Even though the episode ends on a reasonably funny note, it’s still a mess. It opens fine, with the quartet at the restaurant, then Ned inexplicably goes up to the bar with Amanda–only so she can introduce him to the guest star.
It’s a strange scene, obvious about the contrivance, something I assumed no sitcom writer would be desperate enough to try, but here it is.
The rest of the episode is Ned and Stacey bickering over the guest star, her new boyfriend and his new friend. It returns Stacey to a more grounded version, which is a mistake and it’s clearly visible when the episode becomes about the quartet (minus Ned) excluding him from their reindeer games. Oddly, Sheehan’s written the majority of the episodes and Weithorn created the show, so this side trip seems like it would have been avoided.
It’s not a bad episode, even–guest star John Slattery is great–it’s just a misguided one. The goofy, unreal sitcom is pretending it’s “Friends” or something.
The bickering between Ned and Stacey is even funny, it’s just not a successful episode.
2.5
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