Cougar Town, "Letting You Go": Sail away

A quick review of last night's "Cougar Town" (which, if I haven't said it enough lately, has been vastly improved since the start of the season) coming up just as soon as I use my mouth vacuum...

I haven't written much about "Cougar Town" lately, but it hasn't been for lack of watching/enjoying. It's just that between vacation time and the crunch of Wednesday programming, something's had to give, and this show has settled into a nice, strange groove that doesn't always leave me a ton to say by the time I have time to say it.

But "Letting You Go" was a very strong episode on several levels. It kept up the goofy enthusiasm of Jules and her cul de sac crew to find ways to fight boredom by trying to start new rituals, first with morning drinking, then with the late night Enya parties. The entire cast is really game for this stuff, and here I want to single out Josh Hopkins, who came across as a total stiff in nearly everything I've seen him do in the past, and is completely loose and fun and fearless here as Grayson.

The episode also did a good job of pushing the Jules/Travis relationship back to the forefront, after letting it slip away at various points this season. Jules is, on many levels, a sad character (again: morning drinking), and I like that the writers have found ways to acknowledge that quality, and the clinginess of her relationship with Travis, without undermining the humor of it all. And it also makes sense that Travis's impending departure (from her home, if not the show) would finally send Jules towards Grayson.

One question: is the mention of Winston University (home of the med school affiliated with Sacred Heart on "Scrubs") the first sign that "Cougar Town" and "Scrubs" are part of the same fictional universe, even with Christa Miller playing different roles in each? Or was there an earlier one I've forgotten?

(And second question: funnier Bill Lawrence show dog? Rowdy or Dog Travis?)

What did everybody else think?

Cougar Town, "Everything Man": Pursey-cat doll

Don't have time today for a full-length review of last night's "Cougar Town," but as I missed reviewing last week's altogether, I should say that my opinion here is pretty much in step with Myles McNutt's: even by this show's increasingly weird standards, "Everything Man" felt particularly random, yet the enthusiasm of the cast and creative team manages to carry the day even as we're getting a lot of "at what hour of the night were these written?" jokes about talking Japanese bidets, Travis's girlfriend making out with Dog Travis, or "Molly Ringwald" with rolled R's. And Sheryl Crow's doing fine so far as Grayson's special lady friend, even if she's wisely not being asked to do more than be the foil to Jules and her oddball gang.

What did everybody else think?

Cougar Town, "Counting On You": Touch my Blomfy!

Another fun, loosey-goosey episode of "Cougar Town," albeit one that pushed a little too hard on the Jules/Grayson sexual tension thing, with two of the three stories there to nudge them closer together. (The third was, thankfully, just a chance to see Bobby with a giant catfish on his arm.) Because the thing is, even when the stories don't work, each episode is so loaded with random asides and strange running gags (the Blomfy, gay traps, Grayson's tiny eyes) and the characters so likable together that I just go with it.

What did everybody else think?

Cougar Town, "What Are You Doin' In My Life": Attack of the puke puncher

A review of last night's "Cougar Town" coming up just as soon as I call Portia...

The show had been on such a good streak for so long (again, dating back to the re-conception of the series as an ensemble comedy about an unlikely family, rather than a story about Courteney Cox dating hot young dudes) that they were bound to roll snake eyes sooner or later.

I've been in the tank for Beverly D'Angelo going back at least to "National Lampoon's Vacation," but Laurie's mom was such a broad and obvious cartoon villain that that story didn't work. Which is surprising, given that both Laurie and, especially, Bobby are written with a lot of nuance and heart even as they're shown to be dumb and trashy.

Bobby's usual hillbilly logic, in fact, was the one part of the episode I really liked. Brian Van Holt and the writers have so nailed the unapologetic stupidity and weirdness of the character that he never fails to make me laugh, most notably here when describing his goal of making himself sick in every country in the globe. ("Mexico was easy!")

The Barb story was also way over-the-top and off-tone. This isn't a show that usually messes around with pop culture parodies, so turning Barb into Norma Desmond from "Sunset Boulevard" didn't work.

I like the actors, and I like the small bits of interaction among them (Grayson happily yanking Jules' waxing strip, Andy being so excited that Bobby and Ellie's feud is over), but they've definitely had better weeks than this one.

What did everybody else think?

Cougar Town, "When A Kid Goes Bad": Honeytoes and the cornhuskers

A quick, blizzard-belated review of last night's "Cougar Town" coming up just as soon as I wow you with math skills while I stab you to death...

