S14.E09: A Woman's Right to Chop / S14.E10: Waiting for Big Mo

[Lantern7]

Hour-long block to end the season.

Quote

When a trendy new hair salon opens up right next door to Paddy's, Dennis and Frank go on the offensive to stop women from cutting off their hair. Meanwhile, Mac is reunited with his childhood dog Poppins.

Quote

Dennis ponders the reasons of playing laser tag and if the pursuit of a victory is worth the effort.

[Lantern7]

Nice way to end a season. No catharsis like Mac's emotional dance from last year, but we had Dennis have an exenstial crisis regarding laser tag. And then they wind up gang-zapping "Big Mo" . . . a kid whose only real crime was putting up high scores. If only FX didn't ruin that moment in their ads.

The first episode was fun as well . . . the guys cranking their asshole knobs past 10 over women getting short haircuts at a trendy salon. It's a thinly-veiled abortion parallel, but it's a funny one. And then Mac reverses his stand on actual abortion when his beloved (and ancient) dog Poppins pops into his life with a life-threatening pregnacy. But then the real Poppins shows up and steals the bitch's blanket. Cut to Charlie: "So what do we do with this piece of shit?" Fortunately, that was the dog of the salon owner, there's a quid pro quo deal that bars Dee from getting a haircut, and she gives herself a hideous cut in an alley.

Never change, Sunny. Never change. And I'm sure we'll be seeing Poppins in a few years.

[Ray Adverb]

Ick on that first one.  Why would the guys care what Dee looks like?  They've always told her she was hideous.  My head hurts from the heavy handed political message constructed from dumb strawmen.  It's easy to make a strong political argument when you control the reality and the words of all your opponents.

Second one was a bottle episode so it was just boring.  At least the season wasn't filled with them this time.

Edited November 21, 2019 by Ray Adverb

[Amarsir]

They did a pro-choice / pro-life episode in season 1. A literal one. So doing a metaphor 13 seasons later just fell flat. I liked Mac and Charlie at the vet with all the gender confusion, but that alone didn't carry the episode.

I don't mind a bottle episode, but "Waiting for Big Mo" was too obviously one. The entrances and exits felt very stage-y and really the whole episode could have been shot in real-time.

A shame to end on two weaker ones since the season overall wasn't bad. 

[DoctorAtomic]

I had a good laugh because I both love women with short hair cuts and my dog is a senior citizen, though she was fixed and didn't get pregnant.

I also liked the line about Frank looking like a bridge troll as a callback to the musical.

Whoa you can say mother fucker on cable now?

Edited November 24, 2019 by DoctorAtomic

[marketdoctor]

This had me wondering if Rutherford B. Hayes was ever on a dolla-dolla bill.  As it turns out, not officially, but there was a dollar coin from the U.S. Mint a few years ago.

I think the last episode would have worked better earlier, but I laughed a lot (especially at the different "zones", and the implication they were cheating by climbing through the maintenance zone instead of the fun zone.)

Edited to add:  I wasn't sure if the second one was also an homage to "Heart of Darkness", and...maybe?  I think that was a starting point, but then they went their own way.

Edited November 25, 2019 by marketdoctor
Because I'm not sure if that was a Joseph Conrad reference or I'm just overthinking it. Either way, thanks for a fun season!

[Eataton]

On 11/23/2019 at 10:13 PM, DoctorAtomic said:

Whoa you can say mother fucker on cable now?

That's funny that I didn't even notice. I remember being kind of shocked years ago when Hawkeye from MASH said son of a bitch. I guess we just get desensitized to that stuff. This reminds me of the Simpsons episode when a future Marge comments something like "You hardly notice the gradual changes and now FOX is a hardcore porn channel!"😄

[DoctorAtomic]

I actually don't nave a problem with it. There's no way these characters don't say fuck a lot. 

[Eataton]

2 hours ago, DoctorAtomic said:

I actually don't nave a problem with it. There's no way these characters don't say fuck a lot. 

I don't have a problem with swearing either. It does seem pretty natural that they'd talk that way, which is probably why I did't notice.

[DoctorAtomic]

USA network had 2 'mother fuckers' on Mr Robot. I'm wondering if there was some new relaxing of a rule or something. 

[macrone]

On 11/22/2019 at 2:50 AM, Amarsir said:

I don't mind a bottle episode, but "Waiting for Big Mo" was too obviously one. The entrances and exits felt very stage-y and really the whole episode could have been shot in real-time.

Because it was an homage to a stage play in real time: Waiting for Godot.

[DoctorAtomic]

ooooohhhhhhhhhh. But Godot never showed up right? Still though. Totally missed that.

[DanaMB]

Dennis’ speech at the end felt very meta to me and I was wondering if it was the series finale. But then I saw it was renewed for season 15. I wonder if they new they were being renewed when they wrote this ep.