A Televisual Feast

Ned suffers (really) through guest star Farrah Forke’s affections to help Stacey get a job while Rico and Amanda try to get pregnant. The subplot with Rico isn’t really to develop anything, it’s just to give Rico and Ned some funny commiseration scenes. They’re great scenes, so the uselessness isn’t really an issue.

Lots of the episode is good. Forke’s excellent, even if her character is really poorly written. The Ned sensitivity (helping Stacey) even works. It doesn’t hurt his high opinion of her as a journalist was established in the second episode–even though, for the majority of the series so far, Stacey having a career has been forgotten. The scenes with Ned and Forke’s character are funny because Thomas Haden Church and Forke work well together and he’s got some great material here.

It fails because of the resolution. From the plot standpoint, it’s a good resolution, but from the comedic one… it just doesn’t work. The definitely solid one-liners can’t pull it out either.

Maybe all the episode needed was a funny closing joke (the joke under the end credits is funny, but takes a while to get there and even so, the damage is done). The episode ends on a misfired pop culture reference instead of something strong and it hurts the whole.

2.5