S03.E01: L-O-N--LONDON (Part One)

[GRChereck]

Quote

The DiMeos cross the pond so Maya can ask her estranged father, the challenging Martin (John Cleese), for a loan to save their house. Meanwhile, Jimmy puts on his "fun dad" hat to ensure JJ has a great trip, Ray digs deep to summon Californian vibes to endear himself to British girls, and Kenneth reveals a love for all things royal.

[omgsowicked]

Jimmy (roughly paraphrased): "Go. I'll break my back carrying JJ alone, but I'll die if I have to listen to anymore of this."

I love this show.

[GRChereck]

Stray observations:

-- So it picks up the very next morning after s.2 ended, and the family stays with Kenneth for a month; by then, the DiMeo house is back on the market. I was under the impression that Eddie (from 2x17, "Action") just wanted the place to tear it down and totally rebuild rather than simply remodel what's already there, but I suppose anything could've happened during that month (like maybe he felt guilty after seeing the family sleeping on the lawn but the landlord wouldn't let him give the place back to them because they DID violate their lease, he and/or his wife changed their minds about all the stuff they wanted built, or he had a falling-out with his Norwegian builders...?)

-- The family's possessions on the lawn being mistaken for a yard sale was cute; Jimmy explaining the eviction situation to the neighbor but then selling him a lamp for three bucks anyway was hilarious.

-- Nobody believes Ray has a friend he can stay with (though to be fair, he did sound like he was making up a name -- Tom Thompson?). xD

-- Now we know where Maya gets her stubborn / willful / abrasive personality (her "crazy," as she puts it); she may have grown up a spoiled child from a privileged (if fractured) family, but being a mother has certainly given her a positive, constructive outlet for her rage and encouraged her to put others ahead of herself.

-- Jimmy's parents are in a retirement village; where, and when will get to meet them? :)

-- Speaking of Jimmy, his pairings with JJ on this show are rare enough as it is; and as much as I loved their plots in "Training Day" (2x4) and "Sled Hockey" (1x9), how refreshing that the two Jimmys get a plot that doesn't revolve around Sr. struggling to balance encouraging Jr. in all things and being realistic about the boy's limitations without tipping too far into either overprotecting or patronizing. If anything, I was reminded more of Jimmy's pairing with Dylan in the s.1 finale (especially his outburst after his "plan B" for vacation fun fell through).

-- Hey, Kenneth and Dylan have something else to bond over besides sports and trash-talk! :D The Royal Family seems kind of a random obsession, but I think it's neat getting to see different facets of these characters. (Also, I found it a little odd that Dylan, who has her father's don't-care-what-others-think philosophy down to a T, would suddenly become so concerned about keeping one of her interests secret. A sign of her softening, perhaps?)

-- Ray pretending to be things he's not, especially to impress members of the opposite sex, is a well this show has returned to more times than I care to count; but we do get a couple interesting twists this time, such as his take on California-dude stereotypes and how he finally gets a taste of being seen as "exotic" by others.

-- The Martin-yelling-at-the-kids fake-out was great, as was the reveal that his and Frances' wedding video (featuring Maya's drunken antics) ended up on a show called "Britain's Most Embarrassing Weddings." 

-- Not only did Maya not tell her father she was coming ahead of time, she doesn't tell him why she came to see him -- for a loan -- until after he innocently asks her to tell him about her house. Uh-oh...

Edited October 12, 2018 by GRChereck
typos

[mtlchick]

Ben Savage is all grown up!  That made me feel incredibly old.  

[zoey1996]

I can hand-wave a lot, but...they hadn't paid rent for a month, they can't afford to buy a house, but they can take the whole family to England?  Yeah, I know Jimmy works for an airline, so maybe that works. But England can be expensive!

Still liked a lot in the episode anyway.  Maya's losing her accent, Ray trying to be a cool Cali Dude, Dylan & Kenneth's love for the Royals, JJ & Jimmy going for the view.  And when is Cleese ever not funny?

[Mystery]

Jimmy did say they were using vouchers for the airline tickets, but yeah, there's still  hotels and things. 

I would've expected the show to make J.J. enthusiastic about travel, but I thought what they did was much more realistic. 

Loved just about everything that Maya said. The "American accent" thing rang true for me: for years I worked with a lady from Ireland with the most beautiful Irish accent, and when she went back to Ireland for a visit she was approached by an American who said "Excuse me, I can tell from your accent that you're American..."

[kathyk24]

I loved this episode. The fake sitcom opening was great. Maya is definitely her father's daughter. I could relate to JJ having difficulty getting around London. When I was in college I went to England and Ireland with my sociology class. I was surprised to find stores in some of the subway stations but no elevators. I loved the scenes with JJ and Jimmy.

