Recap Vomit: Trophy Wife (The Wedding Part One)

As the part one preamble to Kate & Pete's wedding (not marriage, mind you, but an actual wedding), something crucial in regards to "Trophy Wife" and its surprising subtlety dawned on me for the first time - that is, I had never considered the legitimacy of Kate & Pete's marriage. Which is to say, I had never considered if they really were convincing as not only man & wife but as a couple in, for lack of a better term, love. I had not failed to consider this, however, because I simply accepted it per Sitcom Law. Nor did I fail to consider this per trusty Sitcom Denial. I had failed to consider this specifically because the relationship's believability was so subtly plausible and lovingly convincing that I just sort of mentally nodded the first time I saw them and moved on. You know, like when you see Jesse and Celine and you know that if these two were ever to wind up in, say, a pseudo-marriage with two daughters that everything would be hipstery keen and......whoops. NOTHING TO SEE HERE! PLEASE DISPERSE!

When Kate stumbles across Pete’s old wedding videos to Dr. Diane Buckley (Wife #1) and Jackie (Wife #2) and sees the extravagance of each ceremony, she naturally becomes despondent that her and Pete’s ceremony was merely of the civil variety. These old wedding videos also allow for the classic gag of WACKY HAIR! Because it was a DIFFERENT ERA! And in DIFFERENT ERAS people had WACKY HAIR! These are the sorts of jokes “Trophy Wife” is frequently above and yet occasionally still resorts to and which frustrates me but I will allow it if only because at Jackie’s wedding Pete recited his vows by going straight Bangle. We continue.

Sensing and believing in Kate’s desire, Pete re-proposes and the wedding planning begins. This leads to Pete and the Harrison boys wearing kilts because Pete wants to embrace his Scottish heritage which leads to Warren becoming obsessed with Scottish culture and painting his face like the Mel Gibson version of William Wallace which is simply perfect because as a dude who went through a “Braveheart”-obsessive phase too it elicited all sorts of wonderful nostalgia flashbacks, recalling the innocent era before I was made to realize that they can, in fact, take our lives and take our freedom. It also leads to the obligatory maid-of-honor tug-of-war between Meg and Hillary - the former's got the novelty penises, the latter's got the finger sandwiches. Meanwhile, Dr. Diane Buckley decides to go public with her relationship to fellow taskmaster Russ Bradley Morrison and Jackie is more or less forced to tell precocious Bert about her relationship with faux-bagel delivery man Sad Steve.

The real problem emerges when Kate decides to finally change her name in keeping with the wedding bell spirit. Alas, being a Canadian expatriate, a potential name change leads to an INS interview and Kate and Pete become so paranoid that the INS interviewer will take the sitcom’s ironic title to heart and deport her that they go ridiculously overboard in playing up American stereotypes to make it seem as if there is no possible way this could merely be a marriage of money and/or trophies. So Pete dons a fanny pack and the worst polo imaginable and Kate does laundry and references Pete’s “man cave”. They go even further overboard, of course, and eventually everyone in the family bursts into the living room in the midst of the INS interview and, thus, the interviewer deduces that in the face of such commotion and annoyance there is no way this is a marriage of convenience.

My rival re-capper at The AV Club faults this logic by actually employing that term – “seriously faulty logic”. But the point here, I would argue, is not the madcap nature of this everyone-on-the-stage-at-the-same-time conclusion, nor the incident in question swaying the INS interviewer being "logical" within the parameters of "the real world" (because come the eff on), but a gorgeously farcial reminder that Kate and Pete don’t need this sorta sitcom crap to prove they belong together.

Lies giving way to truth, that’s the crux of “The Wedding Part 1.” Because once Warren’s obsession with all things Scottish leads him to over-analyzing the family tree, he learns they are, in fact, not Scottish at all. They are Flemish. Wracked with guilt, he spills the beans to his dad. Pete decides he doesn’t care. He wants to wear a kilt at his wedding. That’s the truth, just like Dr. Diane Buckley & Russ Bradley Morrison's mutual desiccation is the truth and Jackie making Sad Steve Happy is the truth and Kate not being a Trophy Wife but the Woman Pete Loves is the truth. And the truth is that even as Marcia Gay Harden and Michaela Watkins remain so routinely comically brilliant on the periphery, it is Malin Akerman and Bradley Whitford that cannily give us something to believe in.

