zwolanerd

Let me make two observations right off the bat that aren’t necessarily about Better Off Ted but wouldn’t be here without Better Off Ted:

1. I’ve been watching a lot of Arrested Development lately – I was trying to watch the first three seasons before the fourth came out, but didn’t quite finish, so I watched the fourth and then went back and finished the third. I love that show and Portia de Rossi is great in it, but she’s better here in Better Off Ted. I know we all know this, but it needs to be said.
2. Rose is seriously one of my favorite kid characters ever. I’ve been watching How to Live with Your Parents (For the Rest of Your Life) this season and I’ve been enjoying it…except for the kid character.  I was really, really annoyed with the kid, but loved Sarah Chalke, Elizabeth Perkins, and Brad Garrett. I’m sorry to see that it got cancelled, but this isn’t really about that. It’s about how seeing Rose again after having seen Natalie in that show. It’s not the actor, it’s the character. Rose is wise, but not too wise and not at all a “smarter than the grown-ups precocious bunch of nonsense” character we’ve seen so many times in sitcoms. She’s believable but endearing, and the contrast just struck me again this time around and I wanted to give Rose a shout-out.

It’s funny to me how awkward Lem seems around people for the most part but how much of a ladies’ man he is at the same time.  He gets nervous around Veronica almost to the point of incapacitation, but the minute the elevator doors close on them, he’s got his tongue “all up in Nadine’s mouth,” regardless of the fact that Phil is standing a foot away. Remember when he was dating two women at once? But then there was awkward Lem again with the “exotic lady,” and now I’m wondering if the writers couldn’t make up their minds about him. Eh, I’m okay with Lem being up and down on this graph – it all works okay for me.

Besides, it’s all to back up Ted’s point that they’re all so busy at Veridian that it’s hard to set apart time for personal things. Ted is a devoted father outside of work, but the times when Rose has to come to Veridian’s daycare are times when he’ll do whatever he can throughout the day to spend some time with her, too. It’s clear that he’ll do his best for the company but his daughter is more important to him.  Lem’s figured out ways to have work and personal life occur at the same time, too, even if it is of a different sort… and is ultimately very, very naughty/expensive.

Ted and Veronica’s use of Rose to find out information hits a lot of great beats. First, we (and Ted) understand that Veronica is going to be ruthless trying to get info from Rose, most likely in scary ways. Then, we see Ted get caught up in it and putting pressure on Rose. Then we have the fun little twist of Rose specifically going after a classmate – “There’s something going on there…” I thought this was a fun little storyline…

…but not as fun as seeing Phil as a lemur.  I mean, that drawing is just about perfect, and it’s hard to not imagine Phil is an actual lemur in some sort of human suit from this point on. Of course, we’re hitting the “Linda is unhappy being at Veridian until she’s reminded that she has some good friends there” theme again, but it, too, has a fun twist. I don’t know much about Japanese culture, so I don’t know that they actually try to sell alcohol to children via animated lemurs, but it’s fun to see here in the Better Off Ted universe regardless.

I feel like I haven’t had a lot to say about the last couple of episodes, but next week sees Khandi Alexander show up as Lem’s mom, but (according to the wiki) is also the last appearance of Dr. Bhamba on the show. A mixed bag, certainly.

Bits and pieces:

• “She seemed nice.” – Phil
• “So, what made you get high before work this morning?” – Ted
• “Boy, who’s gonna judge us when you’re gone?” – Ted
• “There were crying Graces everywhere.” – Rose
• “I know you don’t like to eat children, but it’s that kind of talk and your cottage in the woods made of candy that keeps those rumors alive.” – Ted
• There’s a smile Veronica does as Ted’s leaving her office (right after the “cottage in the woods” line) and you can tell she genuinely likes Ted and likes talking to him. It’s a nice humanizing touch for Veronica.
• “I never open [my paycheck] before giving it to my wife. She doesn’t like me snooping into our finances.” – Phil
• “Less Hulk, more Bruce Banner.” – Ted
• “Ugh, there are employees everywhere. It’s like I’m walking through spiderwebs.” – Veronica
• “Purr.” – Nadine
• “Children. So adorable. In a way they’re like people.” – Veronica
• Linda watched four episodes of ALF back-to-back, and I’d kind of like to know which episodes, frankly.  Heck, I’m tempted to make ALF the next subject of our LWST deal here.
• “Somebody out here isn’t using Hush-a-boom technology.” – Rose
• Veronica has a picture of her and Saddam Hussein riding a tandem bike. “That was before he got weird,” says Veronica. I can’t help but connect back to Portia being in Arrested Development and all of the Saddam stuff in there.
• Jeffrey Bouchard throws a bagel – is this a precursor to the game of Linda Bagel?
• “Tased flesh smells bacon-y.” – Ted
• “Maybe I could have my own capade.” – Phil
• “All I have to do is look at Phil and he tells me everything.” – Veronica
• “They make it crazy hard to kill anyone here.” – Linda
• Ted runs kind of funny

Commercial:

Veridian Dynamics. Our team, over 100,000 strong, and we love all of them. Unless they cross us. Then we’ll hunt them down and hurt them, because that’s love, too. Veridian Dynamics. Don’t cross us. Ever. Seriously. Just don’t.

Ideas/Inventions mentioned in this episode:

• Super lice
• Lem’s hearty fish chowder that Veridian sold to the FAA, who uses it to spray down the tarmac when a plane’s coming in for a hard landing
• Hush-a-boom technology, when your army wants to get in and out without waking the neighbors and one of my favorite Veridian inventions ever

Coworkers named/seen:

• Nadine Webson, Lem’s lawyer girlfriend
• Bert Hutchens, Human Resources Chief – “We’re go on Larry Pancow.”
• Larry Pancow, fired guy
• Paul Spielman, one of the company’s best engineers, almost fired
• Jeffrey Bouchard, Seattle/see cattle guy, fired but then not
• Random security dudes

Next week: S02E03 – Battle of the Bulbs

Tags: Better Off Ted, LWST

Written by: Mark