S11.E04: Pool Party

[JTMacc99]

Mitch and Cam help Lily overcome her insecurities about wearing a bathing suit to a pool party; with Gloria's new internship taking up so much of her time, Jay starts feeling particularly neglected.

[MadyGirl1987]

Mitch and Cam talking about hot Lily’s body is was just wrong. Ew... Their being gay doesn’t make commenting on a young girls body okay.

Liked Jay, Gloria and Phil the most.

Found Claire realizing how much worse her voice commands made everything funny.

[Blakeston]

It turns out all I ever needed from this show was Alex screaming obscenities at a penguin.

I genuinely enjoyed most of this episode! I actually found Gloria to be reasonably likeable, and I wasn't particularly annoyed by Manny or Cameron. That's not something I can say often!

[BusyOctober]

I know nothing has made sense on this show for years, but the pool party bugged me for a few reasons.  Cam and Mitch have never had a great relationship IMO.  They don’t appear to enjoy anything about each other, and they under mind and belittle each other constantly.  However, they are supposedly in a loving marriage. Why do they want to frolic with younger men at the party?  And why, once they knew the party was a young men/old men ‘flirt and possibly hook up’ party, why would they keep Lily there?  Bring her home and come back to get their jam on if that’s what their goal is!  My feeling has nothing to do with the party being full of gay men.  I just don’t think it’s appropriate  for a tween to see her/his parents getting their sexy on in front of them.  Especially if they want to get extra friendly with someone other than their spouse. And, why wouldn’t Cam or Mitch have some inkling of who the other guests would be and which of them have “young people” aka Lily’s contemporaries.  They have been friends and socializing with the party host and other guys for years!  They know who has kids and who doesn’t!  Did they even ask if it was OK to bring Lily?   If the host said, sure bring Lily,then wouldn’t they follow it up by asking if there would be other kids there, or would it be ok for Lily to bring a friend so she won’t be the only tween?

  I know, I know... this is a “comedy”, and farcical misunderstandings are integral in order for “hilarity to ensue”.

Claire’s porn voice for the closets was so stupid.  Really?  Customers actually paid for that feature?  

Alex was shown as the only book smart person in a family of dolts for 10+ years.  She worked hard (to the point of stress related disorders, because...hahaha, ‘comedy’) to get good grades, get a college degree, and earn distinction from professors.  Now she is a lost soul who can’t make up her mind or stay committed to a career. Hahaha....so funny??

[chitowngirl]

Is the filming of people undressing in front of their mirrors and the breach of that a lawsuit waiting to happen?

[Aryanna]

21 minutes ago, chitowngirl said:

Is the filming of people undressing in front of their mirrors and the breach of that a lawsuit waiting to happen?

In a typical show? Yeah. It'd be the beginning of a new story arc. In this show? It probably won't even be mentioned next week.

[seacliffsal]

I actually laughed during this episode.  Were there problems with story lines?  Yes.  But, I actually found some humor in the story and enjoyed the interactions among most of the cast.  I think that putting Gloria and Phil together selling real estate will provide a lot of laughs throughout the season.  Penguins and Stella in the same episode?  Yes please.  

Having said that....The fact that Haley is even able to consider being a stay at home mom while living at her parents' home shows a level of entitlement that I do not find funny.  Claire down playing the struggles of running a company does a disservice to her children.  What will they do when they come across difficulties in their jobs?  Leave?  The worst thing about the pool party was putting Renaldo in with the "older, unfit" crowd because I thought he looked good (I kid, I kid...there were many things wrong with the pool party...).  Manny just continues to annoy me with his attitude-what, you can't be bothered to call Jay to let him know that Stella is at the home?  Get a job and live on your own.

[SHD]

Lily is really lovely when she genuinely smiles. I wish they gave her more storylines that would show that side of her.

[Snow Apple]

17 minutes ago, SHD said:

Lily is really lovely when she genuinely smiles. I wish they gave her more storylines that would show that side of her.

I agree. It was lovely seeing her happy and proud of her dads for once. I don't blame the rarity on her though. Cam and Mitch should do more to make Lily proud of them.

[Quickbeam]

I loved the scene where Lily realizes everyone at the party is a gay man and jumps in the pool. 

[mojito]

1.

Mitch (after a Lilly outburst): "It's Daddy time."

Cam: "Now? Aren't you going to talk to Lilly?....Oh."

2. 

Manny: Who knows better how to love my mother, me or you?

Jay: You better get a job with mental health benefits before all that bubbles up.

3. 

Jay: What if shes down the street with that oversexed chihuahua?

Sophia: Jay, she needs it and you can't be her everything.

Those were my 3 chuckles. Those and Mitch's pasty white legs. Is there such a thing as negative white?