Recap Vomit: Trophy Wife (The Tooth Fairy)

There are stages every child must go through, though, rest assured, I’m not discussing the traditional developmental stages discussed within child-rearing textbooks. No, I’m talking more about the stages of Parental Whimsy – as in, The Santa Claus Stage, when the child still has utter belief in the magical, and The Man/Not Yet A Man Stage, when the child is both ready and not ready at all for his/her ascent of Maturity Mountain, and the Leave Me Alone Stage, when the child finally reaches that dreaded point wherein he/she just wishes mom and dad would bugger off. Setting each one of its three children in separate storylines, “Trophy Wife”, in its second great episode in as many weeks, explores these stages with a bounty of rich one-liners and eventual oddball empathy.

Let’s examine these storylines in ascending order of awesomeness. (Reader’s Note: I recently saw someone on Twitter question the validity of the word “awesome”, wondering whether its content had become diluted because of overuse. Thus, I pledge to use the word awesome EVEN MORE going forward. Like, hey man, aren’t Malin Akerman’s pants awesome?)

While dining out, precocious Bert loses a tooth, and it seems that in Jackie’s world, tooth loss is an appreciable event on par with confirmation or graduation. Unfortunately, Pete loses the tooth before celebrating can be done which leads to bitterness on the part of Jackie for ruining the celebration which leads to Jackie and Pete squaring off in ex-wife and husband warfare – that is, taking activities the other one wanted specifically to introduce Bert to, and introducing them. I admit there is a little something too straight-outta-the-Sitcom-Hijinks-Manual for this story to work entirely, though as always the performances fight back, particularly in how Whitford genuinely seems so frazzled by the in-advance knowledge of Jackie’s anger. Bert, though, is still young enough to believe in the Tooth Fairy, and so a moment of reckoning inevitably arrives amidst all the nonsense that finds Jackie and Pete having to decide whether or not it’s time to reveal the Tooth Fairy’s true identity. They don’t. They let Bert hang onto the magical for at least another year. God bless their souls.

Meanwhile, Warren is taken with a female classmate, Allie, who texts Warren to say she wants to study. Warren being Warren, he assumes she actually wants to study, until Kate explains that girl code dictates that “studying” equates to “date”, which renders Warren as freaked out as excited. Guy On Girl Communication is not his forte. It’s the point every kinda/sorta-maturing boy faces, when he first falls for a girl and has literally no idea what he’s doing. (At least, this was a point boys reached in my day. Anymore I assume kids start drinking coffee at six and going to Daft Punk shows by themselves at ten.) Typically this means a boy is left to fend for himself, figure it out based on 80’s rom coms and Mr. Big lyrics, but Warren has a secret weapon – Kate.

His stepmom understands the female mind – what’s more, she understands the young female mind. So, she tells Warren what to text and, as it turns out, Kate-authored internet slang pierces fair Allie’s heart. In a way, she’s the Bizarro Cyrano de Bergerac. Of course, once Warren is made to interact face-to-face with Allie, he panics and crumbles and so Kate comes to the rescue……NOT!!! Instead she waltzes into Warren’s room to confide in Allie how hot Warren is, which understandably leaves Allie a little terrified and wanting to flee.

My rival re-capper at The AV Club disputes this turn, declaring that “Trophy Wife is supposed to have at least one foot on the ground. Kate trying to talk up her stepson’s cuteness is unbelievable.” Respectfully, I disagree. Consider “The Big 5-0”, merely two episodes ago, and Kate, amongst other ill-considered ideas, barging into Pete’s office, clothesless beneath her coat. That entire twenty-two minutes consisted of Kate continually suffering well-intentioned mental lapses and throwing poo-poo against the wall to see what might stick (nothing stuck). And this is precisely what happens when she rolls up on poor Allie to spout the virtues of Warren. It might be unbelievable for most characters, but not for Kate, because she's just throwing more poo-poo against the wall. This also wonderfully works to put Kate and Warren on the same level. He thinks a good excuse to momentarily get away from Allie is to explain he needs to use the bathroom – “Probably gonna be in there for awhile” – and Kate thinks it’s a good idea to momentarily act as if she and Allie are competitors. Away from the text, she is as useless as he.

