The last-minute twist is a move that can be difficult to pull off in a comedy. So many contemporary sitcoms are built along a three-act structure that adding an unexpected wrinkle risks detracting from all the good work that was done before. Sometimes it comes across as the show being too clever for its own good, other times it feels like an inorganic development that sours the 22 minutes of story before. For a twist to be done right it has to be
- so seismic that it wipes away any doubts in a wash of shock and awe,
- so funny that it’s worth the impact,
- or it has to be a development where the groundwork was laid so carefully you’re teed up for the twist without even realizing what’s coming.
The third of those scenarios is certainly what happened this week on Cougar Town. Up until the last minute and a half of “Refugee,” I was fully prepared to mark the episode as an average installment of the series, one that leaned heavily on the show’s tendency for goofy moments and fantasy worlds. Not great, but not painful either—an overall fine installment of what’s shaped up to be a overall fine season as we head into the homestretch.
However, once Chick’s head pops up over the reappeared boat and he reveals he set the mystery in motion, those feelings of ambivalence segued into pleasant surprise that soon gave way to an unpleasant worm of uncertainty. Given my appreciation for what Ken Jenkins brings to the show, I should have realized that he doesn’t just pop by for one short scene in the kitchen (Scrubs reunions aside), and that his previously established love of pranks made him a likely candidate for the mischief. But the one thing missing is appropriate motivations, as Chick always presents a method to his madness. That unease builds even more when he says he thought that Bobby and Jules were having problems he wanted to help with—unease that becomes devastating to all parties when he says they’re still married.
Cougar Town pulled a similar trick when it first revealed Chick’s illness in “Make It Better,” and the way this episode lands proves it hasn’t lost its touch for these beats. So much of this show is built on status quo that whenever one of those support beams gets knocked out, the impact is felt all the more keenly. As I said a few weeks ago about “Hard On Me,” Jenkins and Courtney Cox have a perfect batting average in landing emotional beats flawlessly, and the look on both their faces stings deeply as the private-eye game evaporates. It’s back to reality, a reality that just got a lot darker and colder.
What makes the moment even more devastating is that it comes up against an episode full of the sort of consequence-free hijinks that are a Cougar Town staple. Bobby realizing that his boat has vanished from the boatyard leads Jules to excitedly propose a return to Blacktop and Gumshoe, the detective personas they used to solve crimes when they were married. (Missing oranges? “It was a monkey who escaped from the zoo.” Missing paper? “Turns out we didn’t even have a subscription!”) One of the greatest tricks Cougar Town ever pulled was proving how Jules and Bobby could stay married for years and remain close friends after divorcing, and it’s adventures like this that prove it. They feed each other’s natural goofiness, neither one willing to pull the other one back from the edge of insanity. And even more refreshingly, their new relationship status quo has leveled out so much over the years there’s not one iota of romantic tension, or any sense there’s any issue left from their marriage to work out.
The cop stuff is also a lot of fun to watch. None of it goes as far as Cougar Town’s sitcom soulmate Community did in its own law-enforcement homage, but there’s some good moments in “Refugee” that inject a CSI: Gulfhaven flavor into the proceedings. There’s the character beats of Jules and Bobby taking every opportunity to whip off or look over their sunglasses, the shooting choices that place the camera level with the crime scene looking up, and then there are the big set-pieces like a chase scene through the Gulfhaven main streets—one full of fun callbacks as they knock over the Senor Casa’s spokesman and chase Jerry into what I believe were boxes of Guzzle Buddies. The interrogation scene is probably the highlight, as Jules can’t let her hard-bitten cop persona get in the way of being a good host and has to offer their hostage crab cakes. It’s a fun use of common cliches, made even more fun by how much both Jules and Bobby commit to these roles.
Back in reality, Grayson gets the chance to dust off an old persona of his own when Andy bemoans his inability to get a leg up on his new supervisor. Turns out that back in the day Grayson taught seminars on how to pick up women, and he shares that secret with Andy: a combination of lowering your voice one octave, a supportive hand on the shoulder and a carefully played compliment with just enough insult buried in it to throw off the target’s self-esteem. It works perfectly for Andy’s job prospects, except he gets greedy and tries to apply it at home, responding to her usual cold dismissal with a seamless “neg”: “I think it’s great you have such confidence in being a wife and mother that you don’t feel the need to take care on his family.”