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Better Call Saul Reviews: “Mijo” (season 1, episode 2)

Is it too early for Better Call Saul to produce a masterpiece? Maybe. But I’m calling this one anyway.

“Mijo” is an incredible piece of television. A tragic comedy in four distinct acts, each showing us another side of James M. McGill, amounting to what is essentially a portrait of the man we will be spending the rest of our episodes with.

I’ll start by saying that I cheerfully retract my concern that McGill was already Goodman. While there’s an awful lot of overlap, there’s a crucial difference; McGill has a conscience, and a reluctance to stay at the table after being dealt a lucky hand. It provides us, at least potentially, with an idea of the psychological territory Better Call Saul might chart. What will it take for him to willingly silence his conscience? How much must he stand to gain before he stops saying, “Absolutely not” and starts saying, “Yes, please”?

“Mijo” illustrates that very clearly in my favorite scene of the night, but we’ll come to that in due time.

“Uno” left us with a pretty intense cliffhanger; maniacal drug baron Tuco visited from Breaking Bad to jam a gun in our new protagonist’s face. This, I concede, is a thrilling taste of the great things Better Call Saul can do by keeping its action in the same town that Heisenberg eventually destroyed.

After all, in Breaking Bad, Tuco was fucking terrifying, yes. And yet he was also neutralized as a threat fairly quickly. I could go on to list all of the other threats that came and went over the course of that great show, but your mind is spinning through them already. A resurrection of a character like this is by no means a cheat, and gives us a chance to either further flesh out what made them tick (which is what happens here), or simply unleash them once again to do more damage (as I expect we’ll eventually get with Mike).

Perhaps the most interesting thing about Tuco’s appearance is the fact that, relatively speaking, the guy’s at a pretty even keel. Of course he beats two teenagers half to death and nearly cuts off McGill’s thumb, but it’s that “half” and “nearly” that signify the difference. As with McGill, there’s a push that hasn’t happened yet…a tipping point that’s not quite been reached. Tuco is still on this side of his own personal event horizon; he’s a maniac, but not yet beyond reason.

It’s different from the Tuco we knew, and yet perfectly in line with what we know to be his destiny. There’s even a physical manifestation of this relative calm: his third hanger-on, Nacho.

When Gonzo and No-Doz show up, it’s for the purposes of cameo. Right? Well…no. They don’t have much to do, but their presence is required, simply because they enable us to feel that something is off. We remember the Tuco / Gonzo / No-Doz dynamic. We remember, especially, how it ended. Now, here, there’s what feels like an interloper.

He’s an artifact of calmer times for Tuco. Times we never knew, but which are immediately understandable. Nacho has a much bigger role than either of the two henchmen we’ve known longer. He takes control. He lets Tuco feel like he’s the king, but it’s Nacho pulling the strings. He regulates his boss’s heat. He’s cruel (or at least criminal), but he uses his mind. He’s clearly the brains of the group. The fact that he doesn’t make it to Breaking Bad in itself explains the entirely unbridled Tuco we encountered there.

McGill’s dealings with Tuco make up the first act of “Mijo,” and they reinforce an observation I made in the previous review: if you want to win against the man who would be Saul, you can’t engage with him. Tuco is in total control in the living room, when he lets Jimmy spill a stream of desperation to willfully deaf ears, and our hero is helpless. In the desert he allows himself to drift into a discussion, and everything tips immediately (and hilariously) in McGill’s favor.

We saw a bit of actual lawyering in the first episode, but here we get a sense of why Jimmy is good at what he does. The incompetence isn’t genuine; we knew that from Breaking Bad, and we see that it’s no less true here. McGill never positions himself as more intelligent than who he’s talking to, but we know he is. He’s a student of human nature, throwing out as much as he can in the hopes that something sticks, and always willing to look foolish. If he looks like he’s not a threat, after all, people will let their guard down. Tuco lets his guard down, and gets to feel like he’s being “tough but fair” by giving McGill what he wants. He gets to be the judge. The fact that this lawyer is deciding every move for him — and reigning him back whenever he starts to stray from McGill’s intentions — doesn’t register. Tuco feels like he’s in control because that’s what proto-Saul wants him to feel. And Odenkirk plays it masterfully.

Of course, Jimmy McGill knows when he’s won (an important difference between he and Saul Goodman), and so ends the negotiations with a couple of broken legs for his accomplices. He knows he can only push so far.

Which leads us into the second act, in which we see Jimmy at ease. “Mijo” opens with the man in a corner, doing his best to worm his way back out of danger. There’s an element of almost invisible panic driving everything he says. But when he’s free? He gets to be himself.

And that’s my favorite scene in the episode. Jimmy flirting with a woman he meets at the bar is the adorable kind of sleazy, an accomplishment that was only possible because we don’t hear a damned thing he’s saying, I’m sure. In fact, until its final moments, we don’t hear a word that anybody is saying in this sequence. Body language, gestures, implications, gazes. Those are what tell this amusing short story that we’re treated to after the first act’s Waste Land.

In the background, however, a man is snapping breadsticks, and it rattles McGill in a way that we know it won’t rattle Goodman. It’s his conscience that drills in on this image — and its accompanying sound effect — and won’t look away. He’s aware of the fact that people are hurt because of him. He’s correct earlier when he reminds one of the boys that he talked them out of a death sentence, which for Goodman would be enough. For McGill, however, it makes him physically sick.

Its effects linger on into the next day, when he wakes up on Chuck’s couch and every viewer in the world is reminded that only Bob Odenkirk could make a line like “Take off the space blanket” sound like the funniest thing in history.

The third act is a long, gorgeous, artful, clever, soaring montage of McGill doing the closest thing to public good he’ll ever do: acting as a public defender to whomever needs him. Everything about this sequence is perfect. The framing of every shot, the overlapping crowds in time-lapse, the continuous plunk of disposable coffee cups, the way he squeezes aside to let a criminal — and then the police chasing him — down a stairwell, the gleefully repeating punctuation of his arguments with Mike.

It’s this sequence that elevates “Mijo” for me from something quite good to something excellent. A reminder that Better Call Saul knows its purpose, even if we maybe don’t. It’s a confident, elaborate, brave setpiece in an episode that already had one. That’s how strong Vince Gilligan is at what he does; he can afford to double down. He knows just how to play with a tipping point, and we get one here, in act three, with what could almost qualify as an alternate future for James McGill.

