QAF s5 premiere

[thebratqueen]

It's funny how in one shot you see both the best and worst of this show. On the one hand, killer lines that are so funny I probably woke my neighbor. On the other, clunky exposition and situations so forced fakey that you want to scream. ("Ted, how many bear claws have you had? Ted, how much are you eating? Ted, can we mention how fat you are a few thousand more times within the span of two minutes just on the odd chance the audience didn't see you eating all the time or that horrible alien we've strapped to your chest to mimic the look of a fat person?" Not that I mind Ted going into eating, as he's often replaced one addiction with another, but it could've been established less heavy-handedly.)

I do want to give the show some credit for tackling the concept of gay divorce. I'm sure somewhere out there there are people gnashing their teeth and saying of course Mel and Linds are getting divorced because the show's creators are prejudiced against lesbians, but it actually is an important issue and it's nice to see the show covering it. I do wonder if we're going to get some reconciliation down the line or if it'll be a real divorce, but we'll see.

I'm also totally wound up in the custody thing, so again credit to the show for that. It's all remarkably in character because we know Mel has a giant stick up her ass regarding how much she owns her children (we know that from how she handled Gus - and yes I do say owns deliberately because Mel always came off as considering herself the sole arbiter and possessor of her children no matter who else might be involved) and we know Michael has a tendency to overreact to things and also be influenced by who he talks to. You just know he wasn't going to sue until he probably struck up a conversation with some lawyer in the checkout line at Whole Foods or something.

I admit to being annoyed at Debbie though. Yes, Michael did put his foot in his mouth with the single mother thing but - dude. This isn't about single mothers. Yes, single mothers kick all kinds of ass. But Michael was talking about a stable home for his kid and Mrs. and Mrs. Bickerson are not providing that right now. Now, granted, the wounds are still fresh for Mel and Linds and the public denial of their separation didn't help matters so yes, it's entirely possible that if the girls get a chance to catch their breath they will eventually settle down and things will be fine. So if anybody told Mikey to just take a Valium and chill already I would've been with them.

But Deb's thing seemed to be more along the lines of how motherhood is sacred (would she have said that if Michael and Ben had used a womb doner in the same way Mel tried to use Michael as a spern donor?) and how single mothers are these amazing noble creatures and I was just like... ugh. To me this argument feels a lot like saying that poor people are noble b/c of their struggle to put food on the table, so we should never give money to them. Why wouldn't you want to encourage an environment of more people taking care of a child? Especially when you have not one but three people around who are so eager to do it, all of whom are the child's parents? That makes no sense to me at all, especially since we can see that no, Mel can't take care of the baby on her own.

It just strikes me as being so enamored of the poetry that it forgets the practicality. Yes, a single parent can do a phenominal job of raising a child, but not so much so that you should cut out the other parents just so the kid can witness this struggle and nobility. I'm not saying force more parents in if you don't have them around, but if you do - fuck yeah! Throw that baby at Michael for a few hours and let Mel take a frikkin nap! The kid's going to be far more appreciative of a mother who can coherently string a sentence together than she's going to be for a mother who shoots herself in the head because she hasn't been able to eat or sleep from the time the kid gave birth until college.

Not that it isn't totally in character for Mel to believe she can do everything, I was just very surprised that Deb of all people would support Mel's desire to do that when there is absolutely zero need for that to happen.

Also if Mel and Linds can't get their shit together - and again I give them the benefit of the doubt here because the wounds are so raw - then yes, JR is going to benefit greatly by the example that Michael and Ben are setting with their relationship. Again, not saying that if you're a single parent your kid is destined to become damaged because you don't have a loving SO around, I'm just saying that in this situation if it does turn out that one set of parents can't stop acting hatefully to each other it can't hurt to use the other set of parents to balance that off just a tiny bit.

This doesn't mean Michael needs full custody. As Mel pointed out, unless Michael starts lactating even timeshared custody would be a bad idea right now (sidenote: Mel's planning on breastfeeding the kid until she's four or five? Really? I know there are some that do, but Mel never struck me as one who would be into that.) But Michael, his knee-jerk reactions notwithstanding, is the one parent of that kid who currently does not have other shit to deal with. It should be a no-brainer for him to be lending an extra hand. Dude, if nothing else it's free babysitting! Take it and run!

Anyway...

Random notes:

I liked that Deb's boyfriend was nice to Emmett. There was a good vibe there, and made me wonder if he's going to step up as the ersatz dad of their little group, just as Deb is the mom.

That Rage costume looked like seven kinds of ass.

Love Em as always.

Brian and Justin inspired many "Awww" moments.

Michael and Ben prove that loving married sex can be just as hot as kinky backroom sex (and the show proves that both make the world go 'round).

Brian makes me fret. I'm all for him not going the married route because he's never been into that, but this buying Babylon thing makes me think he's not so much blazing his own trail as he is stagnating. Somebody needs to pull him aside and remind him that there's nothing sadder than being the old guy at the club. (As Chris Rock puts it "You're not old, you're just too old to be at the club.") Add that in with the fact that apparently he still thinks he's 30 (yeah, that birthday was five seasons ago, Bri, try again) and the whole thing comes off more as a Peter Pan complex than anything else. Before the series is done I want to see Brian figure out a Brian-esque way to deal with being a kick ass gay guy in his 30s. I think buying the club instead of simply going to it might be a half step in the right direction, but I feel like there's a much bigger and more phenominal step he needs to take.

Also? Brian not figuring out some amazing advertising for his own club to get them packed in to the gills? I call no way.