What I’m Watching: Life in Pieces

Life in Pieces: Season 4, Episode 11 “Cleans Pens Grandma Guys” (C)

There’s a line on this show of believability that I feel has been crossed considerably often lately from mildly entertaining and clever plotlines to complete and utter absurdity. I’d cite the first vignette here as the most irritating and outlandish example, with Edna the cleaning lady who for some reason has hypnotized the entire Short family into not only letting her sleep on the job but literally doing all the cleaning for her. There are plenty of things that it seems worthwhile to forgive the Shorts for, especially the more oblivious ones like Greg and Joan, but this felt like a stretch, with Jen as the typical one to notice just how crazy it was that she didn’t actually clean and in fact gave others more work to do as a result. The souvenir pens plotline also fell flat, referencing something random from the past that nobody would ever think about except for John, who of course managed to find the box before any of his kids pretended that they had. Lucas being scared of Joan was made moderately worthwhile by the end of that segment, in which Joan was happy to write off the situation as Lucas being shy because she didn’t want to be mistaken for a witch. Tim’s party was undeniably weird, going far beyond some guy inviting a bunch of friends who just didn’t show up, and of course Matt would be the one to be there and try to find any way possible to get out of the situation.