S01.E16: Baby Fight

[chitowngirl]

Georgie and Mandy worry they're not on the same page when they disagree about having another kid, and Mary, Jim and Audrey struggle to stay out of it.

Airdate April 10, 2025 on CBS

[Tom Holmberg]

23 hours ago, chitowngirl said:

Mary, Jim and Audrey struggle to stay out of it.

Based on all the previous episodes, if they stay out of it (don't argue), there's no show.

[Dimity]

It's not fair to comment before seeing the episode of course but what I've read makes this one sound so, so stupid.  Teenage Georgie who is working at a tire store and living with his wife's parents, a wife they've made a point of telling us is deeply in credit card debt,  thinks having a second child is a good idea.  If every other adult in the room isn't telling him NO then I just give up.

[ams1001]

On 4/9/2025 at 1:06 PM, Dimity said:

It's not fair to comment before seeing the episode of course but what I've read makes this one sound so, so stupid.  Teenage Georgie who is working at a tire store and living with his wife's parents, a wife they've made a point of telling us is deeply in credit card debt,  thinks having a second child is a good idea.  If every other adult in the room isn't telling him NO then I just give up.

I didn't know what the episode was about before watching, but my first thought when he said he wanted another baby was, "Maybe move out of your in-laws' house before having more kids?"

[Browncoat]

Having a smaller age gap won't make siblings be friends.  Missy and Sheldon are twins -- the smallest possible age gap -- and they barely tolerate each other.

[nora1992]

Has this show been renewed for season2?  

[Dimity]

1 minute ago, Browncoat said:

Having a smaller age gap won't make siblings be friends.  Missy and Sheldon are twins -- the smallest possible age gap -- and they barely tolerate each other.

Absolutely no guarantees!  My children are two years apart and they are close.  Now.  Not so much as children.  The sibling I am closest to is 5 years younger than I am.  The sibling who is a year younger?  We aren't actually speaking at the moment!

[ams1001]

-Twins doesn't sound so bad...though one of them was Sheldon...

-We can pray about it.
-I don't know; God only had one kid, he'll probably take her side.

Sorry, Georgie, but yes, the one who has to physically carry the pregnancy gets to decide how many kids you get to have with her.

-Mind your own business.
-Aw, come on! My business is boring!

-Then you had Connor.
-Well, sometimes a ticking clock's attached to a bomb.

-When I was five you told me hot peppers were candy.

-Sorry I wasn't a better sister.
-That's okay; it made me who I am today.
-Don't make me feel worse!

Connor's glee at Mandy being sent out in the rain cracked me up. Sounds like he was justified...

Just now, Dimity said:

Absolutely no guarantees!  My children are two years apart and they are close.  Now.  Not so much as children.  The sibling I am closest to is 5 years younger than I am.  The sibling who is a year younger?  We aren't actually speaking at the moment!

My brother is about two-and-a-half years older. We get along fine (fought a lot as kids like most siblings) but we've never been particularly close.

[SoMuchTV]

I still enjoy this show more than apparently a lot of you do, but i have to call foul on one thing. The Coopers’ kitchen phone wouldn’t have had the neatly coiled short cord we saw, it would have had a stretched out, straggly, extra long cord that had been dragged by years of teenagers into the nearest closet!

[ams1001]

1 hour ago, nora1992 said:

Has this show been renewed for season2?  

IMDB says yes.

[appositival]

I suspect that Mandy doesn't want a second child because she really thinks the first one ruined her life. She loves Ceecee, but she would rather be free and on her own.

It's not really foreshadowing when their divorce is implicit in the show title.

[Dimity]

11 minutes ago, appositival said:

I suspect that Mandy doesn't want a second child because she really thinks the first one ruined her life. She loves Ceecee, but she would rather be free and on her own.

Maybe not ruined exactly but I totally agree, the life she's leading right now is not the life she was expecting to lead.  Married to a teenager, with a young child, back living with her parents at 30+ and Georgie thinks they should have another child?  Good grief.

[iarwain]

On 4/9/2025 at 1:06 PM, Dimity said:

Teenage Georgie who is working at a tire store and living with his wife's parents, a wife they've made a point of telling us is deeply in credit card debt,  thinks having a second child is a good idea.  If every other adult in the room isn't telling him NO then I just give up.

Now THAT is a very good point.  On the other hand, as soon as they move out, they lose the built in babysitting.  

Mandy's weather girl spot was funny, but it wasn't very professional.  I don't expect there will be any consequences though.  And apparently the situation didn't require her to show any cleavage (I wonder if she put that in her resume?).

[MollyMelrose]

Never been fond of Mandy, but didn't realize how deep the dislike ran until I found myself rooting for the snake in that last scene.

 

[andidante]

11 hours ago, Dimity said:

Maybe not ruined exactly but I totally agree, the life she's leading right now is not the life she was expecting to lead.  Married to a teenager, with a young child, back living with her parents at 30+ and Georgie thinks they should have another child?  Good grief.

And the first child isn't even two years old yet! Georgie can be rather dumb sometimes.

[Dimity]

46 minutes ago, andidante said:

And the first child isn't even two years old yet! Georgie can be rather dumb sometimes.

Finally saw this episode and, yeah, Georgie was dumb.  So very dumb.  If I'd been Mandy I'd have been furious with him for being so insistent so quickly and for involving everyone else in their business.

I did like the scene with Mandy and her brother and it's always nice to see Mary and Pastor Jeff.

