Thursday, November 8, 2018

What I’m Watching: Kidding


Kidding: Season 1, Episode 9 “Lt. Pickles” (B-)

Jeff is the definition of a ticking time bomb, not acknowledging that he completely trashed the office and then channeling all of his pent-up frustration into the copyright-infringing Lt. Pickles game that Sebastian was so worried he was going to go ballistic about when he discovered its existence. It was weird to see him and Jill switch into co-parenting mode after Jill brought the chickens he bought to school and got into trouble. Jill wanted to defend him as an asshole while Jeff sought to find the beauty and inspiration in his behavior, hardly the response that the principal would have expected. Peter got taken up on his selfless offer to let them have some alone family time, and their trip to the restaurant got pretty trippy when it became clear that Jeff was experiencing Will’s magic trick in a truly mind-boggling way. What, unfortunately, was not an instance of Jeff losing himself in his own mind was the performance on ice that Sebastian pushed through by encouraging Sara to step into the spotlight. I still can’t decide what to make of the horrifying sight of Sara accidentally slicing Tara’s throat during a show that was up until that point going so well. In another reality-defying moment, Scott pretending that he was totally straight and had never had a coded conversation about not continuing his extramarital activities, and it says something about the state of their marriage that Deirdre’s immediate response was to grab a puppet and tell Pickles-San that they should have sex. This is an undeniably bizarre series.

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