Another funny, sloppy, weird, entertaining episode of "Cougar Town." I can't decide if the rambling nature of each episode is just a result of Bill Lawrence, Kevin Biegel and company deciding they'd rather pack in more jokes, narrative steadiness be damned, or if they're deliberately trying to make the show seem as chaotic as Jules' life, but it's really working for me. It's like everyone's involved in multiple stories at once, as opposed to off in their own sphere. Ellie, for instance, is pushing Andy at work (and then being unhappy with him about the Laurie thing), but she's also coming down hard on Grayson about his Christmas lights(*). Bobby's hooked into Andy's story (and teaching him the Confidence Dance) at the same time he and Jules are being a sneaky team to deal with Travis's need to be a teenager who does stupid stuff sometimes. And we can have lots of weird, TMI digressions about Andy's foot fetish, Grayson's hatred of manscaping and Bobby and Grayson being horrified to learn about the hair(s) growing out of Jules' c-section scar. And Laurie's relationship with Smith continues to be a great showcase for Busy Phillips, who keeps finding weird (and at times touching) new layers to Laurie.

(*) And the Christmas lights on Valentine's day was a really sweet, pretty moment, and reminded me oddly of JD running around with sparklers after Turk proposed to Carla.

Ratings haven't been great lately, at least compared to how "Modern Family" does right before it. ABC's already renewed it for next year, so that's not a big concern at the moment, but after a couple of people on Twitter asked me today if the show would do better with a different name, I wonder if they might be right. Lawrence says that the title helped get the show picked up in the first place because it was an attention-getter, but it's also a big turn-off to people who don't watch the show, and/or those who sampled it early when the title was much more apt than it is now. There's not a ton of precedent for a show retitling itself mid-stream, but as James Poniewozik pointed out, Ellen DeGeneres' ABC sitcom did start as "These Friends of Mine" before becoming "Ellen." So it can be done.

So the question is, should they try? And, if so, what might be more apt for what "Cougar Town" has turned itself into?

And what did everybody else think?

Cougar Town, "All the Wrong Reasons": The truth hurts

A quick, late-in-the-day review of last night's "Cougar Town" coming up just as soon as I go to an underpass to buy fish and sports coats...

After a start of the season where the male characters were clearly generating more laughs than the female ones, "Cougar Town" had achieved some comedy gender equality in more recent episodes. Unfortunately, "All the Wrong Reasons" felt more like one of those earlier outings. Busy Philipps will never not be funny (particularly as Laurie took us closer than ever to meeting the horror show that is Dale), but the Jules and Ellie storyline was pretty flat and predictable.

(Though even there, in fairness, I had a good laugh at Jules stopping to pick up the garbage can that Ellie tipped over during their foot chase.)

The guy stuff, unsurprisingly, still worked, even if they re-used the photo montage gag(*) - and the larger joke about the price you pay for partying in your 40s like you're still in your 20s - from "Into the Great Wide Open" (which was itself kind of cribbed from "The Hangover"). The guys still have great chemistry, and it was funny to watch Bobby and Andy horrifying Grayson with their keg-pumping routine, Andy waking up in can jail and Grayson discovering "Seacrest Out" written on his torso.

(*) As happened last time, the tall black cop in the photo montage was played by Bill Lawrence's longtime producing partner Randall Winston, who has lent his name to a character or institution on every one of Lawrence's shows. In this case, we meet Jules and Ellie's elderly neighbors, the Winstons.

"Cougar Town" has been on such a good streak of late that I'm not too concerned by an episode that feels like a regression. Every show gets a mulligan now and again.

What did everybody else think?

Cougar Town, "Stop Dragging My Heart Around": The ex file

I'm again mostly taking the day off to recover from press tour, but I thought last night's "Cougar Town" was another strong one. When I talked with Bill Lawrence last week about "Scrubs," he also said that he realized a few episodes into this show that the "attractive older woman dates hot younger guys" premise wasn't all that interesting, and that the show worked much better as an ensemble about this makeshift family Jules had created around herself. That was clearly the right way to go, and it's led to good recurring gags like Grayson's songwriting or Andy's role as secret-keeper/blackmailer, and it's allowed characters like Bobby and Laurie to get a little deeper without taking away all the funny things Brian Van Holt and Busy Philipps have been doing.

So just as soon as I jam out some lyrics and point out that Jules and Bobby were watching "Scrubs" in one scene, what did you guys think?

Cougar Town, "Rhino Skin": I'll be there for (insulting) you

A review of last night's "Cougar Town" - a show that continues to display an impressive creative growth curve - coming up just as soon as I emerge from my chrysalis...

The headline news for "Rhino Skin" is obviously the quasi-"Friends" reunion of Courteney Cox and Lisa Kudrow, and that part of the episode worked just fine. If you watched "The Comeback" (which I couldn't stand but respected, if that makes sense) or have seen Kudrow's indie film work, you know she was the most versatile, fearless member of the "Friends" cast. So here she had no problem throwing herself into the role of vicious dermatologist Dr. Evans, and there wasn't even a hint of the Phoebe/Monica dynamic in her scenes with Cox as Jules.