Sure, he wouldn’t amount to much, and he’d never bring home more than $700 per defense. He’d argue with parking lot attendants until the day he dies, and be cheated out of every thirtieth cup of coffee.

And yet, he just might be happy. And safe. And doing a world of good for the rare defendant that really needs him, and who deserves a showboat lawyer who can turn a jury against their preconceived notions.

But we don’t end there. We have a fourth act.

We’ve seen Jimmy in danger, Jimmy at ease, and Jimmy at his best. Now we see him alone. Unsatisfied in a dingy office, nestled deep in the back of a nail salon. A door that won’t open all the way. A telephone that never rings. However full his weeks as a public defender may be, he wants something different. Maybe not even something more…but something different.

Nacho returns. Without saying it in so many words, he’s looking to partner up with Jimmy. At least once.

It’s unquestionably a bad idea. But…it’s still something different.

When he’s at his lowest, when he’s vulnerable, when he has nothing to distract him from the fact that he’s nobody, that’s when an opportunity like this can really sweep him away.

There’s a clear — ethically, legally, rationally — correct response to this offer. But, well…we already know the ending.

Better Call Saul Reviews: “Uno” (season 1, episode 1)

Let me get the elephant out of the way first; I don’t have cable. That means I’ll be a day behind on my Better Call Saul reviews. I don’t think that will matter in the long run, but in this particular case it means I’m writing about episode one while you’re all watching episode two. Do me a favor and try to avoid episode two spoilers in the comments, but otherwise feel free to pick apart the fact that everything I say here has already been disproven by the second installment. (Oh, and, needless to say, these reviews may well contain their own spoilers, so if you haven’t watched the first episode yet, go do that. It’s good.)

So, here we are. Breaking Bad is over, but we have another opportunity to dip back into its universe. It’s a spinoff. And a prequel. And…a sequel. But we’ll come to that in a moment.

If any character from Breaking Bad seemed like he could carry a show on his own, it would indeed have been Saul Goodman. Saul always did seem to me like an intrusion from another world. A welcome intrusion, I hasten to add, but when Walter described him as coming off like a circus clown, he was echoing my thoughts as well. Saul was the jester in a tragedy.

His introduction on Breaking Bad was given an entire episode; one full of complicated two-handed scheming to get ahead, and a strong prioritization of money over justice. That episode was also called “Better Call Saul,” and that short summary could apply to this introductory episode as well.

Saul Goodman has always been in danger of becoming a cartoon character. Yet, I’d argue he was kept just in check by Vince Gilligan and co. While his dialogue was too clever by half, it always seemed rehearsed. It’s not that Saul was witty…it’s that Saul was prepared. When we see him delaying a court case so that he can practice his precise words — not only what he will say, but what he will say in return — it bears that suspicion out. And I think it says a lot that the prosecutor in this very court case, which goes deservedly south for our hero, says absolutely nothing. He simply gets up and shows the jury the evidence. The prosecutor knows, or senses, that you won’t win a verbal sparring match with Goodman. Refuse to engage him, though, and you’ve got him on the ropes.

Better Call Saul, already, is filled with these little details that manage to define an outsized character without necessarily humanizing him. Perhaps down the line we’ll get our tear-jerking moments, but I wouldn’t hold my breath for them. Goodman is a strange creature, given to flights of theatrics and rushes of inventive panic. Sitting him beside more “traditional” television lawyers (such as the aforementioned prosecutor, or Mr. Hamlin in a later scene) reveals that Saul’s world wasn’t crazier than Walter’s; Saul was the comic outlier there, too. He’s the comic outlier everywhere.

One of the reasons, I believe, that people surrendered themselves so willingly to Breaking Bad was its promise of a built-in termination point. Whereas so many shows start off promisingly and then spin their wheels until the money stops coming in, Breaking Bad told us in the first episode that Walter White was going to die, and it was going to happen sooner rather than later. Vince Gilligan could have reversed that decision in any number of ways at any point, but, ultimately, he didn’t. Even when Walter “beat” cancer, it was already replaced by a much more frightening danger. Tension cannot be ratcheted up indiscriminately; at some point, it needs to go somewhere. Otherwise your audience realizes that you don’t know what you’re doing.

Better Call Saul, surprising me, opens with the promise of a termination point as well. Granted, we knew eventually that our favorite criminal lawyer would meet Walter White, and we know his story from there. But so what? Couldn’t Better Call Saul trot out silly court cases and situations indefinitely? Does he actually have to get anywhere?

The opening of “Uno” says, yes, he does. In fact, it picks up where Breaking Bad left off for him. He’s managing a Cinnabon in Omaha. He has a new name, a mustache, and impaired vision. And sometimes, when the nights are particularly lonesome, he’ll pop in a VHS of his old commercials, and remember what life was like when it had some color.

This means, again, that Vince Gilligan is taking us somewhere. As easy (and fun) as it would have been to give us The Continuing Adventures of Young Saul, we enter this story knowing that it’s not going to have a happy ending. And that’s tantalizing.

“Uno” does a lot of scene setting, which is understandable. The fact that in many cases it only sets the scene and leaves the rest for now to our imagination (such as the possible ousting of Chuck McGill from his partnership, and our hero’s romantic flounderings) is positively laudable. We trust the show to explain these things in due time, and the show trusts us to respect it and have patience.

However, there’s a problem. At least potentially. And here it is: James McGill is already Saul Goodman.

He has a different name, far less money, and a dearth of clients. He drives a Suzuki Esteem with one red door. He has more hair and has not yet discovered Bluetooth.

But he’s still Saul.

If you take the Walter White of Breaking Bad‘s first season and compared him to the Walter White of Breaking Bad‘s final season, the difference would be astonishing. The show very deliberately plotted his dark descent, but remove all of that knowledge from your mind and simply compare both versions of the same man. It’s striking.

Now take the Jimmy McGill of “Uno” and compare him to Saul Goodman. Superficial changes aside, I don’t think you’d see a different person. At all.

I don’t see this as a problem that can’t be surmounted, but I am interested to see what they do with it. If Breaking Bad was about a man changed by his circumstances, Better Call Saul looks like it’s about a man changing his circumstances.

We know he gets more successful, and we know that if he does experience a serious change of personality, it can’t be permanent. So what is the journey of Jimmy McGill? I don’t know, and considering the fact that I know both how his story begins and how it ends, that’s an unexpected admission.