[AnimeMania]

Does Claire still own/run the Closet business or did they sell/merge it to another closet business, I am confused? 

Gloria gave some good advice to the little kid and I liked that there were realtor signs scattered everywhere in the scene. They could have made Stella's tracker a lot smaller, that was large even for a big dog to wear. It was funny when Jay thought Stella had made all the way to the other side of town.

[tennisgurl]

There was a lot of the usual crap in this episode...but I did actually lauph a few times, most people were likable, and I thought the plots went together pretty well. All we needed was a penguin I guess. Oh, sorry, a snow chicken! 

"Scarlet Johanssen would play you in a movie until Twitter told her not to!" *Snerk* I mean, this show has no real business judging other peoples woke-ness, but I still giggled. Really the one big cringe I had was Mitch and Cam talking about how hot Lily is. I mean, gross guys! You can just say she looks pretty! Dont make it weird! Oh, and Claire and the "times up but not for us!" bit, but that at least led to the weirdly sexy tech computer, which I admit I thought was pretty funny. 

Lily jumping in the pool when she realized it was a party full of gay men was pretty funny, and I loved her happy smile when she saw her dads proudly get in the pool. I wish that they would let her be happy more often. 

Phil was fun as usual and I like him and Gloria. Plus, the weirdo real estate community always makes me chuckle. 

[Blakeston]

7 hours ago, BusyOctober said:

I know nothing has made sense on this show for years, but the pool party bugged me for a few reasons.  Cam and Mitch have never had a great relationship IMO.  They don’t appear to enjoy anything about each other, and they under mind and belittle each other constantly.  However, they are supposedly in a loving marriage. Why do they want to frolic with younger men at the party?  And why, once they knew the party was a young men/old men ‘flirt and possibly hook up’ party, why would they keep Lily there?  Bring her home and come back to get their jam on if that’s what their goal is!  My feeling has nothing to do with the party being full of gay men.  I just don’t think it’s appropriate  for a tween to see her/his parents getting their sexy on in front of them.  Especially if they want to get extra friendly with someone other than their spouse.

I don't think it was meant to be a hookup party. Longenus (sp?) wanted to convince himself he could still hang with the hot gays, so he invited a bunch of beautiful younger men, as well as his usual crowd. I don't think his motives were pervy.

Mitch, Cam, Reynaldo, etc. felt self-conscious about how they looked in comparison to the cute young guys, but in the end they decided to just have some fun at the pool like they would have if it was just them. If they were looking to get their sexy on, it was in a silly, humorous way.

I think they would have left the party immediately upon arriving and seeing the attendees, if they hadn't just given Lily a lecture on being comfortable in your own skin no matter what. They knew she'd call them out on their hypocrisy if they refused to be seen in swimsuits around younger men - and 90% of Mitch and Cam's behavior is done solely to avoid losing an argument.

I understood Cam and Mitch's mindset in this episode very well. I'm a gay man in his late 30s, and I've been with my husband since I was 23. Not that long ago I was rather out of shape. In a scenario like that, I wouldn't have dreamed of getting in the pool...but there would be a part of me that would refuse to "admit defeat" and leave the party altogether. Not because I was looking to swing with the younger guys - but on principle, because I have as much of a right to be there as anyone else.

Edited October 17, 2019 by Blakeston

[biakbiak]

3 hours ago, Quickbeam said:

I loved the scene where Lily realizes everyone at the party is a gay man and jumps in the pool. 

She didn’t jump in the pool, a guy bumped her into the pool because he didn’t see her as she was saying she would be invisible there, it’s why she shouts that she’s okay when she comes up for air. It was than brought back when some of the hot young guys pushed Mitchell into the pool and he asked if he was invisible.

Edited October 17, 2019 by biakbiak

[Blakeston]

3 hours ago, biakbiak said:

She didn’t jump in the pool, a guy bumped her into the pool because he didn’t see her as she was saying she would be invisible there, it’s why she shouts that she’s okay when she comes up for air. It was than brought back when some of the hot young guys pushed Mitchell into the pool and he asked if he was invisible.

That was filmed really strangely. Lily was supposed to be pushed, but the guy never actually touched her. I guess that's the kind of thing where they can only do one take, and if it doesn't work out, they're screwed. It makes me glad I don't direct sitcoms.

9 hours ago, chitowngirl said:

Is the filming of people undressing in front of their mirrors and the breach of that a lawsuit waiting to happen?

This is my one complaint about the episode. In real life, the company would lose everything in a massive lawsuit, and the engineers would be imprisoned. Claire and the legal counsel would probably go to jail, too, if they took any efforts to cover it up.

I get that the writers were looking for a comically awful scenario to drop on Claire, but it kind of bothered me that something like this was treated as a stressful day at work, and not a life-ruining, career-ending sex crime.

