What I’m Watching: The Detour

The Detour: Season 4, Episode 9 “The Bride” (B-)

This show’s detour feels like it’s never going to get back on track, and I’m just sticking around until the finale wondering why it was that TBS opted to continue this once-decent show over the far better “People of Earth,” which I still miss following the questionable to un-renew the show months after season three had already been announced. This episode filled in Nate’s story to tell us that he hadn’t in fact been killed and had his organs harvested, but instead that the Russian bride he had met wanted him far more than he realized and was going to great lengths to make sure he didn’t come to harm. I thought Natalia looked familiar, and that’s because I’ve seen actress Olga Fonda before in the pilot of “Agent X.” She, like many other guest stars on this show playing zany characters, did a solid job of portraying the woman who didn’t want his fatty organs but longed to be with the man from Syracuse who just didn’t get that at all. Seeing his family members all dressed in white at the end represented a wondrous reunion for the four of them, but I don’t think Natalia’s mom boss father is going to be all too happy to let them go even if he is humbled by the power of love. The one moment in this episode that truly made me laugh was Nate’s inability to distinguish between a Russian-accented pronunciation of his last name and the term “parkour,” leading him to make an extremely ill-advised attempt to defy gravity through an art he doesn’t realize exists.