Playing House Keeps It Right And Tight In Season 2

Some of us (barely) lived through the cancellation of Best Friends Forever, Lennon Parham and Jessica St. Clair's brilliant first sitcom. And some of us were, therefore, so grateful that sophomore project Playing House at least got a standard-sized first-season order, of which every episode aired -- each a perfect gem -- that we hardly dared hope we'd get more. And as time ticked on after its Season 1 finale, it seemed less and less like USA was going to figure its shit out and bring us a second season, but it finally did...almost six whole months later. Elation about the renewal brought a lesser anxiety: what if St. Clair and Parham used up all their great ideas in the first season on the assumption that there wouldn't be another? What if my optimism after Part 2 of the Season 1 finale was misplaced and the baby really did ruin everything forever?

GOOD NEWS, FRIENDS: Season 2 starts tonight, and it's just as wonderful as you hoped it would be in your wildest dreams.

Since I know you are ALL GOING TO WATCH, I'll just give you the overview without spoiling any jokes. The first episode (two new episodes will air back to back this first week; after this it'll just be one episode per week) opens with Maggie, Emma, and Charlotte -- now six months old -- sitting for a family portrait at a local studio run by a typical Pinebrook weirdo. (Said weirdo is played by a perfectly cast Matt Besser, joining his fellow Upright Citizens Brigade founder Ian Roberts, who played a cop in Season 1, in supporting their former improv students Parham and St. Clair.) Since the photographer misapprehends the nature of Emma and Maggie's relationship, calling them both "Mom," they go through a rapid-fire recap of the premise of the show that will satisfy any newcomers...and end with Emma looking ridiculous, as she is wont to do, but bearing up in order to give Maggie a special moment...and, unfortunately, a special keepsake that will hang forever in Maggie's front hall. This? Is friendship.

The rest of the episode doesn't just assure the viewer that while Charlotte is in a lot of scenes, she is almost never their focus; it also does some important work with a character who, in the show's first season, came the closest of any we knew to being expendable: of course, I am speaking of Bruce. In Season 1, the more we came to know about Bruce, the less sense it made that he and Maggie had ever had more than two conversations, never mind that they'd been married for years. His propensity to be a fuckup led directly to their divorce (godspeed, MunichMuncher69), and once he was on his own, he seemed to be hard at work destroying every tie he still had to civilized society; when Maggie went into labour in the season's penultimate episode, it wasn't that much of a shock when literally everyone forgot to call and tell him. But I'm pleased to report that Bruce has been touched by the same kind of fairy dust that anointed Andy Dwyer between the first and second seasons of Parks & Recreation: he's still a goon, but he's starting to evolve into a goon with good intentions, and Brad Morris (who plays Bruce) does very nice and toned-down work in a storyline that finds him making tomato sauce with his gruff and exacting mother, Mary Pat. Bruce also gets some fun duncle -- dad and uncle -- time looking after Charlotte with Maggie's brother Zach in the second of this week's two episodes, including after a moment involving Charlotte making a mess with her bodily excreta at an inopportune moment and location; Bruce isn't thrilled about it, but he manages to maintain his composure while Zach falls apart. Come on, Zach: if you're really planning to become a doula, this is the least of what you'll be up against.

I know it's been a long time since I mentioned Birdbones, so let me assure you that she does return tonight, and that her ban on any contact between Emma and Mark is addressed in pretty much the awesomest way. (In the course of this, we also get to see the inside of Birdbones's downstairs linen closet, and if you miss the episode tonight, you're for sure going to see it on some Pinterest boards tomorrow: it's heaven. Hey, she's mostly a horror, but she does get some things right!) The second episode finds Emma trying to convince Maggie that it's time for her to go out and get her body worked, leading to some Emma-assisted speed-dating with some eligible Pinebrook gentlemen, as well as some total freak monsters, just as you would hope. If you didn't get enough Rich Sommer in his tiny role in Wet Hot American Summer: First Day Of Camp, look out for him as one of Maggie's suitors, and hope for her sake that his guy isn't too much/at all like Harry Crane.

As soon as I was reassured that Playing House was going to keep being awesome, I quickly segued to feeling impatient for next week to come, bringing with it a new episode to devour, while crying laughing. This is truly a unicorn: a show that almost anyone can be charmed by and, by the end of half an hour, really adore. Let's all try to make it a hit so we get a Season 3 pickup before the presidential primaries or something.

Playing House airs Tuesdays at 10 PM ET on USA.