What I’m Watching: Life in Pieces

Life in Pieces: Season 2, Episode 6 “Boxing Opinion Spider Beard” (B+)

I enjoyed this episode, which featured from mostly independent segments connected only by the unexplained presence of Greg’s beard that took center stage in the final vignette. I’ve noticed that most of John’s plotlines tend to be totally unconnected to the rest of the group save for just one other person, which usually tends to be a granddaughter. After a frightening flying lesson two weeks ago with Sophia, now he decided to take Samantha to his boxing gym instead of to ballet. It was fun to see her as a natural talent and then express her rage when he tried to make it seem like she had flaked out when he had instead not picked her up so that she wouldn’t outshine him. Jen is rarely the one who does something wrong, and seeing her have to try to backpedal when she went for a second opinion and then got the results forwarded immediately back to him was funny. Heather and Tim’s passive-aggressive restaurant response was fun too, and it was all wrapped up in a sweet way when Tim accepted Jen’s sincere apology right away. It’s strange to think of the usually relatively serious Joan as a prankster, and apparently Colleen values her future mother-in-law’s approval more than Matt’s as she participated in an extraordinarily elaborate prank involving a whole lot of fake spiders. Greg’s beard was never going to last, and I like that Jen tried to use Heather’s hair-growing scare technique only to find that her grizzly husband knew about it already. Fortunately, the smell of vomit can change opinions very quickly.