“Huh, so this is what a father’s kiss feels like.” – Steve
For the first time since its first season began, Running Wilde had a laugh-out-loud, smart, and fully-realized joke play out over the course of an episode. Sure, last week’s episode was better as a whole, but I still struggled to find a whole heck of a lot of real humor. But “The Junior Affair” had a moment where I actually had to pause my DVR for fear of missing what followed.
The joke in question, not surprisingly, came at the hands of Fa’ad, the MVP of Running Wilde so far (though he’s much like Andre Dawson on the ’87 Cubs or Alex Rodriguez on the ’03 Rangers… both MVPs of last place teams). Early in the episode, we see scenes from a film he financed and starred in called Gangs of Gangsters (shown in a cut-away, a device that has so far been used only sparingly on this show after being used often on Arrested Development). We fail to hear Fa’ad’s character use the New York tough guy accent that his acting teacher, Alan Alda, taught him and that’s the point. Because by holding back, the pay-off is even greater.
But let me set up the rest of the episode first, if you don’t mind. Because otherwise, you are going to be all like, “huh?”
Puddle’s boyfriend, Lane, broke up with her only days before the big Fall Formal. This brings up some of Emmy’s long-dormant hurt feelings from when Steve wouldn’t take her to a dance as kids. Steve’s father didn’t want him going with someone of a lower class. It turns out Lane broke up with Puddle because of the same father-inspired logic. Emmy decides to confront Lane and get him to stand up to his dad about dating out of his class. But because this is a sitcom, Lane mistakes Emmy’s suggestion as a come on and assumes she will be his date to the dance.
Steve, meanwhile, faces Lane’s father, Dan (Andy Richter), in a way that he had never been able to do with his own father. Misunderstandings abound though and Dan assumes all of Steve’s talk about love is actually a case of man-on-man seduction. Since Steve never had any kind of real father-son interactions himself (Steve’s dad didn’t even come to the special father-son matinee of Steve’s incredibly racist one-man show), he fails to realize that a lot of Dan’s behavior is far from paternal. This includes a pretty outrageous car washing scene that would have been a lot funnier if Richter’s boss hadn’t pulled a similar, more hilarious stunt only weeks earlier.
Of course everyone winds up at the dance and we learn that Lane hadn’t actually broken up with Puddle. She had simply made the whole story up to keep Emmy and Steve from showing up and embarrassing her. Unfortunately, Lane breaks up with her for real when he announces that Emmy is his true soul mate. Puddle gets over him quickly though when a Steve Holt-esque tween shows up and swoops her off her feet.
Steve starts to understand that Dan’s behavior isn’t normal when they start making out and slow dancing. Fa’ad shows up to rescue him in his New York tough guy costume and finally drops his New York tough guy accent. But as we remember from earlier (and a few paragraphs up), Fa’ad acting teacher was Alan Alda and that’s exactly what his accent sounds like, and thus making Fa’ad appear to be Steve’s actual lover. And <em>that</em>, my friends, is a perfectly executed, long-term joke. I don’t know if that was actually Peter Serafinowicz pulling off that Alda impression or an overdubbed voiceover (maybe my Alda himself; who knows?), but either way, I was cracking up.
There was even a little bit of chemistry between Will Arnett and Keri Russell in the final scene, something we haven’t come close to seeing before. I kind of wish that they would have just danced to Extreme’s “More Than Words” outside of the gymnasium, though, instead of just having Steve bang on the locked door. A sweeter moment was passed up for a vastly inferior joke.
Luckily, there was at least one great joke that made up for it. Now if only Running Wilde can put together one great episode.
Other thoughts on “The Junior Affair”:
* As TVGA writer Lucas pointed out in my review of last week’s episode, Keri Russell’s line delivery is pretty horrendous on this show. She didn’t get any better this week. It’s not a good sign when the child actors you share a scene with sound infinitely more natural than you do.
* I enjoyed the callback to Fa’ad’s speech impediment where he confuses V’s with B’s. I hope they bring that up more often.
* There were new opening credits tonight featuring the characters with cardboard cutouts of their heads dancing around like idiots. It was terrible. A title card is more than enough, guys.
* “Your gas gauge says you have a full tank.” – Lane
* “Oh Lunt, you rotting old puff.” – Steve
This review originally appeared on TV Geek Army.