“Franklin and Bash is away. We’re a team.” – Franklin
Everyone is always talking about Jeff Bridges. It’s Jeff Bridges this or Jeff Bridges that. But what has Jeff Bridges really done in his career? A couple of Tron movies? Wow, real impressive, Jeff. A futuristic computer world with laser bikes is totally going to help us get out of this recession.
In case you couldn’t tell, those last few couple of sentences were sarcasm. Those Tron movies aren’t impressive and I don’t even know if Jeff Bridges cares about our nation’s current financial problems at all.
Beau Bridges, on the other hand, does care. He cares a lot. He doesn’t need to be in another lame Hollywood remake (True Grit? The Vanishing? King Kong? Ever think of trying something original, Jeffrey?) to make his presence felt. All he needs is a classy attitude, a sunny disposition and the best acting chops this side of your everyday Meyer or Paul-Gosselaar.
But that’s how strong of an actor Beau Bridges is. He literally made me hate his guts in tonight’s episode, “You Can’t Take It With You.” And not just his guts; his outer body parts as well.
Beau Beau Black Sheep is played by Leonard Franklin. Does that last name sound familiar? Because it should. Because it’s the same last name as JARED Franklin, one of the title characters on Franklin & Bash. Not only that, Leonard Franklin is actually Jared’s father. And boy, do these to need to have a catch or something because they have daddy-son issues up the wazoo (not literally, of course, though that would probably bring some familial strain as well).
It turns out Franklin Jr. doesn’t care so much for Franklin Sr. because Franklin Sr. is a cheating, ball-buster. But damn if Franklin Sr. isn’t a good lawyer just like his son. I guess that gavel doesn’t fall too far from the judge’s bench (or some other lawyer pun).
And lo and behold Franklin Sr. ends up defending the opponents of Franklin Jr.’s client in tonight’s main case. Said case revolves around a sports memorabilia collector who possessed the home run ball hit by Kirk Gibson in the 1988 World Series. (Unrelated fun fact: Kirk Gibson is currently the manager of the Arizona Diamondbacks but hates his job because he knows Justin Upton is going to leave some day and because he is deathly afraid of snakes and cries every time he puts on his own uniform.)
Franklin Sr. represents the sons of the collector who claim they own the ball and want to sell it. Franklin Jr. is all like, nuh uh. And after a rough first day, he actually dominates his pops in court by proving that the two sons are total knob jobs. And all seems right in the world when Collector Dude dies. He dies bad.
Beau Knows takes over as the executor of the dead man’s estate and claims that the ball needs to be sold off in order to spread out its assets among the children or something. One problem: no one can find the ball! Franklin Sr. accuses his one and only son, his sole flesh and blood of hiding the ball and Jared gets held in contempt of court.
The daughter of the collector soon reveals, though, that she had the ball buried with her father at his request. And then Motor-BeauT has the gall to have the dead man exhumed to get the ball back. Why I oughta! (Shakes fist at TV even though the episode is over and I just have Men of a Certain Age on mute while I type this.)
Ah, but the twists just keep on twisting and along with the ball, the old man has a note buried with himself that says if any of his children try to dig him up, they forfeit their ownership of the ball. And the ball is thus awarded to the kinder, gentler daughter who probably shoved it back in her dad’s coffin or something.
I don’t think this will be the last we see of Leonard Franklin and that’s probably for the best. As much as I hated him, he seemed to be the only worthy opponent Franklin Jr. has ever faced. It takes a Franklin to out-Franklin a Franklin. Tonight, the younger Franklin out-Franklined the older Franklin. But I could easily see the older Frankling doing the out-Franklining next time. That’s what makes their tumultuous relationship such a bash to watch.
Speaking of Bash (nailed the segue!), he’s around too. He’s helping Tom Arnold (like Beau Bridges, Tom is the better of two Arnolds… sorry, Benedict Arnold… traitor) try to get out of his contract on a reality show that makes him look like a real Douchey Dad. At first Bash suggests they make TomBone look like a better dad than the selective editing of his reality show portrays, but then Hanna decides to pull a real Franklin and Bash move and just have Tom Arnold jack a dude in the face. Case closed: Franklin and Bash win!
Finally, the C-story involved the Douchey Lawyer (no relation to Tom Arnold’s character) masturbating and Pindar helping him not send out a video of said masturbation to all the judges in town. Whoops! That didn’t go too well for Douchey Lawyer, now did it?
All in all, “You Can’t Take It With You” was another fine example of what makes Franklin & Bash such a great television show. It’s just so damn realistic. Sometimes when I’m watching it, I forget that I’m sitting in my studio apartment eating Subway and actually think I’m in the jury or something. And unfortunately I never really am. Except in one place. Dreamland. And I can’t wait to have my own adventures with Franklin and Bash in a few hours. It’s going to be Beaudacious.
Lingering thoughts about “You Can’t Take It With You”:
- “You know I like my metaphors to reflect the cases that I’m working on.” – Franklin.
- The one son of the baseball collector guy was a total Nick Lachey clone. They probably tried to get the real Nick Lachey but he was at a Cincinnati Bearcats intramural women’s volleyball match or something.
- “Objection: argumentative… and lame.” – Franklin
- “I wish I was in Transylvania.” – Judge (touché, Your Honor)
- Infeld and Leonard Franklin have some bad blood. I wonder if it’s because Infeld raped Leonard’s wife while singing “Singin’ in the Rain” because, man, that would be pretty dark.
Some stats and info about Franklin & Bash, “You Can’t Take It With You”
TV SHOW – Franklin & Bash
SEASON/EPISODE – Season 1, Episode 5
AIRED ON – June 29th, 2011
NETWORK/STREAMING SERVICE – TNT
GENRE – Legal Shows, Drama, Comedy
CREATED BY – Bill Chais, Kevin Falls
CAST – Mark-Paul Gosselaar, Breckin Meyer, Reed Diamond, Malcolm McDowell, Kumail Nanjiani, Dana Davis
This review originally appeared on TV Geek Army.