wire the furs, bitch!"), and they have to hightail it out of there wearing them all.

Who's supposed to be teaching who about surviving on the mean streets?

After finding a surprise $200 in an old purse, Caroline treats her ungrateful friend out for some quality sushi. To be fair, it was Max's idea to go to the sushi place Caroline had been waxing nostalgic about all episode (she used to go with her father). While eating supposedly delicious raw fish (yugh), Caroline's father gives her a call. He checks up on her, makes sure she's alright, and then uses the last half of his 5 minutes to talk to Max and thank her for taking care of his girl. He asks her to remind Caroline to wear her bite-guard, and we learn that even remorseless fortune-stealing criminal masterminds have a heart. Aww.

--
As has become a bit of a tradition for this show, I now will break down the ups and down of this week's writing. This week we add the new category "Missed Opportunities". These are jokes that had great setups, but lousy or just mediocre execution.

Good jokes

• "Chestnut bought it. He likes it when I read him his daily horses-scope" - what can I say? I love puns!
• Oleg actually had a decent joke! That whole exchange about the hypothetical future favor he may ask of Caroline had an obvious punchline, but a great delivery.
• "Why are the floors so bouncy?" / "It's called...carpet..." (sad tone) -- It's the combination of Max's legimately confused question and Caroline's sad tone that really does it.
• The whole Max/"WHAT?!?" thing was actually pretty sweet.
• "I think me and your tub are going steady"..."I don't know who found who, but we're together now..."
• The fact that Chestnut was a first period present is priceless.

Bad jokes

• "Third world situation? This is an underworld situation"
• "That boy's more stiff that Michelle Bachmann's husband at a Chippendales" - Earl, I know you're new to these post-racial jokes. But you can do better than that. 
• (in reference to stealing painkillers and beer from her mother's boyfriend after her first period) "Wasn't a horse but it was puhrettyy awesomeee" - This isn't so much actively bad, as it is a perfect example of the kind of pointless, cloying, patronizing jokes that find themselves peppered throughout episodes. What was the point of it? That she was poor? We got that. That she got a decent trip off half a pain killer and a beer? Kind of doubt it. It could've worked if Kat hadn't emphasized that "puhrretty awessomeee" part of it, cause that's what makes no sense. It couldn't have been that awesome.

Missed opportunities

• "When you're in pain, that IS my treat" - Wordplay can be fun. This was just lazy, and makes her sound like a sadist.
• "What a disappointment, your first time." / "Well that's the way that it goes with me and first times" / "Here clean yourself up" / "Bwha, that's exactly the way it goes." - I loves me a good "first time" joke, but this one just seemed to go by the numbers, hit all the right words, but didn't really bring anything new or legitimately funny to the table.
• "If you go back there with him, you'll need a bite guard, and a rape guard" - 'If you go back there with him' was a great setup. 'Rape guard' just seemed lazy. Norm McDonald can pull off that lazy punchline humor. This show can't.
• "That's my debutante dance. When I came out." // "Like when you came out that you're dating your dad?" -  It's one thing if you're not gonna go for the obvious joke. But at least go for one that's funny and makes sense.