What I’m Watching: Pivoting (Season Finale)

Pivoting: Season 1, Episode 10 “Coleen in a Box” (B+)

It doesn’t seem likely that this show will be renewed for a second season, and that’s a shame since it features three actresses I knew before and gave them a great opportunity to be funny in a lighthearted comedy. While this finale didn’t feature a major development like, say, Jodie getting caught in her affair with Matt, she did have an honest conversation with Dan that wasn’t about her seeing someone else but him not seeing her. I enjoyed the fact that Dan went over to be with his best buds Henry and Brian who were honestly quite surprised to see him there and hadn’t thought much more of him than Jodie does. He was quickly distracted by Brian, just like he had earlier noticed Jodie was acting strange but couldn’t think past that to imagine anything else. Amy getting her afternoon show back was not the major promotion her boss thought it was, and her mere hesitation to accept it showed how much she has changed since she started spending more time with her kids. Sarah also got to think about her life choices when she stepped in to help the woman that Huddy was failing to save, but she didn’t dwell much on that before heading to Brian’s house and getting drunk enough for both of them to think the other was Coleen. Ending with the three best friends celebrating in a bar with the ashes was a great way to go out, and hopefully it’s just the last we’ll see of this group until next year.

Season grade: B+
Season MVP: Eliza Coupe as Amy

What I’m Watching: Pivoting

Pivoting: Season 1, Episode 9 “Fans Only” (B+)

I’ll admit, I had heard about OnlyFans before watching this episode but didn’t know much about it, though I think I understood enough to get that OnlyThrills was a clear parody that was more explicitly referenced in this episode’s title. It does make some sense that the friend who wasn’t a mom would be interested in doing this to make some money, but I don’t know how anonymous it really is and if you can get in trouble for being involved. She did get very into it very quickly, and while Jodie was all ready with the fruit, apparently her feet weren’t attractive enough to merit a team-up. The joke was ultimately on Sarah, however, when it turned out her top contributor was a 13-year-old boy. Jodie buying coupons and gift cards so that Dan wouldn’t know what she was spending money on was a clever way of avoiding her entirely useless and oblivious husband, and after her unsuccessful minivan rendezvous, it was funny to see her get called out and lectured by her daughter for trying to take cash from her wallet. Henry’s sudden attraction to Amy’s maternal instincts presented a humorous scenario when she was disgusted by what he liked but then found herself even more into the fact that he got to fire people and had power at work. That hole in the wall scene reminded me of a similar moment from “Garden State,” and it seems like its two-way nature didn’t end up working out too well for Randy the good actor who didn’t know how far was too far.

What I’m Watching: Pivoting

Pivoting: Season 1, Episode 8 “Doompa-Dee Doo” (B+)

There were some humorous character interactions in this episode that we don’t always see, and some unplanned if somewhat expected developments that came about as a result. Sarah’s eagerness to suddenly say yes to everything should have led to her staying in a very long bath and then getting out when she was done, but instead Jodie’s perfectly-organized systems got in the way and she ended up literally running into a naked Dan on her way out. Dan responding to Jodie’s accidentally-sent enthusiastic text about sex with a thumbs up indicates just how oblivious he is, and how much of a stark contrast that is to Matt’s complimentary nature, which found him taking the time to repeat his comment about Jodie’s fit form as she was escaping out the basement window of his house when his mom came home. I thought that there might be a run-in with his mom and that she would end up being someone Jodie knew, but I guess we’ll have to save that for the future given that their relationship is very much alive. Amy lobbying for a better part in the show for her son by giving Mr. Higgins drugs wasn’t that far from the norm of her behavior, and it only got more entertaining when Henry ended up trading hair pills to him to get the role reduced back down again. Though they’re not always honest with each other at the start, Amy and Henry do seem to be most capable of opening up and ultimately sharing the things they should have talked about before they did them.

What I’m Watching: Pivoting

Pivoting: Season 1, Episode 7 “Bounce, Baby” (B+)

Each of these three friends has their own tics, and I think I might enjoy Amy’s most since she’s just so unfiltered and has no sense whatsoever of boundaries. Her eagerness to call Coleen’s phone number and leave her voicemails about what was going on in her life was theoretically harmless until it meant harassing a young athlete who just wanted to wait for a phone call from her boyfriend in the Marines. Henry is evidently the best possible match for her given his willingness to figure out a way to get the number back for her, just in time for that boyfriend to call because he really was deployed. Amy was also very excited that Jodie was actually having an affair, something that got her extremely worried that she had herpes, which she didn’t want to have Sarah examine because she would judge her for being unfaithful. I’m not sure what she thought was going to happen when she went over to help Matt organize his socks, and fortunately Dan is too busy carrying his computer into the bathroom to finish watching his porn to notice that she’s involved with someone else. Sarah’s bathroom make-out session with Tanzy quickly turned into a real relationship, one she didn’t want to turn from casual into serious, and her dismissal of Tanzy when she showed up was followed up by an even crueler response about Sarah’s age from her younger jilted ex. Brian and Henry tearing up thinking about Coleen being gone was a sweet moment, and I think this show does well when it features those.

What I’m Watching: Pivoting

Pivoting: Season 1, Episode 6 “The Three Bleepin' Bleeps” (B)

I suppose one reason people have friends is so that they can commiserate about the things they don’t like about their partners, but I’m not sure that’s always the healthiest and most recommended of activities. The surprise was that Jodie expressed such disdain for Dan and then ultimately ended up feeling much more sympathy for him, to the degree that she started eating unhealthy things so that she would no longer be at her goal weight and Matt wouldn’t want to have sex with her. Whether or not she goes through it, laughing with Dan was an important step, something that we saw Amy do with Henry last episode even if she was much more at odds with him in this one, thanks in no small part to her anger poetry being read by Mr. Higgins. Jodie and Amy resolving to do the things they weren’t going to do specifically to prove the other wrong was a humorous way of negating their concerns. Sarah got very thrown off by hearing from Brian about why Coleen was proudest of her, and I was entertained by the connection to running since I vividly remember the first time I saw Maggie Q on screen when she was running very fast as the title character in “Nikita.” I’m not sure she cared about her time there, and she definitely wouldn’t have timed it, just like Jodie and Amy didn’t even though they pretended they had. I enjoyed seeing Henry and Brian commiserate at the end and get to do the things their wives wouldn’t want them to do around them.

