By Matt Schimkowitz, Tim Lowery, Danette Chavez, Jacob Oller, Emma Keates, William Hughes, Mary Kate Carr, Saloni Gajjar, and Drew Gillis. Clockwise from bottom left: The Good Place (Screenshot: YouTube/The Good Place), The Simpsons (Screenshot: YouTube), The Office (Screenshot: YouTube/The Office), Meet The Parents (Screenshot: YouTube)
Now that Love Week is officially on here at The A.V. Club—a stretch that will have its fair share of warm-and-fuzzy feelings and swoon-worthy pop-cultural moments—it’s worth preemptively tempering all of that mushy stuff with a bit of cynicism, no? In that spirit, we ask our staff: What onscreen couple should have broken up?
As always, we invite you to contribute your own responses in the comments—and send in some prompts of your own! If you have a pop-culture question you’d like us and fellow readers to answer, please email it to [email protected].
Ben Stiller’s run of romantic farces reached its apotheosis in Meet The Parents. Finally softening the actor’s unlikable klutz so that he’s no longer a secret villain, Jay Roach’s screwball romance between man, woman, and father hinges on Greg Focker’s love for Jack Byrnes’ little Pam-cake (Terri Polo). Across three Focking movies, Greg and Pam work through their familial problems, and it’s clear from the jump that Focker should run. Pam is downright cruel in setting up Greg to fail against her overprotective father (Robert De Niro). She could do little things to smooth the situation, yet she rarely stands up for him against her dad’s antisemitism and chauvinism. Polo brings warmth to the role, but as written, she is not on his side. There are plenty of landmines for Greg to step in without making his reason for staying impossible to believe. [Matt Schimkowitz]
The meet-cute that sets this love story in motion—a sheepish, hungover Gus (Paul Rust) paying for the coffee and cigarettes of an argumentative, also worse for wear, and wallet-less Mickey (Gillian Jacobs) at a gas station in Echo Park—is pretty adorable. As is the mismatched pair’s banter as they proceed to spend a weekend day in that Los Angeles neighborhood, smoking up, ordering fast food, and talking through their romantic relationships that just came crashing down. But after three seasons and so much drama and messiness, I found it increasingly hard to care whether these two actually end up together. For as much as they support each other (Gus with Mickey’s sobriety, Mickey with Gus’ creative ambitions), their insecurities, hangups, and selfishness made them, honestly, kind of annoying to be around and difficult to root for. (Their TV-couple neighbors, You’re The Worst’s more objectively problematic Gretchen and Jimmy, on the other hand….) [Tim Lowery]
Jim and Pam, The Office
I was one of the many people who initially rooted for Jim (John Krasinski) and Pam (Jenna Fischer) to get together—something that would offer a bright spot in their lives of quiet desperation. I once even held the perhaps controversial opinion that the show could/should have ended with the “It’s a date” moment from the season-three finale. But everything that came after that bit of requited love made me regret ever pulling for them. From season four on, being a couple brought out Jim and Pam’s worst qualities. They may have been, as Oscar put it, part of the coalition for reason, buffeted by loony or incompetent co-workers. But they didn’t have to be so smug, especially not when they were giving off their own peaked-in-high-school energy. Their self-centeredness eventually terrorized their officemates almost as much as Michael’s, so maybe I am Team Brian after all. [Danette Chavez]
Ember and Wade, Elemental
Elemental fails mostly because its script attempts to squish the confused love story at its center into its larger, unwieldy “elements as ethnic groups” allegory. Ember and Wade literally get steamy when they touch (har har), but much of their opposites-attract relationship is nonsensical, flat, or downright distracting. Thinking too much about Pixar’s attempt at an interracial-couple metaphor will have you as weepy as Wade or heated as Ember because the internal logic is as thin as the rest of the movie. Much of their courtship revolves around one finding specific elemental traits of the other attractive. It’s not supposed to evoke racial fetishization. This Guess Who’s Coming To Disney is a mess, and I wish the pair had broken up so I could be free from thinking about the plot holes. [Jacob Oller]
