Some quick thoughts on last night's "Cougar Town" coming up just as soon as I grow a weird mustache... After the last episode brought all the characters together for Jules' backyard BBQ, "Two Gunslingers"(*) goes back to segregating the men into one plot and the women in the other. And it therefore consigned the bigger laughs to the Travis/Grayson/Andy story(**).
(*) "Two Gunslingers" is one of the more apt Tom Petty song titles they've used so far, given what initially caused the friction between Jules and her old friends at the beach.
(**) Bobby's off on a "hunting trip," alas, as the show works around the usual budgetary issues that face most shows these days, where only a handful of actors are signed to appear in every episode of their shows.
But the ladies on a road trip to Siesta Key wasn't exactly wasted time. The Christa Miller/Busy Philipps combination is paying real dividends, and I like that the writers allowed the two to find common ground (a desire to protect Jules) without wimping out and turning them into BFFs. And Jules' fake date with Straight Trent was a nice capper to an episode where Jules spent so much time trying to pretend to be something (in this case, 34) that she's not.
Rachael Harris (almost unrecognizable without her glasses) and Alan Ruck (contractually obligated to appear in every post-"Spin City" show Bill Lawrence does, I believe) didn't get as much to do as I hoped, but since these characters live in a small town, I imagine we'll be seeing them again.
What did everybody else think?