Cougar Town’s Hawaiian adventure

There’s so much going on in the season finale of Cougar Town that I don’t even know where to start. Okay, yes I do: Abed. Sure, it didn’t go down exactly as he said it did, but it was still pretty sweet.

Instead of walking through one of Courteney Cox‘s scenes, Abed was (green screened?) in the background of one of their hilariously blatant Subway product placements. Fittingly, it was a scene between Laurie and Travis, who had already stopped by Greendale earlier this month:

We learned a couple of important things from Abed’s visit to Miami: one, folks behind both Community and Cougar Town are adorable, and two, as good of an actor as Abed can be, he’s a terrible extra. Talk about pulling focus … dude was all over the place.

After that fun little stop into the absurd, Cougar Town gets to have its wonderfully contrived Hawaiian adventure. Group vacation! Oh, wait, we have to save Travis! Group vacation with a purpose! Yes, it’s cheesy, but they’re so matter-of-fact about it that it works anyway.

The Hawaii trip also worked for me, because even though I should be somehow above it, theme episodes still get me. I’m totally on board for the change of scenery: people’s hair gets all weird, and they’re always different levels of tan/burned from one scene to the next in a way that doesn’t make any logical sense. It’s fantastic.

What was really fantastic for me though, was Busy Philipps. I don’t know why this captured my imagination so much, but I loved the fact that she was wearing very little makeup throughout the episode. No matter what the show is, I always get annoyed when the actors have caked-on makeup when they’re in bed or at the pool; it always takes me out of the scene. So I loved that Laurie spent basically the entire episode with her hair up, no makeup, and in a bikini. Now that’s a vacation.

As far as the actual plot stuff that happened in Hawaii, the Travis part wasn’t important beyond getting the group there. Of course he’s going to come back. No big deal. What was more interesting is that Bobby’s third-wheel status is becoming more acute. He’s going to need a love interest soon, but the idea of bringing in someone from outside of the cul-de-sac crew just seems … wrong. I’m looking forward to seeing how they end up addressing that next season.

Of course, the big deal was the baby issue coming back to rear its ugly head (after it got out of the suitcase, obviously). Here’s my deal with this: these people are in their forties. I am definitely not saying that people in their forties couldn’t or shouldn’t have children. However, I would imagine that when you get into a relationship in your forties, expecting that having children is a definite path seems a little naive.

It always struck me as odd that Grayson just seemed to assume that he and Jules would have kids. Maybe she’s totally fertile and could pop a baby out no problem. But, maybe she isn’t. Maybe she doesn’t want to have kids twenty years apart. There’s a lot to think about, and it’s just kind of annoying that Grayson seemed to put the burden entirely on Jules: “I want kids, so if you can’t give them to me then you have a problem.” Maybe he should have spent less time banging co-eds and more time shopping at Baby Gap if that was so important to him. It would make more sense then, “Hey babe. Hope your eggs are still good so I’ll keep on loving you.”

Okay, that was a weird rant, but it’s over now. In the end, Jules put aside the fact that she doesn’t want to have a kid and agreed to go on any “adventure” Grayson wanted her to go on. That seems … ill-advised.

With all of that said, I loved this finale. It was funny, sweet, and was filled with great moments. I loved Ted’s return and all of his songs that make people want to kill themselves. My only regret is that Ted and Tom didn’t get to share any scenes together. Of course, if they did, the world probably would have imploded into a pit of sadness.

Even though a lot was wrapped up in the finale, I still had a few questions after watching it, so I contacted Cougar Town co-creator Kevin Biegel on Twitter to get the answers. Turns out that yes, it is Biegel playing the clueless, “It’s so hot! Where’s my lotion?” guy (aka Seinfeld guy). I also asked about a scene that every single person who doesn’t have a toddler who has made them watch Sesame Street at 5 AM probably forgot about: the scene in which Grayson pops out of the stairs to finish the “Elmo’s World” theme song.

He got the lyrics wrong! The lyrics are two words, and he missed one of them. Instead of “Elmo’s World,” he said “Elmo’s Song,” and it killed me. I was hoping for a rational explanation, like that they had to change it for copyright reasons, but that doesn’t seem to have been the case. So I only have one other theory. If Grayson had finished Ellie’s, “La la la la. La la la la” with “Elmo’s World!” as the song called for, it would have triggered a Manchurian Candidate button in parents’ heads everywhere, and we all would have lost our damn minds. So thanks you guys, for not only giving us a fantastic season, but keeping me from completely losing my shit.

Clacked by Kona Gallagher
on May 25, 2011 @ 22:33 EST5EDT