A weird blend of Rosemary’s Baby and The Omen.
“Callie and Her Sister” begins with a priest falling straight into Hell and landing on Callie’s petunias. He gives her the message that she must marry Twayne. Callie’s father insists on the marriage because he made a blood pact with Twayne’s mother after leaving her at the alter. In order to avoid this ungodly matrimony, Callie decides to live with Mark Lilly. These events prompt Mark to start a one-on-one counseling practice at home. This does not stop Callie’s father from trying to do away with Mark. After a meeting with Callie and her lawyer, he asks Twayne where Mark works. He then kidnaps Mark and bribes him, only to be interrupted by none other than Callie’s mother. They end up having a therapy session with Mark, which climaxes with them conceiving another child named Lilith. Now Mark and Callie must raise Lilith in two weeks so she can marry Twyane. It’s insane as it sounds.
This week’s episode adds Lilith to the mythology of the Ugly Americans’ world and she is a welcome addition because of the conflict she brings. She spends much of the episode maiming her mother and trying to destroy Callie’s life from the inside out just like the demon kid she is. This is a accomplished through an underwhelming parody of The Omen. Television continues to parody The Omen and frankly, it’s cliché. The idea of an Omen parody fits into the world of Ugly Americans but it doesn’t feel like an innovative use. It just feels like another sequence in the episode’s structure rather than a good joke.
The only gag is a visual one depicting Callie’s mother wearing underwear in a full body caste and that joke only works because it’s something you don’t expect. Thankfully, The Omen parody ends and it turns into a domestic comedy parody and fares better. Mark becomes attached to Lilith while Callie grows suspicious of her. Mark even places a curfew for Lilith when she goes out with Randall. Don’t worry, Randall has an extra pair of genitalia in his motorcycle for satisfying her needs. This scene shows the series refusing to drop its crude sense of humor just because of a new character.
With Lilith’s introduction, and the war between wizards and devils in the previous episode, we see the world of Ugly Americans beginning to develop. It is a painful development that is marred by some random jokes. The suicide messages to Callie are funny, but they break the sense of a larger world. It’s as if the writers are taking whatever crass idea they come up with and slabbing it into the episode with no regard as to the world of their series.
Even with the funny but out of place going on, the episode flows at a brisk pace. There is not a scene wasted and everything culminates to the showdown between Callie and Lilith organically. Anything trivial only affects the development of the show’s mythology, not the story of the episode itself. Overall, “Callie and Her Sister” contains some legitimately funny moments. The only thing holding back the episode and the series itself is an over reliance on cliché and parody and random jokes as opposed to more attention being paid on the world it’s set in. Then again, it is a comedy about a guy counseling the undead.
Some stats and info about Ugly Americans, “Callie and Her Sister”
TV SHOW – Ugly Americans
SEASON/EPISODE – Season 2, Episode 2
AIRED ON – July 7th, 2011
NETWORK/STREAMING SERVICE – Comedy Central
GENRE – Animated Shows, Comedy
CREATED BY – Devin Clark, David M. Stern
CAST – Matt Oberg, Natasha Leggero, Kurt Metzger, Randy Pearlstein, Julie Klausner, Michael-Leon Wooley, Larry Murphy, Devn Clark, Pete Holmes
This review originally appeared on TV Geek Army.