After taking a week off for the World Series, The Grinder returns this week with “A Bittersweet Grind,” an episode with its priorities torn between Dean’s struggles to find an emotional connection and the Sanderson children pushing their parents on having members of the opposite sex over to the house. Essentially, it works both ends of the sexual spectrum, with the unsatisfied adult and the curious adolescent serving as the two points between which Stewart and Debbie have to exist in this episode; unfortunately, the spotlight is shining so brightly on Dean, there’s no room for the episode to expand on any of its other, arguably more rewarding stories.
The central conflict of “A Bittersweet Grind” is pretty simple: Dean just wants to date someone who doesn’t care that he’s a famous actor. Not an unfamiliar concept to a sitcom, but easy enough, right? Well, “A Bittersweet Grind” gets off to a rough start with this story, where the first scene is Dean having sex with a woman, after he admits he’s pretty turned off by her obsession with the faux The Grinder; although he defines every single second of his life, both personally and professionally, by that persona, he suddenly doesn’t want it involved in his personal life in any way. Totally believable, but not one that feels realistic in practice: ultimately, this episode is about how he Grinder’s away an old girlfriend, by discovering her lies about following his career in Hollywood (a SEVERELY underutilized Christina Applegate, who feels like she should be part of this show’s ensemble in some form).
In the middle of this story is where it gets the ugliest, however, with Dean berating Claire at every point for having emotional reactions (which she was not) to Dean’s new love interest. It’s literally the only reason why she shows up in this episode, her character reduced to “no, I’m not!” reactions in a lame attempt to build humor out of the office (Todd’s character grows closer and closer to Stevie Janikowski each week, by the way, which is not a good thing). Those office scenes are so disappointing and disheartening; not only does The Grinder make it hard to engage with Dean’s conflicted philosophies, but they make him downright off-putting with his constant attempts to poke Claire’s assumed infatuation with him, especially when they don’t really give her much of a voice in response.
With such a dominating amount of time spent with Dean’s sexual disappointments (let’s not forget: he still sleeps with Applegate’s character in the end), it’s hard for the real interesting story of the episode to come to life, with Stew and Debbie trying to figure out how to navigate their children’s slowly growing sexuality. Their double standard with Lizzie and Ethan this episode uncovers is the most intriguing concept of the episode: how do parents allow their male child to begin dating, while preventing their female child from doing the same thing? If Ethan is going to potentially defile anyone’s daughter (which of course, they aren’t – both of these kids are as young and innocent as they’re portrayed), aren’t they just allowing him to do, what they’re trying to avoid happening with Lizzie?
Unfortunately, “A Bittersweet Grind” really doesn’t engage with this conflict, throwing the plot away when Ethan gets caught making out with his date on the couch, and focusing instead on consoling Dean through this “rough” time in his life, when the only thing he can do is run around the city without worrying about a paycheck, having lots of sex and living rent-free in his brother’s house. It makes for a very ignorant half hour of television, one only willing to engage with the most superficial aspects of the comedy and pathos it tries to introduce – and because of that, feels like a missed opportunity – not to mention the waste of a fantastic guest star, ultimately this episode’s most significant failure.
[Photo credit: Greg Gayne/FOX]
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