Mike & Molly

Mike & Molly

Episode 21: Bachelor/Bachelorette

By: Carlos Uribe

Mike & Molly is a show about two fat people in love.

Spoilers Ahoy!

As the series goes towards the wedding in the season finale, this episode was obvious. The Bachelor Party and the Bachelorette Party always come before the wedding and they usually create some drama. On television, this drama is mostly between the bride and the groom. This episode decided to create a different kind of conflict, a type of conflict that can only happen with the right circumstances. The episode begins with Mike and Carl talking about the bachelor party. Carl is planning to take Mike and their friends to a strip club, but they want to make sure they are going to go to the right strip club. It's during this conversation that the viewers are introduced to a character that is often referenced but never before seen. This familiar and yet new character is Mike's dad. He's coming for the wedding, but he surprises our titular hero by showing up a week early unannounced. This sets of a lot of the events for the rest of the episode.

Mike's dad, Jack, is an interesting, albeit familiar, character. He comes to Chicago a week early because he is having marriage problems. He does seem to want for his current marriage to survive, but no details are provided on what is causing these problems. He regrets running away and leaving Mike, but he definably does not regret leaving Peggy behind. It sounds like he was utterly miserable while he was married to her and that he made a huge mistake with her. It's starting to be likely that the only reason he even wed her in the first place was because he had gotten her pregnant. He regrets his years with her but he doesn't regret the product of those years and that is his son. He notes in this episode that he is proud that his son has become the man that he is in-spite of himself. It's nice to be able to put a face to him since we've mostly learned about him from Peggy's perspective. He is a human being and it's clear that he's not perfect.

Jack's return to town comes as a surprise to Peggy. She was planning on skipping Molly's bachelorette party and staying home until she learned that Jack was staying over at Molly's house. She changes her mind and decides to go. When she arrives, she is dressed up like a prostitute and is all dirty. She even hired Molly a cop stripper. It's evident that she only did this because she wanted to show Jack what he ran away from, but her efforts aren't successful. He has left the house by the time she arrives and when they finally do meet, he doesn't recognize her since she looks so different. Peggy might claim that she is not holding a grudge, but it's evident that she is. Jack might be a human being but he really did hurt Peggy when he betrayed her. This added layer is really what made this episode good. What I liked about this entire episode is that the show has managed to make Jack likeable. It might be because Peggy can be so unlikeable or it might just be because the actor and the script managed to bring out the humanity in the character.

This was a great episode of Mike & Molly and it was actually a good episode of television. A lot of the jokes didn't make me laugh, but there were actual moments where I chuckled. I don't watch this comedy for the humor, but for the characters. This show has very well-defined characters that often feel human, except for a few, and this episode continued to develop and evolve Peggy while giving us a Jack we can all like. It also made me really want to see the first scene where Jack and Peggy actually meet. This episode doesn't count since they really don't interact, but here's hoping that Jack is able to give Peggy some closure.