Ultimately, Better Call Saul deserves to be thought of on its own merits, but the fact that it features more than one familiar Breaking Bad face — and is undoubtedly to feature more (hurry up, Kuby!) — means that we’re going to hold it to a higher standard than we would some unrelated Bob Odenkirk law comedy. Then again, we probably wouldn’t be watching that unrelated Bob Odenkirk law comedy.

As of the end of “Uno,” my concerns are more like questions. While some of the comedy went a bit broad (a phony severed head rings particularly false after the exquisite pain of Breaking Bad‘s more brutal moments), there are enough quiet passages of McGill facing something inside, something we can’t see yet. Something, maybe, we will never see. And at the very least, I’m looking forward to exploring that…however indirectly.

If it’s fun to spend time with Saul Goodman, then that’s all we really need. In a show that opens with its own inevitable, sad coda, though, I hope that’s not all we get.

A Request: Make This Woman’s Valentine’s Day

One of my most appreciated (and appreciative) friends, Emily Suess asked me to share a request. And…yeah. The moment I read the post, I knew I’d be more than willing to help.

Emily’s post about it is here, but I’m going to paste the content below. It’s short, and I don’t want an extra click to stand between anyone and participation.

At Christmas, Cheryl Gregory had a stroke.

She is unable to see her two sons.

Her siblings have been doing their best to visit her and keep her spirits high, but recently she was transferred to a new facility. She wasn’t recovering as well as the doctors like, so they transferred her to a new location in a different county. While the distance makes visiting her more difficult, it also doesn’t help that her brothers and sister are only allowed to see her for two hours a day.

Recovering from a stroke is hard enough, but fighting depression and loneliness makes getting better even more challenging, no matter how good the doctors and nurses may be.

Cheryl is only 63, but if her recovery doesn’t progress, she may have to stay in a nursing home for the rest of her life.

So I’m reaching out to my own family, friends, and complete strangers to show Cheryl some support. As Valentine’s Day approaches, I’m asking everyone I can to mail her a postcard, a get well card, a Valentine, or submit an online patient card to lift her spirits. Have your kids draw her a picture. Fold and mail an origami crane. Anything you can think of that might bring her a little extra joy.

Send a Valentine or get well wish by snail mail.
Cheryl Gregory
C/O Serenity – St. Mary’s
1116 Millis Ave
Boonville, IN 47601

Send an online greeting to be printed & delivered by hospital volunteers
St. Mary’s – Send a Patient Card to Cheryl Gregory

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If you’ve only got five seconds or you already have plans for Random Act of Kindness Week, consider passing this post along with a simple like, share, forward, or retweet. Don’t forget to use hashtag #RAKweek2015.

I don’t know Cheryl. But I know depression. I know loneliness. I know distance.

I’ll be participating, and I’m asking you personally, if you have it in your heart, to send something as well. I know I have a lot of talented, artistic, and good-hearted people who visit this blog regularly. If even one of you took the time to mail a valentine to someone who’d appreciate it as much as Cheryl, you’d make my day, too.

Steve Zissou Saturdays #10: Bon Voyage

You know, drilling down into this movie and really picking it apart several minutes at a time reveals to me just how magical it is. Sometimes the closer you examine something you love, the easier it is to spot its flaws. The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou, though, is a little different. It wears its flaws on its sleeve. You don’t have to dig to find them; they’re all in plain view. (And we’ll be discussing one of them today.)

The deeper I dig, I feel as though I’m only uncovering layers of beauty. As though its cracked, weathered exterior — like everything in Team Zissou’s arsenal, right down to the rickety foosball table we open on Pele and Ogata playing this week — is a design decision, hiding some deeper purpose. Or, at least, some deeper intention.

The care Anderson put into assembling this world is without equal, something easily measured in terms of the toll it took on the cast. Bill Murray at one point even said that if he didn’t get an Oscar for going through this, he’d kill the director. I’m paraphrasing because it’s been a while since I’ve read the exact quote, but I assure you it’s not off by much. And this comes from Bill Murray, who has likely been Anderson’s longest-standing, highest-profile champion.

For a director who so often flits into comic fantasy, Anderson has an odd (though not unwelcome) obsession with things actually happening. That is to say that he may (in fact, does) employ Hollywood magic to create or enhance certain visuals, but in the larger scheme of things, he wants what he’s filming to be actually happening.

I’ll explain this by using a few examples. In The Darjeeling Limited, he actually rented out a rail line. Every scene in that film that takes place on the train — whether stationary or moving — was indeed shot on an actual train. The purpose? It’s hard to say, because whatever it was, it was in Anderson’s mind, and only he can tell us how successful he was in achieving it. But as easy as it is (and has been for around a century) to fake the motion of a train and to rear-project scenery, Anderson did it the hard way. Or…well…the real way.

There’s even a short scene late in that film that includes passing glimpses of characters in their isolated compartments. It would have been quite easy to stitch it all together in the editing booth, as none of these characters interact. And yet Anderson flew each of the actors, some of whom only appeared in one other scene in the movie, out to India to film them on the actual train. The purpose? Again, only he knows. But the appreciation it stirs in me is one I could not even begin to express.

“Does this look fake?” he seems to ask. And sometimes, even when it does, it isn’t.

Another, much smaller-scale, example came in Moonrise Kingdom. From the dotted-line progression of the main characters over a map to a child being struck by lightning to a climax involving a collapsing church, Anderson played with reality in that film…overtly, unmissably so. And yet when it came time for some Khaki Scout badges to fall into the water, Anderson insisted that they be dropped over and over again until they fell just right. He was informed — and knew — that whatever fall he was looking for could be accomplished easily in the edit suite. But he wanted them to actually drop.

Anderson’s connection to reality, as a director, is one of the most fascinating aspects of his films. And it’s one that I’m not quite sure I fully understand. It’s a richer discussion more than it is a solid conclusion, I think.

Which, let’s be honest, more or less sums up his oeuvre. And I’m very grateful for that.

We pan over to another part of the room where much of the rest of Team Zissou is watching an old documentary of Steve’s. It’s not easy to figure out how long ago this was meant to be, but the hairstyles — and, in Steve’s case, the hair color — are clue enough that we’re supposed to see this as a different era…whatever an actual calendar would have to say about that.

Ned is still bundled up from his dip in the water (sipping a hot beverage in contrast to Klaus’s beer) and there’s something unspeakably sad about these people watching themselves on television in complete silence. Klaus’s “That’s what it used to be like” is heartbreaking when you take into account that, in all aspects other than mood, that’s how it still is.

