Take Three: Kidding

Kidding: Season 1, Episode 3 “Every Pain Needs a Name” (B)

Jill moving on with someone else doesn’t seem like a temporary thing, and so Jeff starting to think about his own romantic life going forward was a mere eventuality. He was pretty appalled at the content of the fan mail that came to him which his father had saved and then exuberantly shared with him, but Sebastian did manage to get into his head and encourage him to try it. Riki Lindhome, who I think I recognize from her role on the live-action “The Muppets,” was endearing and fascinating as Shaina, the woman who saw Mr. Pickles on TV while living what could hardly be described as her best life and then slowly turned it around to become happy with the help of his televised counsel. They did have a nice time together, but I think that would have felt too much like moving on emotionally. Going to have sex with the terminal cancer patient he had met in the hospital was an unexpected decision but one that makes more sense because it allows him to give something that no one would ever expect Mr. Pickles to give and to not have to attach any meaning to it. I thought I recognized her voice, and it turns out that she was played by Ginger Gonzaga, who has a tendency for portraying prickly people. Deirdre is having her own problems with her daughter as her less-than-sympathetic father talks about digitizing and replacing Jeff with someone who won’t talk back, which hardly feels like sincere parental support.