A Televisual Feast

That’s Susie Essman in a pound of makeup as the ancient aunt who prattles on about all the famous people she once knew. The voice sounded familiar, but it’s still a bit of a surprise. Unfortunately, while it’s an okay gimmick, the episode falls back on it most of the time. Otherwise, it’s falling back on portraying Stillacey as a selfish bitch.

There’s some good stuff–the Ned and Amanda moment’s worth it and the Saul and Ellen stuff is generally fine.

It’s got a long pre-title opener and those three minutes probably contain the episode’s funniest material, as the rest is the occasionally witty one-liner.

There’s also the problem with pushing the Thanksgiving feel a little too hard. There’s something missing from the episode and it’s a real Thanksgiving feel. There’s no dinner, just lead-in and, while there’s a lot going on besides a dinner, it’s all diversion, like no one could figure out how to just do a straight episode.

Kind of like Essman’s guest spot. She takes up a lot of space, gets a lot of lines, but doesn’t bring anything.

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