Steve’s production values haven’t increased at all. His most recent film, as of this scene, is the Jaguar Shark expedition that opened The Life Aquatic. This obviously older film suggests that neither Steve nor his crew have learned anything about how to make a movie. The staged chumminess, the scene of Steve recognizing a “distress bark” that was clearly filmed later, the high-school filmstrip soundtrack…Steve’s gotten older, but he hasn’t gotten any more competent.

What’s even sadder is that there’s no way to know whether Klaus (or anybody else) is remembering this accurately. On the screen, everyone’s laughing and having fun, unwinding and then working together to coordinate a rescue of a wild snow mongoose and her pups. But that’s clearly not how it actually happened. In fact, it’s doubtful that much of this footage is genuine; it’s all marred by the too-deliberate line deliveries and too-perfect framing that scream “reenactment.”

Klaus and the others are reflecting back on happier times. That’s sad enough. But the fact that those happier times may only have existed on film, after significant editing, is sadder still.

Of course, I keep saying “film.” The SEASON 3 caption suggests that this might have been from an otherwise unmentioned Steve Zissou television program. Again, it’s impossible to know for sure. We’re not told, and it’s not completely unlikely that Steve’s films are collected into larger “seasons” based on their subject matter.

It’s also possible that these aren’t actual seasons / episodes in the standard television sense; they could have been shot or edited in this way to serve as educational materials in public schools. (I recall a similar program, The Voyage of the Mimi, from my own grade school days.)

Of course, the real reason I wanted to take a screen grab is to show off these incredible Team Zissou action figures.

I’ve actually discussed this with a friend of mine. Anderson’s characters would make perfect action figures. They each favor a uniform of some kind, they each have their own sets of accoutrements and talismans (talismen?), and even when they’re played by the same actors we’ve seen in other roles, they’re each visually distinct. I’m picturing a line of very lifelike (as Ned might say) McFarlane Toys, but as we see here, these cheap little GI Joe-style figures would be just fine. So fine that I’m getting angry that I don’t already have them…

The arrangement of the figures — as with the arrangement of everything else in the film — is quite deliberate. On the left we have Esteban, Steve, and Klaus. We’ll officially learn the significance of that in the middle of a lightning strike rescue op., but we already know how Klaus views his relationship with Steve, and it’s not much of a logical leap to assume that he feels (felt…) something similar toward Steve’s closest confidant.

On the right we have a grouping of less significance, I think. It’s what Gilligan’s Island might refer to as “the rest.” From left to right, that group contains Ogata, Vikram, Pietro, Pele, and Wolodarsky. Based on this and on what we see in “Trapped in the Ice!”, the makeup of Team Zissou hasn’t changed in some time. (Again, at least an “era” in Zissou time.) Perhaps equivalents of Anne-Marie and the interns came and went, but the core team remained unchanged.

Until Esteban’s death, of course. Thanks for bringing that up.

After the film, we see that Ogata and Pele have joined the rest of the group in watching their old adventure. They, too, are still and silent. Seeing these happier times — however real or false they may have been — has a sobering effect on the group. Especially when you consider that Klaus must be saying “That’s what it used to be like” for Ned’s benefit. It has to be Ned — with whom he otherwise clashes — because everyone else in that room was there.

The past is comforting to them. It’s where they were happy. Or, at least, they’re willing to believe that. Team Zissou doesn’t sail bravely into new sunsets; it bobs in place, remembering all the films that made it seem like they were going somewhere.

That moment ends with a nice reprise of what happened in the Explorers Club when people were gossiping about Steve: the camera pans to find him standing there. The blocking is even better this time around, with the Zissou pinball machine right next to him. It’s a relic of his past success, a faint (and fading) glow in a dark room, a reminder of a time before companies started terminating his licensing contracts. An idealized cartoon on its faceplate…a representation of the real thing, frozen in time, not subject to downfall, but also going nowhere.

Seeing Steve standing next to it is a very funny image, though one I can’t say I’ve ever laughed at. It’s a clear reminder of how far he’s fallen. Look at him as he stands in that doorway. Would anybody make a pinball machine to celebrate that man today?

In his action figures and sneakers and pinball machines and goodness knows what else, Steve was pretending to be somebody…but he was only given the opportunity to pretend to be somebody because he was somebody. He did earn his legacy; the problem is that at some undefined point in the past, he became complacent. The legend was built…so what was left to aspire to?

Any number of answers could be valid. But Steve had, and has, none.

Cue a haunting, acoustic, Portuguese version of “Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide.”

It’s a great performance on its own, but as a cover version of Bowie’s original, I’m not totally convinced. It never “sounded” the same, for lack of a better way to phrase that. It felt much more like a song inspired by “Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide” than a performance of it. I may be in the minority, however; I once watched the film with a good friend of mine and she recognized the song right away.

Steve says nothing to his teammates (so much for teamsmanship), and walks into the room he shares with Eleanor. He’s beaten, and Eleanor asks (beautifully, perfectly, from down the hallway), “Had Ned’s heart stopped beating before you pulled him out of the water?”

Our hero steps out of frame before she asks, but steps back into frame to repeat the question back for her. He repeats every word of the question, as though looking for even the smallest loophole to get out of this discussion. Eleanor’s very careful — and humorously elaborate — phrasing is very likely due to the fact that Steve’s tried to wriggle out of an awful lot of things in the past.

When he realizes he has nothing left but to answer honestly, we find out that, yes, Ned’s heart had stopped beating. But they “got him started again pretty quickly,” which is the kind of reassurance that only makes the problem more horrifying.

The conversation continues, but much later, it seems. Eleanor is now in bed, rather than in a chair down the hall. Anderson implies a long, awkward silence without showing us, and I adore that.

She’s thought about what she’s going to say, and what she says is, “Don’t go on this voyage right now, Steve. One of you is already dead, after all.”

Eleanor has picked up on the foreshadowing that Steve — possibly deliberately — is overlooking. On the DVD there’s a deleted scene of Eleanor warning Ned about going on the voyage as well. As our “Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come” Eleanor has foreknowledge that could change the course of events. Of course, living with Steve as long as she has, “foreknowledge” is less like prediction and more like the simple process of elimination. (No pun intended.)

It takes Steve a moment to realize that she’s referring to Esteban, and we have our answer to a question asked much earlier: why isn’t Steve “sitting shivah?” Because he’s already forgotten. And as many times as he’s reminded, he’ll forget again.

Steve doesn’t mourn. As close as we’re told he was to Esteban, he does not acknowledge (or process, or react to) the man’s death. He projects the responsibility onto the Jaguar Shark — and enacts a vague scheme of “revenge” — but forgets Esteban himself.

