What I’m Watching: Family Tree

Family Tree: Season 1, Episode 5 “Welcome to America” (B+)

I wasn’t sure about this episode after last week’s awkward half-hour, but this one ended up being relatively entertaining while still remaining plenty uncomfortable. We actually found out just as much about Tom in this installment as we did his American relatives (more, in the case of North Carolinian cousin Dave), highlighted by his fear of cats brought on by something Bea told him when he was a child. Him being given English muffins and asked if his school was like Hogwarts was amusing, and I do wonder how Pete will go over when he arrives since he’s likely to react much more strongly to these mistaken English stereotypes. I like that there was a way for Christopher Guest regular Fred Willard to make an appearance, popping over as the next door neighbor and making quite an impression on Tom when they shared a late-night hot tub together. To me, the most amusing part of the episode was that Tom got a call in the middle of the night on Skype from Monk, who revealed that Bea had lost her job at the bank and was depressed but insisted that she was sleeping. It’s hard not to enjoy the incomparable eccentricities the Chadwick family members have, which sometimes aren’t even outrageous, but more subtle, like Al’s pronunciation of the Native American terms he learned at camp. The female cousins’ discussion of their standards for cheese was also great, and my favorite arguments were “it depends on what mood I’m in” and “cheese is cheese.”