S01.E17: Other People's Marriages

[zoey1996]

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After Katie encourages Viv to stand up to her husband, she ends up leaving him and moving in with the Ottos.

Good:  Jay Mohr as Alan, insufferable neighbor Viv's husband.  The loving scene at the end with Katie and Greg.

Bad:  The kids as disobedient brats - Oliver and Taylor.  

Indifferent:  Anna-Kat.  And who names their daughter Anna-Kat?  Aren't you just asking for quirky behavior?

I like both the leads.  Mixon was funny on Mike & Molly, and has a nice singing voice.  I always liked Bader on Drew Carey, too.   I enjoy the "second breakfast" scenes with Katie's friends.

[theatremouse]

I think they established in an earlier episode (or possibly I just concluded it earlier and forgot since?) her name is Anna-Katherine and Anna-Kat's the nickname.

It threw me off that they went with not closing cabinets as the bad behaviour. I mean, I'm sure some kids for some reason are too lazy to close kitchen cabinets and drawers but it was pretty weird to me. Sure, Greg's the one who kept bashing into left-open stuff, but it seems to me there's a risk-reward there where at some point the kids ought to end up walking into it themselves. It's just a weird bad habit to me. Somehow it strikes me as less intuitive to not close a drawer? If it has been they just never closed it quite all the way, so it was less noticeable but still jutted out that would've made more sense to me than all the doors wide open shenanigans.

[ItCouldBeWorse]

2 hours ago, theatremouse said:

I think they established in an earlier episode (or possibly I just concluded it earlier and forgot since?) her name is Anna-Katherine and Anna-Kat's the nickname.

I think the grandmother was Katherine, and Katie is probably Katherine, so Anna-Kat is a semi-continuation of the naming tradition.

Did no one wonder how Viv brought an Xbox since her credit cards were supposedly cut off?  They should have thrown in a line about her using her step-sons' gift cards.

I'm going to tread carefully here, but Viv 's contribution to the marriage is such that it might not be unreasonable for Alan to have some limit on what she spends, although if hiding her purchases means Alan isn't aware of them, that must mean he doesn't look at the credit card bills or consider their sum unacceptable, so why does he care what she spends?

[MaryMitch]

7 minutes ago, ItCouldBeWorse said:

I'm going to tread carefully here, but Viv 's contribution to the marriage is such that it might not be unreasonable for Alan to have some limit on what she spends, although if hiding her purchases means Alan isn't aware of them, that must mean he doesn't look at the credit card bills or consider their sum unacceptable, so why does he care what she spends?

She said they were "rich, not wealthy" - or vice versa? Bottom line she pretty much said they had unlimited funds. I think cutting her off was punishment for her standing up to him, not for her spending too much. 

Greg is a saint - a STUPID saint. He should have tied a knot in Viv's tail that first night, or at least gotten Katie to talk to her about not treating Greg like a servant.

[ItCouldBeWorse]

11 minutes ago, MaryMitch said:

She said they were "rich, not wealthy" - or vice versa? Bottom line she pretty much said they had unlimited funds. I think cutting her off was punishment for her standing up to him, not for her spending too much. 

She said "wealthy, not rich."  And she lied about him cutting off her credit cards. I'm just wondering why he cares how much she spends, since he doesn't seem to look at the bills.

[theatremouse]

1 hour ago, ItCouldBeWorse said:

Did no one wonder how Viv brought an Xbox since her credit cards were supposedly cut off?  They should have thrown in a line about her using her step-sons' gift cards.

The way that moment played to me was more like she just happened to have an Xbox among the purchases/stuff she showed up with, not that it was something she purchased after moving in and supposedly being cut off. She had this moment of surprise almost, or maybe not surprise, but the way the actress played it, it came across to me more like in the middle of the dinner she just suddenly realized "oh hey, I know, I can give you an Xbox right now! Wouldn't that lighten the mood!" as opposed to "this is a present I just went out and got specifically for you". I thought it was pretty funny actually, sort of like how a grandma might be like "here have a candy from my purse" but instead of a Werther's, she whips out an Xbox.

[Tiger]

Great episode, but the wacky hijinks music during the transition shots has got to go.

[iMonrey]

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I think they established in an earlier episode (or possibly I just concluded it earlier and forgot since?) her name is Anna-Katherine and Anna-Kat's the nickname.

They have never established that in the show's dialogue but it's been speculated about here.

I thought the funniest part was Alan and his stolen rhino horn or whatever it was, and Katie and Greg's reaction to him. Just their facial expressions were priceless. 

[Tiger]

I loved when Katie told Alan "your are the biggest peice of :bleep: . . ." and instead of jist bleeping over shit, continued bleeping other words for another 45 seconds.

[Rowsdower]

Having just caught up with my DVR backlog, I'm late to comment.

As the episode played out, the story involving Viv's marriage difficulties reminded me of Suburgatory (not the first time that this series has), so I found myself picturing her off-screen husband, Alan, as the equivalent actor from that program — Jay Mohr.  I was stunned when he actually appeared in the role.

This was a remarkably similar character (description hidden, in case someone here intends to view Suburgatory):

Spoiler

an obscenely wealthy dirtbag who spends most of his time traveling, whose rare presence serves primarily to make his wife — a snobbish, gold-digging, stereotypically ditzy blonde — seem like a good person in comparison, thereby enabling the audience to side with her and support her decision to end the marriage.

I realize that Jay Mohr frequently plays jerks (and Action is another show worth watching, incidentally), but this went beyond the usual typecasting.  Not that I'm complaining.  He was a perfect choice.

[SnarkySheep]

Yeah, count me among those who agree that Greg was a saint - and Katie, too - to allow Viv to stay with them for longer than a night. Or, if they did agree to allow her, then they needed to establish some ground rules (e.g. there are no servants in this house) ASAP.

Re: Anna-Kat - I don't recall them specifying that it's Katherine, but it seems clear that it is, especially when we learned that grandma was the first Katherine. However, in that case, why isn't Taylor carrying on the tradition? How could they have been sure they even would have a second daughter? 

[ItCouldBeWorse]

On 4/14/2017 at 4:03 PM, SnarkySheep said:

Re: Anna-Kat - I don't recall them specifying that it's Katherine, but it seems clear that it is, especially when we learned that grandma was the first Katherine. However, in that case, why isn't Taylor carrying on the tradition? How could they have been sure they even would have a second daughter? 

I hypothesize that either 1) Taylor was named for someone, perhaps in Greg's family, whom they liked/ had good memories of, or, more likely 2) since Katie does not get along with her mother, and perhaps has always disliked being named for her, she did not want to do that to her first daughter, but when she had a second daughter, she figured ok, she'd carry on the tradition, but modified it by appending "Kat" or probably "Katherine" to "Anna."

Edited April 19, 2017 by ItCouldBeWorse