Sunday, August 12, 2012

What I’m Watching: Anger Management


Anger Management: Season 1, Episode 8 “Charlie Outs a Patient” (B)

It’s fun to see one of Charlie’s less spotlighted patients take center stage since he rarely gets such an opportunity. More than anything, Nolan just isn’t all that bright, but he makes for an entertaining character. Identifying Charlie as his urologist without realizing what it meant was probably the funniest moment, and it’s great that, though she didn’t want to, Lacey came over to help and offered to head outside armed with a frying pan. This show is sprinkled with some eccentric supporting characters that just seem to pop up while nothing else crucial is happening, namely wacky waitress Mel and nutty neighbor Michael. In this case, the randomness of their appearances is underlined by the fact that they literally just show up when the plotlines demand it. Sam getting texts from her friends at her own sleepover that it was lame was perhaps a bit too obvious, and Charlie seemed to be excessively bribing the girls not to report what was happening at the house to their parents. His continually altered explanations of how Nolan sustained his injuries were amusing, and he’s always at his best when he’s lying through his teeth. He and Jennifer talk extremely honestly and openly about their intentions with other partners, and it’s clear that their relatively amicable relationship isn’t entirely free of animosity, resentment, and frequent attempts to demean, embarrass, and one-up the other. Kate interpreting Charlie’s true story as a symbolic dream was funny, and a sign that there’s way too much therapy going on in that particular relationship.

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