So Long, Jimmy

     Has anyone ever held on to the fantasy of their estranged grandparents getting back together? Well little Edie (played by twins Emelia and Layla Golfieri) is oping for two generations to patch things up. Edie is a toddler being raised by a curious group of family in a fairly "Full House". Her app-developer dad and resident sensetive guy Gerald E. Kingsley (Josh Peck) and entrepreneur-without-a-cause mom Vanessa (No-last-name like her icon Rhianna) played by singer Christina Milian. Gerald is also the product of two unlikely parents, hippie social worker Sarah (Paget Brewster, a.k.a. Kathy from FRIENDS), and an unknown father, until the first episode of this show. Gerald shows up at a an L.A. barely-hotspot, Jimmy's, and announces to Jimmy Martino (John Stamos) that he is his long-lost 25-year old son. Jimmy doesn't know how to fit into a family that plays an elaborate game to choose a movie night, let alone how to grandparent or parent a child. He makes an elaborate show of ditching Thanksgiving to take a model girlfriend to the beach. As soon as Jimmy meets a more recent ex of Sarah, he jumps in, trying to show Gerald he can be more of a dad than a guy that raised him for several years.   In the end, Jimmy realized he only wanted to be the his family on the holiday.       

     Over time, the family wears Jimmy down with their kindness. He makes up for lost time with Gerald and little Edie. As expected, jokes about about popular culture, trying to be cool, taking care of children, and Jimmy's obsession with his hair abound.  Yes, it's a bit hokey. It is also loaded with "back together" cameos Bob Saget (as an old pal of Jimmy that wants to keep partying), Drake Bell (Drake & Josh) as a crude potential investor for Gerald's app. The storylines are a bit cliche at times,  but Stamos' charm is never wavering. My favorite episodes included one where Gerald and his dad pretend to be a gay couple to get Edie into a fancy preschool (Edie's Two Dads). In another,  SNL alum Nasim Pedrad (Budget Spa) takes Jimmy on a wild date that makes him realize he craves too much validation from women.  Every character's life generally improves from time spent in this unlikely group. Weekly family dinners happen at Jimmy's restaurant, whether cranky Annalise (Kelly Jenrette) has gotten them a table or not. Yes, Jimmy's sous-chef Ravi and personal assistant Annalise are reluctant at first, but enjoy hanging around with the Kingsley clan. Ravi tries to hard to be liked and be a part of Jimmy's family, while outwardly Annalise could care less. Shy Gerald breaks out of his shell, winning over Vanessa, who goes after tough guys with motorcycles and tattoos. Sarah remembers how wild she was hen she knew Jimmy, and learns to forgive him for not being there for her, and forgives herself  for not telling Jimmy they had a son.

     Jimmy needs this new family, plain and simple. We learn toward the end of the season in a heartbreaking origin episode (Jimmy's 50th, Again) that his dad was never proud of him and he filled the last 20+ years with meaningless flings so he didn't have to connect with anyone. When Jimmy meets tough businesswoman and Queen of the "Thanks for last night" muffin basket, Catherine Sanders (Regina Hall), he has his first honest relationship in years. Jimmy also learns how terrible he has treated women in the past. This is also the same point when Sarah admits she has rekindled feelings for Jimmy. Is one big, happy Kingsley clan in the horizon? The answer is NO! 

     The show wrapped season 1 a few weeks ago and was unabashedly cancelled by FOX along with The Grinder. We were left with Gerald's proposal scavenger hunt  for Vanessa gone horribly wrong but accepted. Jimmy's father passed away. Sarah broke up with her boyfriend the day before they were moving in together. Jimmy told Sarah he broke up with Catherine, then went to really break up with her in a dramatic airport run. Sarah discovered this from her granddaughter, and "pulled a Jimmy", leaving Mr. Martino flying solo at a Cure concert, like he stood her up 25 years ago. While I have wrested with my definition of "pulling a Jimmy" (muffin baskets after a one-night stand,  keeping a secret vault of  moisturizer and tanner, namedropping "B' list celebrities), I think I came come to the true definition. Pulling a show off the air while it was developing an emotional heart is "pulling a Jimmy". It is so hard to find a delicate balance of funny, hokey and emotionally moving these days, and FOX pulled a show that is doing all of this. Seriously, does anyone think they are writing this week on Brooklyn 99? Bad move, FOX.

Grinder (noun)

"What does it mean, 'to grind' asks Dean Sanderson's (Rob Lowe) new therapist, played by guest star Maya Ruldoph.

Dean responds, "Doing whatever it takes to find justice, no matter how hard the grind... and the grind is the everyday struggle."

     FOX took a chance this season with a sitcom called The Grinder (not the Grindr) about adult brothers who start (reluctantly) working together in a law practice. Have we seen this type of plot before? Of course…. (Hyperion Bay with Mark Paul Gosselaar >comes to mind). The difference in this show is all in the casting. The brothers are two of my beloved 80’s and 90’s actors. I could not be more excited for Fred Savage’s (Stewart)  return to acting and the return of Lowe to comedy. This is Savage's first foray away from the director's chair since the sitcom, Working (1997-1999).
     

     Let it be known that while I favored his real life brother Ben Savage (Cory from Boy/Girl Meets World for many years, I am back on Team Fred when it comes to choosing which Savage I love. Savage's Stewart runs Sanderson and Yao, a law firm in Boise, Idaho, a firm started by his dad, Dean Sanderson, Sr. (William Devane). Dean Sr. is ticked to have his son home after Dean Jr.'s many successful seasons as TV lawyer, Mitch Grinder.

    Mitch Grinder is his own unique character.  Rob Lowe does what he does best here: he plays an actor playing a lawyer,  and both characters are a bit self-indulgent. It’s basically the best of teen Rob Lowe’s boyish charm (St. Elmo’s Fire, The Outsiders) and adult Rob Lowe’s commitment to #truthandjustice mixed together (The West Wing,The Lyon's Den, Brothers and Sisters). The scenes from the show with a show are pretty dramatic with emotional outbursts, clawing out of a coffin in the ground, romantic trysts on the confrence table, and the last-minute proclamation that "grinds" (pun intended) the case to a swift halt.  In every episode of the show, the Sanderson men, along with Stewart's wife Debbie (Mary Elizabeth Ellis, the waitress from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia) and teen kids, watch episodes of "The Grinder" and Dean shares his motivation for the episode, with ridiculous things like getting a teenage son in one episode to show his character's emotional depth.


In the episode first mentioned above, Dean's therapist suggests that in order for Dean to move forward in life (or at least move out of his brother's house), he has to let "The Grinder" die. This should be simple because in the new reboot of the show, Grinder: New Orleans, Dean guest stars to give his new TV brother Rake (played by Timothy Olyphant) some advice, and decides his character must die to complete his character arc. This plan took some convincing and entailed a very confusing courtroom scene where Stu showed up as their third long-lost brother and also offered to die on the show, via poison. As for Olyphant, he has done some great work playing a Hollywood version of himself, making Dean look  a little more human and sparking a romantic triangle (at least in Dean's eyes) with Sanderson and Yao's associate, Claire. Other guest stars have included Christina Applegate as a closeted fan pretending she had never seen Dean's show, Jim Rash as a potential client, Jason Alexander as "The Grinder" director.

“We watch The Grinder, we talk about it while we’re watching it, and after we’re watching it, and it feels to me like we should operate more in reality.”  - Stu

“Were you at the bar this whole time, just waiting to interject at the perfect moment?”

      -     Client (Jim Rash) to Dean