This week’s Franklin & Bash was a rollercoaster ride of guest stars, mom jokes, and betrayal. I’ve been really pleased with the direction season 4 has taken thus far, and I was still not disappointed this week. It’s not easy for a show to lose 3 main cast members and still pull off one of its better seasons. Franklin & Bash has accomplished that. This episode’s parade of guest stars (while awesome) didn’t detract from the elements that make the show great, like the relationship between Peter and Jared, the rivalry with Karp, and the unorthodox tactics to win cases.
Guest stars, which I’ve previously mentioned as one of the shows strengths, were aplenty in this episode, but they were headlined by the return of Jane Seymour as Colleen (Peter’s mom) and Kumail Nanjiani as Pindar Singh, main cast member from Seasons 1-3. Colleen…er….woke up next to Jared in the beginning of the episode, which stemmed most of the major comedic AND dramatic plot points in the episode. Pindar, on the other hand, returned for a short stay before his wedding to a Scandinavian princess who needed financial aid, hid in the shadows on video chat, and bore a striking resemblance to Carmen Electra (and was also played by Carmen Electra…when she turned out to be real). Nanjiani was one of my favorite cast members before his departure to take the much higher profile role on Silicon Valley, but it’s good to see that he didn’t forget his roots. Of course, this episode was ripe with other guest stars, such as Chuck‘s Mark Christopher Lawrence, Cheers’ George Wendt (NOOOOORM!!!!!), and Psych‘s Kurt Fuller. This episode was basically a TV junkie’s dream.
Pindar’s presence in the episode was perhaps my favorite element. Not only was it a treat for longtime Franklin & Bash fans, but it was a symbolic passing of the reigns to Dan Mundy (Anthony Ordonez) as the boys new housemate and quirky friend. Pindar and Dan hit it off, and Pindar’s approval seemed to help ease Dan into Peter and Jared’s lives. I previously listed Dan as one of my favorite new elements of the show, so I’m totally okay with his continued presence.
There was a lot of drama and comedy to be had around the “incident” between Jared and Peter’s mom. Jared felt awful, Peter was surprisingly cool, Karp found out, and Stanton was no help at all. For the first half of the episode, Peter didn’t know and Jared was feeling pretty bad about it. As the episode progressed, Peter finds out, was cool about it, and then loses it on Jared in court. Of course, they were able to play off their little outburst as a classic F&B tactic, and nobody was the wiser. Also, Colleen wanted to help Jared get over Swatello, but I have a feeling the Swanklin/Fratello train hasn’t left the station just yet.
It was clever to use the D & D Diner as the client for the episode. The diner has been a part of the show since day 1, and Peter and Jared’s lives even longer. Peter and Jared have one of the strongest bonds of any friends on television right now, and with something as earth shattering as the mother incident, saving the diner was perhaps the one thing that could save their friendship and still make them stronger. It was the only thing that could work, but it did.
This was perhaps my favorite episode of Franklin & Bash this season. It was sweet, heartwarming, funny, and riddled with “Hey! I know that guy/girl!” moments. Everything that this show does well was up a notch for this episode. Well done, TNT. The one criticism I could possibly have is a simple overuse of mom jokes, but if any episode warranted said mom jokes, it was this one.
I was too busy taking in this fun episode to write down any favorite quotes, so I’m just gonna go ahead and recommend that you watch this episode. It’s worth your time.
What did you think? Was this another win for Franklin & Bash? Or were the mom jokes too much? Let us know!
[Photo via TNT]
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