Comedy
The Bear
FX’s The Bear shows a restaurant business behind closed doors–filled with high-level dysfunction and piles of profanity.
The women of Hot in Cleveland don’t think much of Los Angeles. They couldn’t care less about Hollywood Boulevard or Rodeo Drive. And don’t get them started on New York or Las Vegas, either. They’ve been there, done that and thrown away the T-shirt.
That said, I should note that these cultural metropoles have actually treated them well. Melanie, a recently divorced mother of two, found some success in L.A. as a writer. Joy was a beautician known as “the eyebrow queen of Beverly Hills.” And Victoria—well, as the Emmy-winning lead in a long-running (but recently cancelled) soap opera, Victoria needs no introduction. She needs trumpets to blare and rose petals to be scattered at her feet, but no introduction.
Still, when their plane to Paris makes an emergency landing in Cleveland, the three decide (more or less) that a cold, Midwestern city with a perennially bad football team is what they’ve been looking for all along. So the triumvirate moves in with colorfully cranky Elka Ostrovsky, who fires off one-liners almost as if they were crafted by a team of writers especially for her.
Hot in Cleveland feels like nearly every sitcom you’ve ever seen in the last 30 years. Think of it as a younger version of The Golden Girls, where Betty White plays the Estelle Getty character. Or Frasier, only with Frasier and Miles moving in with Dad, not the other way ’round. Or Two and a Half Men, if that show had any sort of redeeming value at all.
TV Land, home of television’s recycled classics, is actually a great home for Hot in Cleveland—not because the show’s a classic, but because it feels so recycled.
It’s not without laughs … but they’re familiar laughs, following the traditional Honeymooners-style setup/punch line trope. It’s not without value, either. It’s nice that the characters—Melanie, in particular—decide to shuck materialism in favor of something a little more real, a little more lasting. By Season 2, Melanie’s searching for new meaning in her life after a hard divorce. Joy wants to reconnect with the son she gave up for adoption so many years ago. Victoria—well, we don’t know what the materialistic, oft-divorced actress wants. But then, neither does she.
Sadly, the sitcom succumbs to the same problematic pitfalls so many have fallen into before. What that means is this: The series too often trades sass for crass. The women constantly discuss their sex lives (and no one should be particularly surprised to learn that Elka has the most active sex life of them all). They drink, swear and sometimes lie. Elka makes references to drug use and, in Season 2, is in legal peril because of her relationship to the mafia.
It’s great, on some level, that the women of Hot in Cleveland are trying to make new lives for themselves. But perhaps we should let them sort a few more things out before we, too, make a detour and drop by for a visit. After all, we’ve already been there, done that.
(Editor’s Note: Plugged In is rarely able to watch every episode of a given series for review. As such, there’s always a chance that you might see a problem that we didn’t. If you notice content that you feel should be included in our review, send us an email at [email protected], or contact us via Facebook or Instagram, and be sure to let us know the episode number, title and season so that we can check it out.)
Melanie, Joy and Victoria spot a handsome stranger on their front porch. “If he’s a Jehovah’s Witness, I’m converting,” Victoria says. “If he’s a Mormon, he can have all of us!” Joy chimes in.
Actually, the man—a lawyer—is there for Elka, hired by the mob to help her prepare for her case. He encourages her to pretend she’s senile, making her unfit to stand trial. Melanie, Joy and Victoria all risk perjury charges to further the ruse—while trying to seduce the guy, too.
In an effort to make others look bad (and make themselves look, by comparison, better), the women insult, denigrate and misrepresent each other throughout most of the episode. An example: Melanie tells the lawyer that Joy and Victoria are off at their “lesbian AA meeting.” They drink wine and martinis. Joy tries to nab the lawyer by wearing a skimpy nightgown, and we hear that Victoria tries to get him to feel her breasts. In dialogue, sexual allusions and tawdry jokes accompany “a‑‑” and “b‑‑ch.” Most everyone winds up lying in court.
Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.
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