The episode really soars, however, when Dr. Diane Buckley hosts a sleepover for Hillary and her school government friends – “They rule the school. Democratically, of course.” So, Diane crafts appetizers I can’t pronounce and rents both Cate Blanchett “Elizabeth” movies, “and, if you feel like getting crazy, ‘The Aviator.’” The government girls, however, have chosen “Spawn of Satan 2.” Before long, Diane Being Diane, she has managed to embarrass Hillary by treating "Spawn of Satan 2" as if it were a Cate Blanchett movie and pointing all the plot inaccuracies, leading to all the girls texting behind Diane’s back, and then Hillary texting Diane to, more or less, tell her to go away. Marcia Gay Harden in that moment underscores why she won an Oscar, staring daggers at her daughter and offering: “I have to go. One of my patients DIED.” As in, Diane just died a little inside.

Yet, she also understands. That’s a painful reality, a difficult one to pull off in a network sitcom, and yet Gay Harden exquisitely captures that dividing line between joy that her little girl is growing up and sadness that her little girl is leaving her behind. And the show is smart enough to know that even though Hillary blows her mom off, she still loves her mom, and goes to check on her. That moment they share – hyperbole be damned – is artistry, and all alone makes it worthwhile to have kept in touch with this show.

Did the episode really to finish up with a "Scrubs-ian" montage? No. It did not, and it did not because it generated genuine feeling all on its lonesome, and no bit of musical monkey business was required to elicit or embellish it. You got the good stuff, "Trophy Wife." Keep believing in yourself.

Recap Vomit: Trophy Wife (Russ Bradley Morrison)

The latest episode of “Trophy Wife” may be named after one person, but it is all about collaborations, two people working together (or two people together and not working). It divides neatly into three separate storylines by pairing off its characters, and by doing so it ably demonstrates which of the untraditional family’s children is most influenced by which of the untraditional family’s parent.

Storyline #1 involves a parent-chaperoned children’s outing to a local museum. Pete is supposed to chaperone with Dr. Diane Buckley, but he falls ill. Thus, Kate, played by Malin Akerman in a pair of form-fitting red and black pants so scorching I almost want to center my entire recap around them (“Malin Akerman’s pants, a fetch rosewood with rip-roaring, oddly-angled swabs of black, transcend HD, igniting the TV in a fireball of fashion, roasting hapless male eyes like chestnuts), goes in his stead. This leads to Kate and Warren (“I’ve been saving my allowance to buy something at the gift shop”) to decide the best way to get Dr. Diane Buckley off their backs is to ensure she “get some”. Thus, their museum expedition revolves less around museum-y things, and more around finding the hardline Diane a date.

Enter: Russ Bradley Morrison. Played by Dennis Haysbert, he is a fellow chaperone, intensely formal and on point. His job, he explains, is mergers and acquisitions and you can practically see him happily attending business junkets, getting a kick out of continental breakfast and staying up late to re-read the C.E.O’s mission statement for fun. It could have been far too obvious, his and Diane’s similarities, but Haysbert crafts a perfectly-pressed character with just the right amount of starch.

Meanwhile, our old friend Jackie is tasked with aiding Pete in his hour of need, playing a whimsically demented Kathy Bates to his hapless James Caan. Lord, it pains me to say it, as much I tout Michaela Watkins’ genius, but this is far and away the weakest of the three tales. It’s like a bad horror movie seen through the eyes of a man overdosed on codeine, shopworn gags and punchlines aplenty. You don’t pigeonhole Jackie in a horror movie that’s already been written, you imagine a horror movie as written by Jackie. It shouldn’t be a bad horror movie in a suburban haunted house. It should be a bad horror movie in a suburban house turned hippie commune.

Meanwhile, precocious Bert has been banned from recess at school for being too excited – dancing in class and performing Bertwheels – and he enlists the aid of Hillary seeing as how she was once the teacher’s pet of his current teacher. They bake cupcakes. Practice fawning compliments. And Hillary turns up in class to put in a good word. It generally backfires, but not completely, and ends with Hillary achieving the upper hand simply by demanding and taking it.