Edited April 12 by Dimity

[EtheltoTillie]

It was so stupid it was just idiot plot syndrome. It really came out of nowhere as a plot idea. 

[Dimity]

15 minutes ago, EtheltoTillie said:

It was so stupid it was just idiot plot syndrome. It really came out of nowhere as a plot idea. 

So true.  There were some good lines in there (especially Mary talking about Sheldon and Missy) but they could have had those in a plot that made more sense! 

[iarwain]

14 hours ago, Dimity said:

Maybe not ruined exactly but I totally agree, the life she's leading right now is not the life she was expecting to lead.  Married to a teenager, with a young child, back living with her parents at 30+ and Georgie thinks they should have another child?  Good grief.

Who plans to be married to a teenager anyway?  Unless maybe if you're Jerry Lee Lewis.

But yeah, having another child already seems like an odd goal.  I thought Georgie was so focused on helping Mandy pay off her debt.  What's another child going to do for that?  I hope they have good health insurance.

[possibilities]

I do not like the "jokes" about how much Mandy and her dad dislike Connor. I thought him telling her he forgives her for her terrible behavior as his sister because "it made me who I am" and her reacting by saying "don't make me feel even worse" was not funny. It's abusive.

[Dimity]

I found it off that although the parents didn't exactly take sides not one of them pointed out the financial facts of life to Georgie.  Mandy did a little with her concerns about her career but even with that she didn't say "no more kids until we're in a house of our own" or anything along those lines.

[Yeah No]

13 hours ago, EtheltoTillie said:

It was so stupid it was just idiot plot syndrome. It really came out of nowhere someone's rear end as a plot idea. 

Fixed it for you, LOL! 😉

Yeah it was really contrived and just an excuse to make conflict between them over her going back to work. All she had to do was tell him to give her some time, it's not like the baby is that old that waiting another year is going to make them that far apart in age. But they had to milk this for conflict or there'd be no episode. Just yawn 🥱 already.

[EtheltoTillie]

Just when I was liking this show better they came up with this crapfest. 

[Tom Holmberg]

3 hours ago, Yeah No said:

But they had to milk this for conflict or there'd be no episode. Just yawn 🥱 already.

Domestic squabbling is a cliche of sitcoms fromthe time of "The Honeymooners" on.  But here it not humorous squabbling, its just constant fighting.

[ProudMary]

Last week's episode, which centered on Connor, was my favorite episode of the season, by far. I'm not alone either, as iMDB shows that episode with the highest rating all season at 8.2/10. No other episode scored even an 8.

These writers better wake up. No one is a fan of the perpetual in-fighting that we're seeing week after week. We tune in to laugh, and watching fictional family members argue with each other constantly isn't funny.

[iarwain]

2 hours ago, Tom Holmberg said:

Domestic squabbling is a cliche of sitcoms fromthe time of "The Honeymooners" on.  But here it not humorous squabbling, its just constant fighting.

Yeah, The Honeymooners was a lot funnier.

 

46 minutes ago, ProudMary said:

These writers better wake up. No one is a fan of the perpetual in-fighting that we're seeing week after week. We tune in to laugh, and watching fictional family members argue with each other constantly isn't funny.

Early on, the unpleasantness was coming from Mandy's mom.  Now though, notice she's always smiling?  Seems like they made some sort of adjustment with her.  Unfortunately, they've upped the bickering between Georgie and Mandy.

[shapeshifter]

The reveal of Mandy's abuse of her 5-years-younger brother was just horrific. 

[Dimity]

14 minutes ago, shapeshifter said:

The reveal of Mandy's abuse of her 5-years-younger brother was just horrific. 

They did the same thing on BBT/YS Georgie is 5 years older than Sheldon but some of the things he did to him were just not funny.  They were abusive.  But let's face it on a Lorre show bullying behavior is played for laughs.

[possibilities]

It's hard to remember Mandy is in her 30s and Georgie is in his teens. She doesn't seem much more together than he is at all. It's kind of disturbing how much they've elevated him and diminished her. But yes, him wanting another baby was ridiculous.

[EtheltoTillie]

Count me among those not clamoring for more Pastor Jeff. 

More Missy!

[proserpina65]

On 4/10/2025 at 8:33 PM, ams1001 said:

Sorry, Georgie, but yes, the one who has to physically carry the pregnancy gets to decide how many kids you get to have with her.

I'd say that the one who doesn't want another kid is the one who gets the final word on the matter, but especially when that one is the person who'd have to actually give birth.

 

[Dimity]

On 4/12/2025 at 5:31 PM, iarwain said:

Early on, the unpleasantness was coming from Mandy's mom.  Now though, notice she's always smiling?  Seems like they made some sort of adjustment with her.  Unfortunately, they've upped the bickering between Georgie and Mandy.

I think they read the room and realized no one liked Audrey and they needed to dial back her nastiness.  

The thing with Georgie and Mandy is that as newlyweds, with a young child, living with her parents, having money struggles - well the constant bickering is reality.  Not a reality I want to see on a sitcom every week, but reality.

The way they've gone about it, and the battles they have them fight though just make no sense.  The  way they've portrayed their characters to this point  Mr Responsible would have been the one saying they needed to wait to have more children and impulsive Mandy would have decided a new baby would solve everything.  

It's odd actually that they chose not to go there.  In a way all this plot did was give Georgie a chance to remind Mandy that she's old and he's not.

Edited April 14 by Dimity