Cougar Town Ep. 2: Into the Great Wide Open

Posted on 01. Oct, 2009 by John Roblinsky in Cougar Town

I like Cougar Town’s short opening title sequence.  Was it the best part of tonight’s episode?

Save for five seconds with the redhead cougar Barb throwing her leg up on a younger man, there was nothing ‘cougar’ about tonight’s episode.

The show begins with Jules (Courtney Cox) kicking last weeks prey Josh out the door at 5am after what a viewer would assume is a late night booty call.

However–even though they reference doing it three times in last week’s pilot–the second scene of tonight’s show has Ellie (Crista Miller) and Jules making allusions to some ten date rule. Halfway through the episode Mr. Tall, Young & Handsome, Josh reappears and Jules and he begin talking about how they haven’t had sex yet!  I can only assume this is some sort of ploy to feign Disney values.  I’m going to ignore this ten date untruth and continue to insist Josh and Jules are copulating copiously.

I digress, the theme of Into the Great Wide Open is that Jules, “hates the feeling that [she] missed out on everything.” She spends the majority of the episode hanging with her assistant Laurie (Busy Phillips) trying to relive the 20s she never had thanks to getting knocked up so young.

Forgive me for another tangent, but is Jules the best real estate agent in Cougar Town?  Her ex is a deadbeat, she lives in what looks like a $mil house, drives a convertible Lex and has an assistant.  Also she’s been trying to sell just one house for two episodes now.  Yes, TV is not real, but the only bitches that I know who roll like that: work all the time, are good at what they do, and don’t wait ten dates to fuck a strange young man.

Tonight’s episode did have an awesome party montage about ten minutes in.

Later in the episode, a classic youth mistake is revealed when Laurie exclaims, “Saturday’s the best night to go out.”  Any veteran HuntingCougar reader will know Saturday is for amateurs!  Jules attempts to rage on Saturday after over-partying on Friday and being hungover for half the episode but fails.

Another annoying part to the show was Jules’ incessant  flirting with her neighbor Grayson (Josh Hopkins).  Grayson owns a restaurant, is crushing young hoes, and fancies himself a Sean Connery style older gentlemen by his comment, “men get cuter with age.” Jules’ playground crush on Grayson is more Desperate Housewife than a man-hungry cougar.

Tonight’s laughs came from Jules’ ex, Bobby (Brian Van Hart) who rode around in a golf cart wearing driving goggles.  Another attempt to show how 40-somethings can still have 20-something fun, but resigned losers are always good for a laugh.

Going forward, this show is going to lose me if Jules doesn’t abandon the ten date rule and grow some claws.  Her insecurities about missing out on her 20s were not sexy and the audience is left puzzled as to why Hunter Josh is sticking around if they are not fucking because Jules doesn’t appear to be engaging him in any other way.  Too early in the season to comment on the trajectory of the story-line.  Tune in next week…

Tags: 20s, ABC, Cougar Town, cougartown, tv