Steve Zissou is very much the opposite of Chas Tenenbaum in this regard. Whereas the unforeseeable and unpreventable death of someone important to Chas resulted in a heightened, tense, hyper-careful lifestyle, Steve lost his closest friend and crewman to negligence…and would prefer not to think about it. In fact, he gets upset if he is made to think about it, as he is here.

His tremendously dickish, “Thanks for bringing that up,” sets the rightful tone for Eleanor to stub out her cigarette and abandon the team. She is, after all, the only one who seems to be taking the inherent tragedy of Team Zissou seriously, and her words of caution to him represent the best she can do to stop this from happening again.

If she goes unheeded — if her visions of the future are dismissed — then she can serve no purpose. She leaves Team Zissou. And as much as I love Steve…good for her.

She explains that she doesn’t want to be a part of whatever is going to happen out there, knowing full well that if Steve is the kind of man who will be so dismissive of his own crewman’s death, there’s no chance of this turning out well. As we in the audience know, she’s right.

Steve replies, “Nobody knows what’s going to happen. And then we film it. That’s the whole concept.” Wolodarsky adds, “That’s how we’ve always done it.”

But by this point, as we’ve seen and as we’ll see again later, we know that isn’t true. Continuity is slaved over, ADR is frequent. Reenactments and staged scenes are commonplace to the point that we don’t know how much of Steve’s footage (very much unlike Anderson’s) is real. In fact, as Steve pleads with her not to leave, he reveals that she’s the one who would tell him “the Latin names of all the fish.” This makes a certain moment in “Trapped in the Ice!” play differently in retrospect. When Steve is asked what kind of animal they’ve found, the camera doesn’t pan to him; we cut to him. Very likely, he didn’t know. Eleanor telling him was either snipped out, or the scene was reshot later after Steve had the chance to ask.

Eleanor expresses disapproval that Steve took Ned’s money to bankroll this film, and Steve, evading the actual concern, refers to Ned as “an investor…he’s my sidekick.” At no point does he say son, which I think is important. Steve only plays that card when it will do him some good.

Then Steve indicates, just as Eleanor steps out of shot and onto the pier, that the sugar crabs are back. He’s told — again, he doesn’t know — that they’re mating. And this is one of my least favorite moments in the film.

The sugar crabs themselves have a nice design, and I love that there’s a third role played in the mating ritual. That’s an interesting and welcome flourish. But, beyond that, it’s a bit too pat. Steve is fighting with his wife, he’s told explicitly that they’re witnessing mating, and the female yanks the male’s arm off and leaves.

Anderson is typically above being so overt in his symbolism. It’s really something, I feel, that should have either been cut, or re-staged so that the male-being-left-wounded aspect was portrayed more artfully.

It takes me out of the film in a way that so many other moments of silliness do not. (See the swamp leeches scene later in the film.) Broad comedy isn’t necessarily a bad thing in an otherwise sedate atmosphere, but in this case, I think it becomes too much of a cartoon and works against something Anderson was otherwise doing a great job of establishing cleverly.

Eleanor says goodbye, but Steve doesn’t like that phrase. Steve retreats back into the same comfort zone we encountered in his interview with Jane. Favorite color, blue. Favorite food, sardines. Favorite ways of saying goodbye? Bon voyage.

It may not seem like much of a departure from “goodbye,” but, taken literally, it’s a wish for a “good journey.” Eleanor allows the substitution, and indeed does wish Steve a good journey.

It’s what she wants, which is why she says it.

But she already knows how it will turn out, which is why she won’t be around for it.

Next: The Belafonte at sea.

ALF Reviews: “Breaking Up is Hard to Do” (season 3, episode 3)

How do you solve a problem like the Ochmoneks?

Before we watch the episode struggle to answer that, it’s worth reminding ourselves that as much as I’ve griped about its many (many) problems, ALF has at least managed to acknowledge and correct some of its issues. A great example of this is the relationship that developed between ALF and Lynn last season, repositioning the two of them as friends that share a special, honest bond. Another is the introduction of Jake, which was a solution to the problem of the writers not wanting to do anything with Brian (apparently) but still wanting a young boy around. It was by no means a clean solution, but it shows that they were aware of an issue and took some kind of action to correct it.

This week we attempt to address a different problem, whether the show is conscious of it or not: the Ochmoneks.

Originally introduced as a pair of annoying neighbors, they’ve managed to flesh themselves out and develop more character than literally anybody else in this entire show. Mr. Ochmonek, in particular, established himself as more than just an add-on for his wife. It isn’t just me that appreciates what Jack LaMotta brings to his thankless role; the writers must appreciate it as well, because they’ve given him so much more to do that he’s eclipsed Liz Sheridan significantly in terms of screen time.

The “problem,” then, is more of a question: when the sideshow is more interesting than the main attraction, what do you do?

It’s been observed in the comments here that this show would be better if ALF had crashed into the Ochmoneks’ garage instead. I agree. And yet…he didn’t. So what does ALF do instead? We’ll find out in the following half hour that it really has no idea.

Anyway, let’s take a step back. I’m noticing that ALF is wearing clothes a lot more this season. Toward the end of season one we saw ALF in a Hawaiian shirt, which brought back a lot of memories for me. Though it was an exception to the naked norm, it was perfectly in line with what I remember of ALF’s merchandise.

For whatever reason, ALF toys almost always featured him wearing clothes. It’s strange to me, because he so rarely does. (Or…did?) It would be like seeing a bunch of Yogi Bear dolls on the shelf, each of them dressed as a firefighter. I don’t know…maybe it happened once in the cartoon or something, but it would just feel wrong. Yogi gets a hat and a necktie, and that’s it. Anything else and…he’s not Yogi.

With ALF, though, he was nearly always portrayed outside of the show wearing some kind of outfit. Sometimes it was just an unremarkable Hawaiian shirt, and other times it was a fully recognizable costume, such as a chef or Bruce Springsteen. Why? Why was that ALF?

I wonder if the increased frequency of apparel in this season has anything to do with merchandising. It’s not likely to be a standards and practices thing…after all, ALF had already been naked for two full seasons by this point. Additionally, puppets and cartoons are exempt from nudity concerns unless they have recognizable genitalia. (For the record, when I woke up this morning I never expected to type that sentence.)

I think it’s more of a chance to get people (okay…kids) in the habit of seeing the character in costume, so that the dolls and toys wouldn’t seem less like the “real” ALF. Consequently, they’d sell more.

