Thank you for the upload, Sparky!
I probably wouldn't have been able to see either this or "Let Your Hare Down" for
months if not for your generosity and diligence. You treat us lowlifes far better than we deserve, you know that?
As for the episode? Good stuff; one of the straight-out funniest episodes of
Foster's for a good long while.
When first I heard about this episode's outline, I was what can best be described as cautiously optimistic. Jackie Khones has always been the funniest and most memorable of the second-tier characters, and his growing presence was one of the unmitigated successes of Season Five, but I was a touch wary about dedicating an entire episode to a single character, not least in the context of a full-length genre parody; the last time they attempted this was Season Five's "The Bloo Superdude and the Magic Potato of Power", an undoubtedly unique and imaginative effort, but one whose narrow character focus and atypical setting felt a little out of kilter with the show's established identity. The title and concept were strong enough to assure me that this episode would be at least witty, but after the unbalanced Season Five premiere "Cheese A Go-Go", I was keen for Season Six to kick off with something a slightly more grassroots
Foster's experience.
That wasn't, in the end, what we got, but you'd have to be pretty churlish to resent it for that, given what a consistently funny, absurd and winningly daft story this turned out to be, and one which can legitimately be said to have broadened the show's horizons. Most of this, of course, can be credited to the hilarious, character-enhancing work the occasionally controversial Darrick Bachman does with our eponymous hero Jackie Khones. We all knew and loved Jackie already for his deadpan sardonicism and ridiculous voice (for his appearance), but aside from an occasionally referenced penchant for sandwiches, he wasn't that clearly defined; Bachman takes full advantage of that clean slate, fully fleshing out Jackie as a largely clueless yet defiantly self-obsessed and strutting would-be smooth operator, who seems to believe that a women's lavatory is an appropriate place to base a detective agency, and whose fondness for food seems in actuality to border on obsessive compulsion. This is, needless to say, really funny, and provides no end of laughs; his inattentiveness to Mac's dilemma, unjustified air of self-satisfaction and overblown driving montages were constantly amusing, whilst Wilt's line about his non-culpability in initiating World War I - a joke which I liked all the more for playing on our understanding of Wilt
and Jackie's characters - was funny enough for me to have to pause for thirty seconds so I could finish laughing at it.
What's perhaps even better, though, is the fact that this episode has now provided the Season Six writers with another complete character to work with; Jackie is now a developed enough personality to warrant regular inclusion as a narrative and comedic driving force, rather than as the basic punchline character he was before. Here's hoping we'll see that potential fulfilled over the coming weeks.
Great though Mr Khones was, though, he wasn't the only success story here. As, er...
mixed as the reception for "The Little Peas" was, I think we can all agree that no one will be forgetting Jackie's "interactions" with Fluffer Nutter any time soon; sure enough, his partner-in-crime returns here, and occasionally threatens to steal his show from beneath him. Fluffer's another character who's potentially well on her way to stardom; I had her pegged as a blandly cute background character until she revealed her underlying spikiness in "Schlock Star", and she's great here as Jackie's long-suffering PA (as has been pointed out, her "
Yeah, he's...doin' somethin' else" line is brilliantly understated). With Madame Foster and Coco increasingly marginalised and Duchess and Goo essentially AWOL, an expanded role for such a great female character wouldn't go amiss right now...Mac and Bloo get a relatively small but significant look in, too, which helped in grounding the episode in familiarity; Mac was a little shrieky at times, but otherwise did his weary straight man thing to good effect, whilst Bloo had a very entertaining red herring cameo that actually had me fooled for a while. Oh, and Wilt?
Deviled eggs. Enough said, really;
man, I've missed Wilt.
Still, there were a couple of minor issues with the episode that are worth mentioning. Maybe it's because I was spoiled by "Let Your Hare Down", which seemed to bend over backwards to encompass every part of the
Foster's experience, but "Library Crook", with its greatly reduced castlist, did occasionally feel like something was missing from it. To an extent, it's a harsh point to make, as this was always going to be a specialised episode, but for me it was a weakness across the whole of Season Five that certain characters were neglected or underused, robbing the show of some of its dimensions. With Season Six kicking off with an episode lacking even an appearance from Frankie, Coco, Madame Foster or Mr. Herriman, I feel it's natural to have a few reservations, though hopefully they'll prove to be unfounded. I've also got to concur with Lynnie that Eduardo, over the last year or so, feels as though he's been written into a corner somewhat; with the exception of his Season Five spotlight episode "Better Off Ed", it just seems like he's being painted with broader and broader brushstrokes, so he's starting to become more of a one-note hysterical man-child rather than the naively innocent creature he's supposed to be. Neither of these problems is beyond salvage, though, so I'll wait and see what happens.
Well, I got a little carried away with typing there, but I'm taking that as a good sign.
Foster's is well and truly back on my radar again, and my thoughts, based on the evidence, are largely optimistic; if the last two episodes are anything to go by, the show is in the rudest health it's been in for some time, which bodes very well for the weeks to come.
Boo-yah, indeed.