[LadyintheLoop]

Quote

The fact that Haley is even able to consider being a stay at home mom while living at her parents' home shows a level of entitlement that I do not find funny. 

But once you deduct the costs of two infants' care from her paycheck, how much can she contribute?

Manny was useless in this episode. That's actually as good as he gets.

Hope Mitchell found some SPF 100.

[foxfreakinmulder]

I got a few laughs out of this episode, none of them were with Claire's storyline.

I thought Cam ask to be sprayed with the bronzer "all over" but yet when we see him without his shirt his chest is white but his arms, neck and legs have color, he couldn't take off his shirt to be sprayed?

I really liked seeing Lily smile and enjoying herself.

[biakbiak]

Good to see Sam Lloyd briefly show up as one of the pool party friends because he has had a rough year health wise.

[One4Sorrow2TooBad]

I thought that was Sam Lloyd. I always thought he was funny as Ted  on Scrubs ,lol.

[bybrandy]

4 hours ago, LadyintheLoop said:

But once you deduct the costs of two infants' care from her paycheck, how much can she contribute?

Seriously!  I was like how much is she making that they can afford childcare?

9 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

"Scarlet Johanssen would play you in a movie until Twitter told her not to!"

Legit, I snorted!

[mary2013]

On ‎10‎/‎17‎/‎2019 at 12:28 AM, MadyGirl1987 said:

Mitch and Cam talking about hot Lily’s body is was just wrong. Ew... Their being gay doesn’t make commenting on a young girls body okay.

I think they were purposely trying to creep her out so she would agree to go to the party if they stopped talking.  After she agreed, they looked at each other and nodded.

[Lizzing]

I always bitch about this show not having continutiy, so I've got to commend them for actually giving Jay continuity when he said about Gloria working, "Even when she's here, she's not here."  That was really close to what he said to Claire when she was worried she was drifting from Phil in the Sexy, Sexy House episode.  So yay for getting that right, I guess.  And the snow chickens--that was pretty cute.

[ljenkins782]

On 10/17/2019 at 8:24 AM, Blakeston said:

It turns out all I ever needed from this show was Alex screaming obscenities at a penguin.

I genuinely enjoyed most of this episode! I actually found Gloria to be reasonably likeable, and I wasn't particularly annoyed by Manny or Cameron. That's not something I can say often!

If Gloria's voice didn't grate on my nerves so much, I'd be able to tolerate her just fine. But this weird, stilted gravelly voice with the fake sounding accent is so hard to listen to. I never thought I'd miss the screeching she used to do, but I honestly preferred that. At least the accent sounded genuine back then.

Quote

Lily is really lovely when she genuinely smiles. I wish they gave her more storylines that would show that side of her.

The fact that it's so striking when you see it just shows how much the writing doesn't allow for her to ever be happy. She had one genuine smile in the episode where the twins were born and now this one. It really does light up her face.

I've always liked Cam and Mitch's friends, especially Rinaldo, Pepper and Longinus, they're always good comic relief. At this point, I enjoy their little cameos more than the regular cast.

[UncleChuck]

OK, so the last scene has Haley handing off her twins to Phil, with Jay nearby, as Haley was about to leave.  But leave to where?  It looked very much like she was heading off to work, but where?  Claire and Alex were waiting by the door and it appeared the three were all leaving together.  But where are they going?  Is Claire taking her two daughters to the closet company to work?  I guess she needs the extra help if everyone quit her in a panic, but much was unexplained.

[biakbiak]

1 hour ago, UncleChuck said:

OK, so the last scene has Haley handing off her twins to Phil, with Jay nearby, as Haley was about to leave.  But leave to where?  It looked very much like she was heading off to work, but where?  Claire and Alex were waiting by the door and it appeared the three were all leaving together.  But where are they going?  Is Claire taking her two daughters to the closet company to work?  I guess she needs the extra help if everyone quit her in a panic, but much was unexplained.

Haley still works at whatever the GOOP parody website she has worked at for the last couple of years and Alex took a job with some unspecified “evil” company that they had been talking about during the episode.

[SanDiegoInExile]

On 10/17/2019 at 8:22 PM, bybrandy said:

Seriously!  I was like how much is she making that they can afford childcare?

I vaguely recall that Haley got a promotion at the GOOP parody company, maybe right before she discovered she was preggers last year?  She probably is making close to 100K.  No college, limited experience, socially adept *influencer*.  Yup, 100K.

[SnarkySheep]

On 10/17/2019 at 7:20 PM, LadyintheLoop said:

But once you deduct the costs of two infants' care from her paycheck, how much can she contribute?

I totally get that; but even til now, when she actually HAS been at home full time, Haley has been shown doing very little with the twins. She mainly seems to complain a lot, while passing the kids to various family members.