That’s my best guess, anyway. Prior to this season, nearly any time we saw him in an outfit it was for story reasons, or because they were using that bright orange “backup” ALF puppet that I’m positive only wore clothes because they were hiding some kind of damage.

Speaking of which, maybe putting both puppets in clothes regularly is meant to keep us from noticing when they switch them out.

My main point here is that I don’t want to talk about what’s actually happening.

…but I guess I have to. It’s breakfast time, and ALF wants all the ham and eggs. Kate says, “No, ALF, you live in this house with like a million other people and we have to fucking eat, too. In fact, the only reason I’m serving you first is so you can sneeze into the pan and ruin breakfast for everyone, so stop your shitty bastard bitching for cunt’s sake.”

Then ALF sneezes into the pan and ruins breakfast for everyone.

Honestly, I can’t even tell if ALF did this on purpose. He’s enough of a dick that he would, but I guess he could also have sneezed coincidentally as he was being told that he couldn’t eat everyone’s food. It’s rare that a show is so poorly written that three seasons in you still don’t know if the main character is an asshole or an idiot.

After ensuring that he’s ruined these people’s mornings in addition to their whole lives, he gobbles up a plate of snot covered eggs, daring the audience to come to terms with the things they’ve chosen to fill their time watching.

We get a shot of Benji Gregory saying something I couldn’t hear because I was laughing at the eggs all over him. This poor kid still has nothing to do with anything that happens in the show, but he had to sit still while stage hands covered him in cold, runny eggs before he delivered his single line.

There’s something perfectly terrible about that. I love it, because I’m a heartless human being.

Then Jake comes over and ALF calls him “Jake Your Booty.” I don’t love that at all for any reason.

Apparently the Ochmoneks have been fighting and they resent each other and blah blah fuck you. It smacks of plot manufacture, especially since they’re the only couple on this show that I’ve ever believed are in love. Yes, they’ve got their problems, and I certainly wouldn’t fix either of them up with anybody I know, but they fit together. The things that most people would consider problematic, they seem to find attractive. And in a genuinely satisfying way, that’s sweet.

I know people go through rough times no matter how strong their relationships are, but this is turmoil for the sake of turmoil. If you don’t think that the Ochmoneks fighting represents a stretch of credibility, then you’ll certainly be swayed when you realize that Jake comes to the Tanner house of all places to get away from familial dysfunction.

That smell, my friends, is bullshit.

We come back after the intro credits to the same conversation in the kitchen, making me think it was originally written as one long scene and was hacked up to give the episode a cold open at a later point. Who knows what the original cold open would have been. Probably something hilarious, like ALF bashing Willie’s skull in with a 9-iron.

I don’t really care that they split the scene that way, but if they were going to plop the credits into the middle of it, I’m surprised they didn’t do it after Mr. Ochmonek walked in and they agreed to let him stay with them. That seems like a perfect stopping point, and the scene basically ends there anyway. But, whatever. I’m thinking about things again. I promise I’ll stop.

ALF hides under the table and stabs his family members in the legs with a fork whenever it sounds like one of them might let Mr. Ochmonek stay over. It’s a kind of annoying detour, and it’s not quite worth it for the fact that it ends with Kate kicking ALF in the fucking face. On the bright side, it does end with Kate kicking ALF in the fucking face.

Anyway, Mr. Ochmonek almost eats the booger eggs but then doesn’t. ha ha?

Later, Willie helps him bring his stuff into the Tanner house, and he gets all pissy that Mr. Ochmonek might have to stay with them for more than one night. The guy’s marriage is failing, Willie. I don’t think you telling him to hurry it up is very productive.

Way to social work, asshole.

I know I’ve dug into this before, but I honestly can’t get over it. Why is Willie a social worker? This is a sitcom. That is to say, this is an invented reality. The writers can make him anything at all. Why choose social work if the character doesn’t fit the profile and has no interest in it?

Make him a lab technician, or a librarian. Or an engineer. (Either kind.) Something that would help to develop character rather than work against literally everything we see him do and hear him say.

Once again, this could work if it were the joke. Plenty of sitcom characters are bad at their jobs, or hate their jobs, but we keep getting told that Willie Tanner is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being we’ve ever known in our lives. He’s some kind of social work savant, one who is so valuable and irreplaceable that he deserves raises and promotions showered on him even after he’s caught kidnapping a Mexican kid.

Come on. If Willie’s even 1/1,000th the social worker we’re told he is, he’s surely dealt with countless people who’ve gone through nasty breakups and / or been thrown out with no place to go.

Yet, as we see here, he somehow hasn’t actually learned anything about getting these folks back on track. Unless “I don’t care what you do, but make it snappy” solves more social ills than I’m compelled to believe it does.

Anyway the whole family bitches about how they’ll need to figure out sleeping arrangements while the recently separated Mr. Ochmonek is in the same room. So, that’s another thing good social work entails: making the victim feel as guilty as possible about the inconvenience they’ve now become.

Jake volunteers to sleep with Lynn. It’s funny because he will stick things in her while she is sleeping.

Why is he spending the night, exactly? Did his marriage to Mrs. Ochmonek fall through as well? What the fuck am I watching?

The next morning Willie and Kate come into the kitchen to find Mr. Ochmonek sitting in the middle of a big mess.

I have to admit, this kind of pissed me off. I was afraid that this was going to be how the show solved the problem of the Ochmoneks being more likeable: we’d get an episode that made a point of saying to the audience, “Look! These people really are trash! All those times you thought Willie was the dickblossom, but it was really the fat, bald, ugly guy like we told you! And his wife’s a bitch!”

Instead, thank Christ, it goes in a better direction. ALF wrecked the kitchen in a feeding frenzy overnight. Mr. Ochmonek had nothing to do with it, and just saw the mess when he came in to eat breakfast.

A few nice things happen in this scene. Firstly, Mr. Ochmonek refers to his little stereo as a “suburb blaster,” which is such a perfect line for him in so many ways. You know, the plot of this episode is rekindling my illogical wish that he and Kate will run off together and star in a much better sitcom than this one.

The other thing I like is that Mr. Ochmonek apologizes for using the last of the milk, and volunteers to go borrow some from Mrs. Bird. That’s Iola from the two part episode “Hostage-O.” Hold on to your butts, folks, because ALF just foreshadowed something that never actually happens. Stay tuned!

