Two Women And A Baby

Babies ruin sitcoms. We all know this. But the genius of Playing House's first season (first of many, I hope!) is that it got me on board even as the imminent arrival of the baby who provides most of the show's premise loomed on the horizon of every episode leading up to the two-part finale, kicking Maggie in the bladder and forcing her to keep the moronic Bruce in her life. I was concerned but hopeful that series creators Lennon Parham and Jessica St. Clair would find a way to work the baby into the show in a way that didn't force all the action to rearrange itself around her (much the way that babies do when they intrude on our real lives: quit being so needy and selfish, babies, damn!) -- and judging by the second of the season's last two episodes, they've figured out a way forward and given us a lot to look forward to.

One of the things that's been great about the first season thus far is how little it's traded in sitcom pregnancy clichés. Cutting the father (mostly) out of the action means there hasn't been craving "comedy" or recrimination of the "you did this to me" variety. Sure, last week's episode found Maggie finally realizing that she could be a mother at literally any time and going into hyper-nesting mode, but prior to that she hadn't let her pregnancy slow her down at all, getting into Bosephus drag to spy on Zach during his first meeting with his internet girlfriend and energetically teaching striptease choreography to a crew of local cops -- marking the first time in TV history that any of us has seen a hugely pregnant lady doing body rolls.

By the time Maggie starts labouring, though, St. Clair and Parham have to bow to some of the standard sitcom tropes, but sneakily, by letting Mark note that Maggie's trip to the hospital hasn't been like "in the movies" right before she lets out your typical corny groan. There's also business with an uncaring nurse and everyone's forgetting to notify the goober father...but it's all pretty fresh from there: I'm pretty sure this is the first time I've seen a sitcom delivery preceded by the mother and her best friend anxiously playing along with the lesbian obstetrician's misapprehension of them as gay fellow travelers so that they'll still get invited to her house on Block Island (and where helping the labouring mother to center herself involves a detailed fantasy of that Block Island retreat, including clams on a hand-painted tray and gifts of luxury goods: "The take-home is cashmere?!").

When I talked about the strengths of the show on the podcast earlier this week (before I'd seen these episodes), I mentioned how well it integrated the emotional beats amid the goofiness, and that was especially true for the penultimate episode, as nearly everyone got to have a moment during the proceedings to underscore gags with real feeling moments. Even stupid Bruce has a story that started with him spending seven hours at a carnival and ended with a sweet explanation for why it was so important to him to win Maggie an inflatable dolphin; the brand-new Dr. Jay tells Emma that Maggie can't get an epidural now, but that she doesn't need one: "The only thing she needs right now is you." And while I managed not to burst into tears at Emma's evocation of the day of Maggie's parents' funeral, and how they got through it together, and that Maggie's late mother is there now in the delivery room and that Maggie just has to take her hand and Emma's hand and get through this, it's only because I had a roomful of people. And as a person who doesn't have children and won't have children but who loves a lot of people who have children AND those children, I appreciate how beautifully Jessica St. Clair plays Emma's joy as she tells Mark the story of the baby's birth.

I also like that the last episode, which takes place six weeks after baby Charlotte's birth, shows the best and worst of parenthood. That opening scene of hysterical desperation ("We need her twinkle star! Find the twinkle star!") and mutual recrimination ("You sound like an old-timey ghost!") between Emma and Maggie should be taught in abstinence-only sex ed classes alongside 16 & Pregnant. But the other side of the equation is Maggie's jealous love of Charlotte and her inability to let go long enough for anyone -- even Emma -- to help her when she needs it, a lesson she needs to have taught to her by a neck-tattooed biker who has to point out to her why having Charlotte in a sling is impeding her pool game. The business with Tina forbidding Mark from seeing Emma is straight out of Friends, but (a) it would be absurd if Birdbones didn't bear continuing resentment over Mark's failure to have ever told her he'd proposed to Emma, and (b) if you're going to steal, you might as well steal from the best. Plus this allows for the possibility of more dating wackiness in Season 2...

...if we get one! As I also noted on the podcast, Playing House's fate is still in question: it has neither been cancelled nor picked up yet. But then, USA took several weeks after the Sirens finale to make a determination on whether that would come back, so it's very possible we have nothing to worry about here, and I really hope we don't. Playing House felt like it came to TV fully formed, which is more than I can say for other modern classic sitcoms like Parks & Recreation or 30 Rock; and now that there can be various kinds of family situations to explore -- what happens when Bruce takes Charlotte overnight for the first time? How about Maggie dating with a baby? -- it can be an even better companion for USA's precious Modern Family reruns. "Remember all those adventures we had when you were pregnant?" gasps an exhausted Emma in that first scene of the finale. "We should do that again, that was fun." "Nope, no more adventures," says Maggie. "Too effing tired." But we know she doesn't mean it! Give the baby to Mary Pat for a few hours and go see how Zach's doing as a doula. There, that's already three episode ideas I've supplied, and I don't even work there. USA: be a buddy and let the professionals make us ten more. Soon.