And so the lines are drawn….from Hillary back to Dr. Diane Buckley, from Bert back to Jackie, and, strangely but wonderfully, from Warren to Kate. Kate seems capable of getting through to Warren because they are simultaneously working on the same level of maturity without realizing it. On the surface Dr. Diane Buckley is all about rigid discipline and smart planmaking, but what she’s really about is full-on control and sitting at the top off the food chain. (She's also got a wild streak that only appears when she wants it to, suggesting so much by showing so little.) No doubt she would have publicly dismissed her daughter’s actions, while privately commending them. And Jackie……well, you can’t tell me Bert didn’t learn to do his Bertwheels from watching Jackie do her Jackiesaults.

Oh. Right. Pete. Well, Pete is probably lucky he doesn’t fall ill more often.

Recap Vomit: Trophy Wife (Halloween)

As it turns out, last week’s episode of “Trophy Wife” was not the Halloween episode. This week’s episode – the aptly named “Halloween” – is, and Halloween, it seems, brings out the best and worst (best?) in our whole generally functional –give or take – clan. It splits the family into two groups – three and four – and views what happens out on the streets amidst so many little kid Iron Men and what happens on the home front when the cows come home to roost (coinage: Frank Drebin).

Bradley Whitford’s Pete has been established as a lawyer but we have rarely seen him in a lawyering light, aside from that mysterious phone call he fielded that led to him declaring how much he hates his job (which is just so tragic). Unless he doesn’t really hate his job, because “Halloween” suggests that aside from his legal puns (Marcia Hay Garden’s dismissal of this had me in stitches) he really might have the legal shark blood. This is because when a mystery kid in a mask shows up at the front door demanding candy, Pete recognizes the voice. It’s the voice of the kid that egged his house last year. Thus, exercising his right to indefinitely detain an American in accordance with the National Defense Authorization Act (at least I think this is how the NDAA works), Pete drags the kid inside, apparently turns off the porch light and sets up a suburban kangaroo court.

The interesting thing here is not how it ends, which is inevitable, which is to say the kid is guilty despite being “released” and Pete literally winds up with egg all over his face, but in how the family professes to taking issue with Pete’s tactics while idly sitting by and sort of quietly encouraging it. Consider Dr. Diane Buckley. She professes sorrow for this detainee and keeps offering him candy, but Gay Harden delicately conveys how she’s really on Pete’s side. I suspect she just wants to elicit sympathy from the accused in case the authorities turn up and question everyone involved. In these moments you can see what a Pete/Dr. Diane Buckley wedded consortium must have been like, sub-levels upon sub-levels (flashback episode?).

Meanwhile, off in never never land, Jackie has failed to score an Iron Man costume for precocious Bert, apparently because she has no idea who Iron Man is nor any idea who Lady Gaga is (which is a shame because I suspect Jackie would dig Lady Gaga and her ability to turn anything into “acceptable” evening wear). Kate to the rescue! She cuts in line at a costume store by posing as the rich stepmom of a couple eager lads (after offering to buy a couple teenage girls booze who decline because they're, like, you know, totally "straight-edge"[which suggests a potentially dire irresponsibility lurking within Kate that I hope is explored]). So now Bert wants Kate to take her trick or treating rather than his mom which leaves Kate flattered and Jackie forlorn, though Jackie schemes her way into the mix. Needless to say, hijinks ensue. Leaving Jackie & Kate in charge of a kid on Beggar’s Night is like putting Laverne & Shirley in charge of a Christmas pageant.

Their trick or treating sojourn ends with a woman mistaking Kate & Jackie for a proud lesbian Mom & Mom of precocious Bert, which is sorta obvious and I only mention because it shines a spotlight on a more subtle and more clever demonstration on how sitcom sexual civics have evolved.

Warren’s Halloween costume is Ellen. As in, Ellen DeGeneres. The script does not do much with this idea, instead focusing (unfortunately) on Warren’s visit to the dentist the same day which renders his enjoyment of candy mute which just feels like the disgusting taffy that – as Kate explains – is handed out at apartments which is why apartments are to be avoided. Nevertheless, if most sitcoms had teenage sons dressing up as Ellen, the entire episode would revolve around insecure fathers having major freak-outs over their sons’ orientations. Not here.

Pete may have a little Col. Nathan Jessup in him, but he’s tolerant too. And we know he’s tolerant because he never bats an eye at his son wanting to dress up like Ellen. Maybe next Halloween, after Jackie does a little research, she’ll let precocious Bert dress up in Lady Gaga’s soda can curler wig? (Not that I dream of forcing my hypothetical children to dress up for Halloween in Lady Gaga’s soda can curler wig.)