But what really struck me about the episode was how confident the show has become in its chaotic storytelling style, in its ability to quickly set up funny but weird jokes (like Laurie's fascination with the First Name/Last Name situation), and, especially, to be able to break down and psychoanalyze the characters without ever seeming preachy or getting in the way of the jokes.

So we had the brilliant subplot about Andy schooling Travis on reading and reacting to women's moods (and being right at every turn, where the lamer, more predictable route would be for him to screw things up). We had Scott Foley in his second episode already being treated like a fact of life for Jules and the show, content to be in the background and make sarcastic asides until called on for more in the final Scrabble scene. We had Grayson being nice to Laurie and telling her a truth about men (that hotness counts more than couth) every bit as universal as what Andy was teaching Travis about women. And we had the usual good jokes about Bobby's white trashiness (the vases of wine), Ellie and Laurie's dislike of each other (the six-foot buffer zone whenever Jules isn't around), etc.

Bill Lawrence admitted back in the summer that the felt the original cut of the pilot felt like a show about women obviously written by men. And there were definitely times early in the season where the male characters seemed to be walking away with what was supposed to be a female-centric show. Now, though, "Cougar Town" feels just like any Lawrence comedy when it's a clicking: a show about weird, funny people, written by weird, funny people.

What did everybody else think?

Cougar Town, "Mystery Man": A caged baby is a happy baby

Running late, so not a lot of time to write about "Cougar Town," either. Even though last night's wasn't as strong as the Thanksgiving show, Scott Foley fit in as well here as he did on "Scrubs," and this was probably the first time all season where I laughed more at this show than I did at the "Modern Family" episode that preceded it.

What did everybody else think?

Cougar Town, "Here Comes My Girl": Popping your balloon

Quick spoilers for tonight's "Cougar Town" coming up just as soon as I get the rolling pin...

It's not at the level "Modern Family" is maintaining right now, but "Cougar Town" has found itself a nice little groove, and the show feels particularly strong in episodes like this one that just throw all the characters together into a situation to see how they bounce off of each other.

In particular, this episode was the biggest, and strongest, focus so far on Jules and Travis's usually awkward, occasionally sweet mother/son relationship, and I thought it did a nice job of illustrating how tricky (if not outright stupid) it is to try to be The Cool Mom to a teenage son.

In and around some of the pathos of that, there was some inspired silliness, like Andy's panic at having to keep a secret from his wife, or the guys getting all pumped to beat three neighborhood kids at basketball. (Note that the girl is on crutches the second time we see her.) The show has also become very good at using music (beyond Grayson's guitar songs), from the hilarious use of Kenny Loggins' "Playing With the Boys" (from this infamous "Top Gun" scene) during the basketball sequence, to the more poignant use of Noah and the Whale's "Give a Little Love" to accompany Travis and Jules silently getting dinner ready (and showing the bond they share, even through all the angst).

There's a warmth to the show now that I'm not sure I would have expected from that pilot. Simply put, I like these people - in part because they make me laugh, but in part just because I like them. Not every TV show has to work that way, but it's how "Cougar Town" is working.

What did everybody else think?

Cougar Town, "Two Gunslingers": Uncomfortable in his sexuality

Some quick thoughts on last night's "Cougar Town" coming up just as soon as I grow a weird mustache...

After the last episode brought all the characters together for Jules' backyard BBQ, "Two Gunslingers"(*) goes back to segregating the men into one plot and the women in the other. And it therefore consigned the bigger laughs to the Travis/Grayson/Andy story(**).

(*) "Two Gunslingers" is one of the more apt Tom Petty song titles they've used so far, given what initially caused the friction between Jules and her old friends at the beach.

(**) Bobby's off on a "hunting trip," alas, as the show works around the usual budgetary issues that face most shows these days, where only a handful of actors are signed to appear in every episode of their shows.

But the ladies on a road trip to Siesta Key wasn't exactly wasted time. The Christa Miller/Busy Philipps combination is paying real dividends, and I like that the writers allowed the two to find common ground (a desire to protect Jules) without wimping out and turning them into BFFs. And Jules' fake date with Straight Trent was a nice capper to an episode where Jules spent so much time trying to pretend to be something (in this case, 34) that she's not.

Rachael Harris (almost unrecognizable without her glasses) and Alan Ruck (contractually obligated to appear in every post-"Spin City" show Bill Lawrence does, I believe) didn't get as much to do as I hoped, but since these characters live in a small town, I imagine we'll be seeing them again.

What did everybody else think?