[ApathyMonger]

17 hours ago, zoey1996 said:

they hadn't paid rent for a month

Weren't they evicted for having a dog rather than rent?

[GRChereck]

18 minutes ago, ApathyMonger said:

Weren't they evicted for having a dog rather than rent?

Yup. :) (Speaking of which, I wonder where Pepper stayed if they didn't take him on the trip -- either I missed something, or that might be addressed next week...) So I would think whatever they would've paid for rent and utilities in that month, they got to save while they stayed at Kenneth's.

[zoey1996]

1 hour ago, ApathyMonger said:

Weren't they evicted for having a dog rather than rent?

Yes, I meant that because they'd been out of the house and staying with others, they hadn't had to pay rent for that month, not that they couldn't pay it.  Sorry, my phrasing was confusing.

Edited October 6, 2018 by zoey1996

[71dude]

[Browncoat]

John Cleese never fails to deliver.  Loved him harassing the tour guide.  I also loved the bonding moment with Jimmy toting JJ up the stairs to the observation deck, then realizing they could have just gone to the Eye.  The observation deck is actually better, though, because they can stay as long as they want -- the Eye keeps moving so your great view is more fleeting. 

[balmz]

didn't   like the episode, the show is stagnating to be honest, it's the same old plots over and over, like with ray and the obsession with him trying to impress girls or be with someone even though last season he said he was going to be single for a while, also the mean spirited comments to ray are unfunny and are slowly becoming what you would expect from family guy with meg, which leads to my next complaint, it would have been more more interesting if instead of going to  england the family did separate for a  while and we saw the characters do more plots on their own and non family member characters, also would have been funnier if the thompsons were a real family and for a nice twist they were well off and ray had it nicest, also it'd be funny if then the thompsons made fun of the family's last name saying what do people say when they want you to leave, hold diemo , the incest jokes with ray and dylan were gross and unfunny, also i know that jj would have trouble traveling but the way it was portrayed made him come off like a brat rather then someone with a geniune issue and complaint. I didn't find the maya and her father plot interesting and he just annoyed me, the dylan and kenneth plot was only mildly interesting

[tennisgurl]

John Cleese as Mayas dad is pretty amazing casting, I approve wholeheartedly. Cleese heckling tour buses, and realizing that having a grandson with a wheelchair for him to be angry on the behalf of, was worth the price of admission. All the plots were good, but I that was enough to keep me going. 

A wild Ben Savage appears!

[alexvillage]

I wish they had spent more than one line on the "airlines always mess up your wheelchair". That's such a big problem with traveling, so many wheelchairs broken and lost. It is the activist in me, I know. Not ver funny for a sitcom. 

[SnarkySheep]

I know it's a sitcom and all, but it bugged me how the Dimeos were evicted. When you have kids - much less a seriously disabled one - there is NO freakin' way anyone would let that family end up sleeping on their lawn. Chances are that it would be all over the news, people would start a GoFundMe, etc. 

[bros402]

19 hours ago, alexvillage said:

I wish they had spent more than one line on the "airlines always mess up your wheelchair". That's such a big problem with traveling, so many wheelchairs broken and lost. It is the activist in me, I know. Not ver funny for a sitcom. 

They could've done something funny - or maybe a line from Jimmy about how now he owes the person loading stuff into the plane some kind of bizarre favor for taking extra special care of the wheelchair.
 

16 hours ago, SnarkySheep said:

I know it's a sitcom and all, but it bugged me how the Dimeos were evicted. When you have kids - much less a seriously disabled one - there is NO freakin' way anyone would let that family end up sleeping on their lawn. Chances are that it would be all over the news, people would start a GoFundMe, etc. 

Oh yeah, it definitely would have been alllll over the news because of JJ - I would not have been surprised if the people at Lafayette had told the news orgs despite the DiMeo's not wanting it, but maybe the writers couldn't think of a good plot that felt natural with the story they want to tell - since if they got given a good house/apartment that was accessible, some money, a bunch of things just handed to them, it would be nice if they were actual people, but as characters, it would remove a lot of sources of tension and it would just feel weird. It's the kind of thing a show might do in the 5th or 6th or 7th season, when they are barely running on fumes, to try to shake things up.

[possibilities]

RE not being able to afford to buy a house: they may well have enough for monthly rent, but have zero savings for a downpayment, or they may have terrible credit. Being disabled is very expensive, and even though Jimmy has a decent job, they may have no savings or they may have had a lot of expenses that have put them into debt and ruined their credit rating.

[Guest]

I laughed at JJ's chair shorting out despite the adapter - the EXACT same thing happened to me the first time I went to London!

[festivus]

I'm just getting to watch now, I love that they got John Cleese to play Minnie Driver's dad just like in Will & Grace.