Andie and Ben, How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days
I know, I know. Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey have chemistry spilling out of their pores in this movie, but I simply cannot support their characters’ relationship by the end. Andie is on her way to an interview for a dream job reporting on politics in D.C. when Ben convinces her—actually, unilaterally decides for her—to stay in New York because “[she] can write anywhere.” Uh, no she can’t! What do you know about the journalism industry, Ben? Those interviews are like unicorns—and you don’t just walk away, especially for a guy you’ve only known for 10 days! She’s going to wish she’d actually lost him when she’s trying to grind out a career freelancing in Manhattan all while watching her peers go to press conferences on Capitol Hill. [Emma Keates]
Scott and Ramona, Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World
This entry on two-person drama machine Scott Pilgrim and Ramona Flowers applies solely to Edgar Wright’s 2010 film adaptation of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s Scott Pilgrim and not the original graphic novels—wherein the pair’s level of immaturity syncs up perfectly—or the animated TV show, which makes the single best argument for them working as a couple long-term. But the film versions of Scott (Michael Cera) and Ramona (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) just never made sense to me: He’s too hapless, and she’s too disaffected, to make me really believe they have a shot, no matter how many 1-ups he snags. (Also, the film is unique in presenting Scott and former girlfriend Knives Chau as the more viable pairing, both because Cera and Ellen Wong have a strong chemistry together and because their real-world ages short-circuit the ickiness of the whole “Scott Pilgrim is dating a high schooler” thing in my ‘shipping-afflicted brain.) [William Hughes]
Eleanor and Chidi, The Good Place
As a lover of romance, I am the last person to say, “Can’t a male and female character just be friends?” But Chidi (William Jackson Harper) and Eleanor (Kristen Bell) from The Good Place are the exception to my own rule. I never really felt they had romantic chemistry. (In fact, I think Chidi did fit better with Simone, played by Kirby Howell-Baptiste, and Eleanor had more chemistry with Jameela Jamil’s Tahani.) It tracks for them to have tried out the relationship—being some of the only humans thrown together in a pretty unique and isolating situation—but I don’t think they made sense in the long term. Their entire arc could have played just as well in a “platonic soulmate” way. [Mary Kate Carr]
Haley and Dylan, Modern Family
Where should I begin with Haley Dunphy’s (Sarah Hyland) frustrating happily ever after? Modern Family makes a U-turn on her character development by pushing Haley back with her ex, Dylan (Reid Ewing). Look, Dylan is a rite-of-passage type of boyfriend for a teenager who loves to rebel a little, but Haley outgrows him as the show goes on. I don’t even mean by her other romantic choices (although, yes, Andy is a superior pick) but in terms of her personality, career ambitions, and maturity. So when she reunites with Dylan by cheating on her boyfriend, it’s an annoying step backward. And once they’re officially together, the writers go the Lane Kim route and make her pregnant with twins. Their relationship becomes a way to mirror Phil and Claire’s arc, but it robs Haley of the independent journey she deserves along with the chance of finding someone better. Way better. [Saloni Gajjar]
Homer and Marge, The Simpsons
Please don’t cancel me here. The question is not who I want to break up but who should have broken up. And there’s no denying that over the past 36 years, Homer and Marge Simpson have had so many fights—76,per the count of YouTube’s TheRealJims—and dealt with so many obstacles born of Homer’s inability to think beyond himself that it would only be healthy for them to call it. Sure, some of these are simple misunderstandings, but others are things like Homer framing Marge for his DUI. Barring character deaths, The Simpsons is a show that returns to the status quo every week, so Homer and Marge have to patch things up within a 22-minute constraint. But some of Homer’s choices are so beyond the pale that you still feel bad for Marge when the credits roll. [Drew Gillis]