Mr. Ochmonek, once again, proves himself to be the nicest human being in this entire terrible universe. It’s first thing in the morning and these assholes were not quiet about their preference that he sleep in the compost heap, but he offers to go out and get them milk. By contrast, how many stars would have to align for Willie to loan the guy a quarter to call 911 if he was being actively murdered?

Willie takes the fall for the mess, which is pretty dumb but who cares. Then Lynn and Brian come in, and the difference in acting ability hits you like a brick. Andrea Elson stops dead in her tracks and looks around before speaking, taking in what she’s seeing and making sure she doesn’t misspeak. Benji Gregory, by contrast, just strolls in and sits down as though it’s only another morning.

Again, that would be fine if it were part of the joke, but it’s clearly not. The stage direction was to come in and sit down, so Benji Gregory does exactly that. Just as Max Wright would have. Andrea Elson, I’m positive, was given the exact same stage direction, but put some thought into the context and reacted appropriately. Just as Anne Schedeen would have. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I’m glad she takes after her mother.

There’s also one really odd bit when Kate and Willie first walk in. Mr. Ochmonek is listening to his suburb blaster, and it’s playing some generic three-chord rock music. He turns it off and says it was his and Raquel’s favorite song, and then says, “That Sinatra sure could sing.”

The audience laughs, of course, because it sounded nothing like Sinatra. Then Willie says it sounded more like Pink Floyd, and Mr. Ochmonek says it was, the Sinatra comment wasn’t related. It’s funny enough.

But there’s a problem: that also didn’t sound anything like Pink Floyd. I have no idea what it was, but I’ll bet a dollar to donuts it’s just some no-name library garbage. You can’t make a joke about the song sounding nothing like Sinatra, and then try to convince us that it’s Pink Floyd when it sounds no more like them.

I understand that licensing a Pink Floyd song for the purposes of this throwaway joke would be ridiculous, but then maybe we don’t need the joke? Or maybe Willie could reference a different band that actually did sound something like what we were hearing?

The script said Pink Floyd, but whomever chose the track dug up something that sounded nothing like them. As usual, the script says one thing, the props department or producer or someone does something different, and nobody — from the writers all the way down to the actors — alters their work to reflect the change. For a show that took an average of six hundred zillion hours to record every episode, I’m gobsmacked at just how little effort seems to have been put into it.

Anyway everyone bitches again and then Willie waves some eggs around.

While Mr. Ochmonek is out of the house, Mrs. Ochmonek and Jake come over with more of his stuff, including a moose head so that Willie can humorously sit next to it and make funny faces in a moment, even though there’s a completely vacant sofa like one foot away if it’s such a big fucking deal to him.

Mrs. Ochmonek says their separation is final, because the script told her to. She says she saw her husband coming out of Mrs. Bird’s house first thing this morning! Through a pair of binoculars, of course. He was there to pick up milk for the Tanners, which we know and she does not, and which the Tanners don’t seem all that intent on telling her about.

Nice family, huh?

There’s the germ of a very good idea here, but I know why the show didn’t go that route; it’d require taking the limited amount of characterization this show has actually done into account.

Remember, Mrs. Ochmonek was first and foremost introduced as the neighborhood busybody. That might have fallen away over the past two years, but that’s okay. Just look at how The Simpsons introduced characters for one very specific purpose, and then found much (much) more interesting things to do with them later. Original roles can evolve. In fact, they absolutely should.

The problem with Mrs. Ochmonek is that nothing’s really been introduced to take the place of her faltering nosiness. That, too, is okay, if a little unfortunate. But “Breaking Up is Hard to Do” is in a perfect position to get the character back to her roots (er…root) and, for the first time, spin an actual plotline from it.

We’ve already got the foundation for it right here: because she’s nosy, she spotted her husband coming out of another woman’s house. That’s the kind of thing that might spill out in the writer’s room, and it would be the perfect reason to go back and revise the previous pages of the script, giving this episode some strong, character-specific resonance.

Specifically, here’s what I’m getting at: have the initial fight between the Ochmoneks come from something similar. Maybe Mr. Ochmonek comes home late, and his wife is convinced he’s having an affair. She starts spying on him and sees things that can be easily enough misinterpreted as evidence of an affair…a problem that doesn’t exist, but which she’s creating in her own mind because she’s the kind of person who butts into other people’s business. For instance, you could see Mr. Ochmonek walking into a jewelry store with another woman. Mrs. Ochmonek kicks him out of the house without giving him a chance to explain, and maybe without even telling him what she saw.

Of course, it turns out to have been a coworker or someone, and he was trying to pick out a nice gift for his wife and wanted a woman’s opinion before he made the purchase.

Groundbreaking? Fuck no. But ALF isn’t interested in breaking ground, and I’m okay with that. When I look at ways to fix the show, yes, it’s easy to say nuke it from orbit. But assuming we’re not doing that, and we’re going to adhere to tried and true conventions of the format, there’s still so much room for improvement. ALF can be better without ever having to be original; all it needs to do is step back, take a look at the universe it’s built (deliberately or not), and create stories from that, rather than spit out whatever first comes to mind and hope for the best.

Mrs. Ochmonek should be a busybody who created this conflict by virtue of being a busybody. Instead we still don’t know what they fought about* or what a reconciliation would entail. That means it’s not only impossible to get invested, but we don’t know why we should want to be invested. Without knowing the stakes, we don’t care. If we don’t care, we probably aren’t laughing.

Once again, the importance of second drafts, ladies and gentleman. It’s not a luxury upgrade…it’s the bare minimum you need to keep an audience watching.

The Willie sits next to the moose and prays to God.

Yes, really.

He asks God why He puts “such ordinary people in such extraordinary situations.”

…which is a pretty strange thing to ask in reference to his neighbors having a spat, as opposed to…oh, I dunno, a giant space roach rampaging through the house, the president sending him to Guantanamo, his uncle falling down dead in the back yard, an alien singing about how nice it would feel to fuck his teenage daughter, his boss showing up at the house for an impromptu Halloween limbo party, film crews stumbling upon the actual flying saucer in his garage, or Anne Ramsey threatening sexual violence against him.

Willie’s got one hell of a strange sense of what’s worth bothering God with, I must say.

Then ALF burps and Willie says, “lol nevermind!!!!!!”

Yes. Really.

The fuck is this show. Who laughs at this?

Later on, ALF is in the garage, calling people in the town to see if they’ll let Mr. Ochmonek stay with them. None of them, I guess, ask who the fuck is calling them. He’s not impersonating Willie’s voice or anything…he’s just a stranger asking a stranger if a stranger can live with them for a while. I don’t care. I hate my life.

