Conflict hasn’t come easy for The Grinder; for the most part, any drama generated on the show has come from Dean’s immature machinations, blowing situations and ideas comically out of proportion. At times, the emotional rabbit holes Dean falls into can provide illuminating windows into the relationships that ultimately define his life; more often, however, it leaves much of The Grinder feeling thin, a single comedic idea navigated by one-note characters, utilizing a clever (if blindingly overt) meta layer on top to disguise some of its more underwhelming features.
Much of “The Exodus” adheres to this standard formula: when Dean suddenly decides to move all of his stuff into Stewart’s home, Debbie pushes her husband to inquire about what Dean’s plan was moving forward. Of course, Dean took this as an affront to his attempts to reintegrate with his family, and proceeds to spend the entire episode pouting and whining about how his brother was rejecting him; Dean, the same man who has knowingly run rampant through Stewart’s life for the past three months, offending his co-workers, interfering with the legal process, and affecting the upbringing of his children. He spends much of the first half of “Exodus” seeking the same empathy he does from those other moments, without nary a reminder of what actually makes his character an empathetic presence (trying to evolve as a human being, recovering from being told he was old news by the powers that be at the network, being replaced on his own show, etc.).
Rather, much of “The Exodus” is spent with him trying to contrive emotional responses out of his brother; there’s no balance to these scenes, Rob Lowe’s overwhelming performance as Dean burying whatever fun little moments The Grinder finds on the edges of its fictional reality (like Juror #11, or the lawyer bros who Dean decides to work for). And supported by a B-story that sees Debbie taking advantage of Dean’s Latino stand-in as her personal home maker, “The Exodus” doesn’t really have a lot to fall back on – so it’s a surprise when The Grinder actually utilizes all the nonsense it generates to engineer a meaningful moment at the very end, the first time The Grinder‘s introduced some sort of meaningful, lasting conflict between Dean and Stewart, one that can’t be neatly resolved in the opening minutes of next week’s episode.
Unfortunately, what precedes it is a lot of the same nonsense that’s fueled other arcs; when Stewart expresses his frustration at Dean’s childish response to anything in life, it becomes the show’s most subtle (and probably unintentional) meta moment; while the show’s previous discussions about character consistently certainly allow for Dean to be a pain in the ass on a weekly basis, the outlandish, selfish nature with which they deliver that consistency makes him a very hard character to be empathetic for. In episodes where The Grinder has some meaningful pathos behind that immaturity (like exploring what made Dean leave the fictional The Grinder behind), that behavior feels more informed, and thus natural: when he flies off the handle at the beginning of “The Exodus”, it feels like the show forcing itself into a major conflict by selling its main character short, in turn making the final, moving moments of “Part 1” a lot less engaging and meaningful as they could’ve been elsewhere, with other characters helping fuel the fires of dissatisfaction burning inside Dean.
Relying too much on Dean’s consistently self-serving, tunnel visioned approach to life sells a lot of “The Exodus” short – and with yet another plot that reduces Debbie’s character to a handful of stereotypical sitcom wife tropes underneath it, there isn’t a lot of ancillary material to pick up the slack. Sure, that final scene has an emotional tinge to it – but again, nobody is pushing Dean away but Dean himself, and that one-sided nature to the conflict makes that moment feel engineered. Whether that is intentional or not is the question; how The Grinder plays it, it certainly feels like its taking itself seriously, an odd decision in an episode full of weird, unsatisfying choices. The Grinder certainly has lost its momentum at the beginning of 2016; here’s hoping the conclusion of “The Exodus” and whatever comes next fares a lot better than the introduction did.
Other thoughts/observations:
- There’s some buzz I’m seeing around the internet about people calling The Grinder “the next Arrested Development.” No. Just no. The characters aren’t as well-developed, the plot barely works on one level (much less four or five at the same time), and The Grinder‘s ability to turn terrible people into slightly empathetic creatures is nowhere near as refined.
- Taco nights are ALWAYS the best.
- Dean calls Stewart a “raging butt hole” at one point, which seems…. out of character? I don’t know, but that line felt really out of place for The Grinder.
- “I was on a bunch of pills and strangled a nurse – does that count?” The Grinder may miss the mark on its main characters, but boy, does it nail the people it presents on the fringes of its world.
- Ok, the whole Andre subplot (both how he was Dean’s stand-in, and his whole story with Debbie) was just really weird.
- I see the meta humor in the opening scene, talking about discussing an episode before seeing its conclusion in the next episode or not – but there’s really not much funny, enlightening, or thoughtful in those observations. Odd way to open the episode.
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