What I’m Watching: Pivoting

Pivoting: Season 1, Episode 5 “D-Day” (B)

I’m not sure that D-Day is the best name for a “90210”-themed holiday made up by these friends, but it was still a decent setup for them to contend with the people they’ve become and what the future holds. After Jodie’s daughter was truly unkind to her, it was only fair that they used her room and went through all of her stuff for their celebration, and I thought it was funny that this was the moment Jodie first expressed that she had never masturbated before when she’s currently engaged in an illicit affair that she has yet to tell her friends about, something that will result in equal excitement and absolute shock. I laughed at how her dancing along to theme music resulted in her accidentally throwing the burger, which meant she had no choice but to give the vibrator a try in the absence of her lunch. Sarah trying on Andrea’s clothes so that she could seduce Tanzy and then tell her that she wasn’t as amazing as she had expressed Sarah was but that she would get there was a helpful power move, even if it’s leading to increased irresponsibility at work. Amy hiring a babysitter so that Gloria wouldn’t judge her predictably led to other people finding out, namely Henry, who was aware enough of who Amy is that he was able to get a confession out of her without even bothering to call Gloria to confirm her lie. Those two aren’t always a perfect couple but they do manage to have fun together.

What I’m Watching: Pivoting

Pivoting: Season 1, Episode 4 “Hell on Wheels” (B+)

It didn’t seem like a great idea to go to the skate rink to check out Sarah’s potential match before initiating any sort of conversation online, and for Sarah to be there at all instead of just Jodie, Amy, and their kids. Seema actually did appear to be a great match as soon as they started talking, but things quickly fell apart when she couldn’t resist making a medical comment that got interpreted by Seema as a dig at how she didn’t have a fancier career. Sarah only made it worse when Seema tried to give her the wrong shoes, making for quite an awkward exit. Amy’s attempt to help her son become more social and get more friends didn’t work all that well, and she ended up getting accosted by another mother who didn’t like the fact that Amy had dared to confront her daughter about being mean to him. After Jodie was nearly distracted from enjoying the serenity of skating by her hapless husband who didn’t have any clue how to prepare dinner, she stepped in to save the day and accidentally start a conga line when Amy was in trouble. She was evidently thrown enough by Matt calling her that she locked her daughter outside the house and threw an entire box of popsicles at her, and now they’ve gone from out-of-office business advice to something far more scandalous. I don’t think I expected them to actually start having an affair, but at least they’re working fitness goals into their illicit relationship.

Take Three: Pivoting

Pivoting: Season 1, Episode 3 “The Giving Tree” (B+)

I like that we got to see Colleen’s husband Brian, played by Colton Dunn from “Superstore,” and the relationship that her friends still have with him. It was fun to see how Henry was cashing in on the meal train that was being delivered to him and trying to clue his friend in to just how appealing he was to all the women who kept cooking for him. Being coaxed into driving Jodie, Sarah, and Amy to Diana’s house so they could steal the tree. Sarah obviously has a very contentious relationship with her ex, and I enjoyed how Huddy tried to be helpful to her and told Sarah that she shouldn’t talk the customer out of purchasing the more expensive items. This was the first time we saw Jodie’s husband Dan, who I recognized from Robert Baker’s role as Otis Graves on “Supergirl,” and he does not seem like a particularly nice guy. I was thrilled to recognize J.B. Smoove from “Curb Your Enthusiasm” as the voice of The Fig, an especially fantastic piece of casting to enhance an admittedly ridiculous bit. Jodie’s obsession with her trainer continues to lead to absurd developments, like her frantically texting him when he hadn’t replied to her question about thinking she was beautiful. She got the perfect response at exactly the moment that her built-up core strength enabled her to rip a tree out of the ground, which both impressed and terrified her friends who were happy to let her do whatever she wanted after that.

Round Two: Pivoting

Pivoting: Season 1, Episode 2 “My Friend Died!” (B+)

I like just how extreme and committed these characters are, particularly Amy, who was so upset that the barista wouldn’t honor the expired gift card that she took what she felt the value was in cups and other things from the coffee shop. She’s also become a hypochondriac, worried that anything she thinks looks suspicious could be the sign of impending death, which meant that Henry’s casual eagerness to do a particular run got her very upset. Of course, she was the one who hit him with her car after her accidentally butt-dialed her while panting, but she didn’t want to seem like a hypocrite, so she had to chug the piping hot coffee so that he wouldn’t be able to identify the artificial sugar she hadn’t actually given up. Sarah getting named employee of the month meant that she alienated her fellow employees, and I like that, after showing up at the news of an apparent emergency, Amy and Jodie pivoted to supporting her nemesis Rudy and reminding Sarah that her competitive, academic spirit often meant more work for everyone around her to do. Jodie’s relationship with her trainer continues to get more complicated, and she didn’t like that he called her a mom when she gave him a superhero band-aid. But that hug undid all the work she had tried to do to get out of it, and that obsession is going to continue for some time, surely leading to more hijinks related to tight-fitting clothing that doesn’t really allow her to move.

Pilot Review: Pivoting

Check out my one-minute take on every new pilot, which is embedded below and you can also watch by subscribing to movieswithabe on YouTube.