He actually manages to get Mrs. Bird on the line, and it’s Beverly Archer…the same actress that played her last time. Oddly, though, this is it. We hear only a snippet of her conversation with ALF, and then she is neither seen nor heard again. Why did they bother paying her to reprise the character for this? The way she gets name-dropped throughout the episode you almost expect her to play a part in whatever the big resolution at the end turns out to be, but…no. First draft. Always the first draft.

Then Mrs. Ochmonek comes over to bitch Willie out for telling the neighborhood her business, and the joke I guess is that she lists off the last names of all the neighbors and they rhyme or something.

Then Willie goes over to bitch ALF out for telling the neighborhood her business, and the joke I guess is that he repeats the list of neighbors and they rhyme or something.

Willie is actually really fired up, so once again I have to wonder why this situation — of all the fucking situations ALF has dragged him into — has him so furious. Since when is he more passionate about Ochmoneks’ love life than he is about the safety and financial security of his own family? Perhaps being in a position in which he must help another human being is King Social Work’s kryptonite.

Maybe if it was Jake getting upset at ALF, this would make sense. In fact…why isn’t it Jake? He has a significant personal investment in the state of their marriage, and he knows ALF exists, putting him in a position to confront him about his meddling. It’s a far more natural way for this to play out, and, besides, Jake is already in this episode. Why not give him a fucking purpose?

Seriously guys…these are all thoughts I had the first time watching the episode. Could it really be that hard for writers who got paid to do this to come up with something better than they did?

Anyway, Willie leaves and there’s an admittedly cute little moment when ALF reaches for the phone, and then quickly withdraws his hand as Willie turns around. Then he orders flowers for Mrs. Ochmonek because he gives even less of a shit about what Willie thinks than we do.

Mr. Ochmonek sees the flowers later, and he comes into the garage to yell at Willie for sending flowers to his wife. It’s not a great scene, but there are some funny moments, including an unexpected one from Max Wright**: Mr. Ochmonek says he’s upset because no man would send a $79.95 flower arrangement to another man’s wife unless he knew he was causing trouble.

Willie replies, “There must be some seventy-nine ninety-five??”

And, yeah, I’ll give him that one. That was a great delivery, and genuinely funny.

Then there’s a humorless exposition dump, because it was either that or go back and add better jokes to the earlier scenes.

ALF sent the flowers so it’d look like they came from Mr. Ochmonek, but Mr. Ochmonek knows he didn’t send them, so he called the florist and they told him it was billed to Willie’s credit card.

No joke, I wonder how often florists get calls like that. I’m genuinely curious. Anyone out there ever work in a florist? Maybe a jewelry store? Is it a fairly common thing for them to get calls from men asking who the scumbag was that just sent gifts to their significant other?

Mr. Ochmonek then threatens Willie to stay away from his wife, otherwise “I’m moving out of your house.” It’s a good line delivery from Jack LaMotta, lacking all self-awareness and believably upset. It’s good comic acting.

This was probably the best scene in the episode, which isn’t saying much. Or maybe I’m just biased because it opens with Willie cramming ALF into a cardboard box.

ALF and Jake break into the Ochmoneks’ bedroom, because hey, why not. They’re looking for a clue about how to get them back together, which I guess makes sense because they live in a sitcom and the episode is almost ending. Whatever’s going to resolve the plot has to be lying around somewhere.

Yeah, it’s all riding at a fast clip toward whatever disappointing conclusion the writers manage to crap out.

A good joke (ALF seeing a display of little hula girls and being impressed by how much class the Ochmoneks have) even veers immediately back into standard ALF horseshit (ALF lifts a grass skirt to jack off to some sculpted pussy). It’s fucking gross even before you remember that he’s doing this in front of a kid.

Then Mrs. Ochmonek comes home after having had a fight with Mrs. Bird — off camera, apparently — then Mr. Ochmonek comes home after ALF called him saying a terrorist was in the house, then I kill myself.

ALF, hiding under the bed, tosses a scrap of paper out to Jake, who picks it up in his only relevant action in the entire episode. It turns out to be a poem that Mr. Ochmonek wrote to Mrs. Ochmonek way back in a year the writers didn’t bother to figure out.

Actually, it’s the lyrics to Chicago’s “Just You ‘N’ Me,” which goes for some pretty lazy laughs of recognition when it’s read out loud, but Mr. Ochmonek’s “I meant every word I stole” does actually manage to redeem it.

Anyway, now they’re back together. Being as they had no real reason to be apart, I suppose it’s fitting that this just kind of happens and nobody has to work through any of those pesky emotions the writers have heard so much about from their colleagues on better shows.

In the short scene before the credits, ALF comes out from under the bed. Hilarious!

He says to Jake, “You’re more than a life saver. You’re a milk dud.”

And when that’s just about the cleverest thing in the entire episode — and the punchline to which 25 minutes of this shit have built — you know you’ve wasted a lot of time that you could have spent eating a bag of nails.

So…how do you solve a problem like the Ochmoneks? This episode doesn’t know, but it certainly tries a lot of things and abandons them along the way. The odd-couple pairing of Willie and Trevor could have worked, if we got more than a scene or two of it. The home-wrecking Mrs. Bird seemed to be positioned as a willing antagonist to the couple’s happiness…but then nothing came of that either. We were also in a prime position to explore the dynamic of this relationship…learn a little more about them, perhaps, or at least spend some time learning about who they become when they’re no longer together.

Instead of exploring that dynamic, we get an invented and disposable conflict. Jake is there for the sake of being there, but we never get a sense of why this matters to him. (Apart from the fact that he could be shipped off again if they split up.)

The Ochmoneks are the closest thing this show has to reliably good characters. That’s the good news. The bad news is that the show still hasn’t figured out what to do with them. I’d like to give them credit for trying, but all “Breaking Up is Hard to Do” proves is that when you try to weave something good into the ALF universe, that goodness suffers far more than the universe is improved.

If you missed this episode, don’t worry. Next week is a clip show, so we’ll see some of it again. Yep, after a whopping three episodes, it’s time for this season to start resting on its laurels.

I’ll see you then. :(

—–
* At one point we do hear that Mrs. Ochmonek sees her husband as a slob, and that’s the closest we get to an explanation. But that clearly isn’t a new development in their relationship, and she’s never had a problem with it before, so I don’t buy it. Not on its own.

** I’ll take those wherever I can get them.