S02.E11: The Angie-Man

[Lady Calypso]

Quote

After Will’s parents confess that they are inspired by his relationship, which they think is with Angie, Will and Angie must pretend to be a couple for the night in order to keep them from seriously considering divorce. Meanwhile, Douglas steps up to the boyfriend plate and offers to help Poppy with errands, only for her to discover how much she actually likes having time off; and the kids give Tony a makeover to ease his broken heart.

 

[Empress1]

I don't see the point of Will's girlfriend. I just don't buy it. The closeness between Will and Angie posing a threat, I buy, and it is respectful of the relationship for Angie not to be Will's person, but I just don't get the sense that Will and his girlfriend are in love. (I can't even remember her name.) If Angie and Will are endgame, I would like for the show to speed that up. If Will and his girlfriend are the real thing, they need to step THAT up.

Will's parents were perfectly cast.

[tennisgurl]

Angie's awkward song as she backed out of the room was hilarious, as was her pushing on the soap dispenser over and over again, but I hope that this doesn't mean that she and Will will spend tons of time separated. I can get that she thinks its right to pull back a bit and let Will have more time with his actual girlfriend, but I also like them a lot together so I hope they can find middle ground soon. So are Will and Angie endgame or what? I guess now that Douglas and Poppy are together officially (woo!) we need someone to do the will they wont they thing.

Great to have this show back, its always a ton of fun, and I just enjoy these characters and their interactions so much. There is plenty of snark and such, but also a lot of warmth among the characters. Especially coming right after Modern Family, where as the show has gone on, it feels more and more like all of the characters basically cant stand each other, even the ones that are married!

[theatremouse]

So.......... Douglas "took Rory for the afternoon" for Poppy, meanwhile his kids and Will's kid and Angie's kid were all at Douglas's house with the butler dude. Seems like until Douglas "offered" he was basically in charge of all of the kid gang during this time period anyway? Rory seemed to force him on a ton of errands but the idea of adding one more kid from this group who were already all hanging out at his house is nbd anyway. The whole threat of being the guy who isn't helpful was odd given the context.

[springbarb]

I was amused at the Meghan Markle comment--perfect timing!

I'm wondering if Will and Angie will get together as Poppy and Douglas break up. Will's relationship annoys me--you can't date your boss!

[Guest]

On 1/9/2020 at 12:13 PM, Empress1 said:

I don't see the point of Will's girlfriend. I just don't buy it. The closeness between Will and Angie posing a threat, I buy, and it is respectful of the relationship for Angie not to be Will's person, but I just don't get the sense that Will and his girlfriend are in love. (I can't even remember her name.) If Angie and Will are endgame, I would like for the show to speed that up. If Will and his girlfriend are the real thing, they need to step THAT up.

She serves no other purpose than to be an empty roadblock to delay Will/Angie inevitably getting together. That's it. The reason she sucks and their relationship feels like nothing is because the writers never bother fleshing out the romantic false lead beyond using them to briefly guilt trip the single one (Angie) for realizing they have feelings for someone in a relationship and causing a temporary rift. Every sitcom does this with their main romance to the point where I'm wondering if the same writers write every show. Friendship first season, one dates someone else first half of season 2, they realize they have feelings for each other and hook up sometime in the second half, dating by season 3.

As a hopeless romantic, I usually can't get enough of the fake dating trope, but Will/Angie kind of fell flat for me, maybe because Taran/Leighton have a really strong best friend chemistry, but I don't really buy the romantic tension between them and it feels like a case where they feel like the leads have to date for the sake of it. Comparable sitcom romances like Nick/Jess on New Girl and Jake/Amy on Brooklyn Nine Nine had genuine moments of dramatic and believable sexual tension within the general campiness of the usual show, and Nick and Jake were also goofy dudes. Time will tell I guess.

On 1/10/2020 at 9:48 PM, springbarb said:

I'm wondering if Will and Angie will get together as Poppy and Douglas break up.

That's usually how shows do it with the alpha and beta couple - the secondary couple gets together first and then breaks up as the primary couple finally ends will they/won't they. With that said, I hope not because they've already said they're in love and revealed their relationship to their kids, plus they had the heart attack drama at the beginning of the season. I hope the writers will leave them alone.

[Snow Apple]

I agree there's no point of Will's girlfriend because while she *does* suck, she's not so evil that we (love to) hate her. We simply don't care about her.

[SnarkySheep]

I am not a huge fan of Rory in general, but my loathing reached new heights in this episode. No wonder Rory acts so entitled, when he's essentially allowed to buy whatever he wants. And that smug comment to Douglas about how "my mom hasn't sat down for 10 years!" was less funny than cringeworthy, as Rory is an old enough child to understand that moms are human and need occasional breaks, too.