CR-1761, if you bothered to watch the episode before this one, "Hello, I Love You", you'd have noticed that Miranda was born at the end. Shelley said hello to her. She also met Miranda 3 times before that, at various stages of her childhood as the daughter approached adolescence. Among other things, "Randi" told Shelly she'd later have a son named Jared.
To everybody else, I apologize for providing information useless to this episode. I was too busy answering a question from the only other person to review it, who could have Googled the whole thing herself if she wanted to.
But as for this episode, my favorite part was Holling singing at the end. It was a song about America and Canada and the wonderful things they have in common, as well as the things that make each of them special. It contained bits of patriotic music, some from each country, that made a wonderful mashup before mashup had a name.
As for the other parts...I was impressed with Fleischman. For a guy who was obsessed with getting back to New York for years, he's awfully concerned with what the locals think of him. First he goes out of his way to throw a dinner party because he'd given the impression of being a mooch, then he goes even further out of his way to fix it when it goes predictably wrong due to his lack of practice with the custom. The guy's got skills, but socializing clearly ain't one of them. Those of you who like the "fish out of water" trope will find plenty to laugh at there.
Which is good, because there's a lot of sadness here, too. Chris is feeling guilt over a listener who killed himself over one of his songs. He shared a song on the radio that meant something to him, and someone he barely knew took it badly. That's a touchy subject, and the way it was handled was pretty much my only gripe. I get that the writers were giving the character something to do because he's very popular with the audience, but seriously, the song had no business on a radio station, and it's just too big a stretch to believe that anyone could have been fond of it enough to be the DJ who plays it on the radio.
And the seriousness didn't end there. The scenes with Holling & Shelly were really interesting. It's amazing that a couple with a 4-decade age gap has an issue with nationalities, and that in the years they'd been together, it doesn't come up until 4 weeks after their first kid's born? Then again, that sounds very much like a marriage to me. Those two were married in all but name long before the ceremony, but becoming a parent changes everything. Holling had a daughter from a previous relationship, but Shelly's only experience came from 3 supernatural meetings with her future daughter. And the fact that it hadn't come up before isn't that surprising. Between Shelly's naivete & Holling's easygoing optimism, it's easy to believe those two would go into parenting assuming everything would work out all right, and it's never that simple.
Overall, a good episode, that could have been a great one if the arc with Chris in the Morning were handled a bit better. 7/10.
To everybody else, I apologize for providing information useless to this episode. I was too busy answering a question from the only other person to review it, who could have Googled the whole thing herself if she wanted to.
But as for this episode, my favorite part was Holling singing at the end. It was a song about America and Canada and the wonderful things they have in common, as well as the things that make each of them special. It contained bits of patriotic music, some from each country, that made a wonderful mashup before mashup had a name.
As for the other parts...I was impressed with Fleischman. For a guy who was obsessed with getting back to New York for years, he's awfully concerned with what the locals think of him. First he goes out of his way to throw a dinner party because he'd given the impression of being a mooch, then he goes even further out of his way to fix it when it goes predictably wrong due to his lack of practice with the custom. The guy's got skills, but socializing clearly ain't one of them. Those of you who like the "fish out of water" trope will find plenty to laugh at there.
Which is good, because there's a lot of sadness here, too. Chris is feeling guilt over a listener who killed himself over one of his songs. He shared a song on the radio that meant something to him, and someone he barely knew took it badly. That's a touchy subject, and the way it was handled was pretty much my only gripe. I get that the writers were giving the character something to do because he's very popular with the audience, but seriously, the song had no business on a radio station, and it's just too big a stretch to believe that anyone could have been fond of it enough to be the DJ who plays it on the radio.
And the seriousness didn't end there. The scenes with Holling & Shelly were really interesting. It's amazing that a couple with a 4-decade age gap has an issue with nationalities, and that in the years they'd been together, it doesn't come up until 4 weeks after their first kid's born? Then again, that sounds very much like a marriage to me. Those two were married in all but name long before the ceremony, but becoming a parent changes everything. Holling had a daughter from a previous relationship, but Shelly's only experience came from 3 supernatural meetings with her future daughter. And the fact that it hadn't come up before isn't that surprising. Between Shelly's naivete & Holling's easygoing optimism, it's easy to believe those two would go into parenting assuming everything would work out all right, and it's never that simple.
Overall, a good episode, that could have been a great one if the arc with Chris in the Morning were handled a bit better. 7/10.
