How to Live with Your
Parents (For the Rest of Your Life)
Episode 5: How to Run
the Show
By: Carlos Uribe
How
to Live With Your Parents (For the Rest of Your Life) is a show about
a single mother who moves in with her parents right after a divorce.
Spoilers
Ahoy!
Who
has the real power in a household? The parents are supposed to be in
charge but many people will argue that their authority has waned over
the last few generations. How to Live with Your Parents decides to
grapple this perspective when Polly finds herself trying to control
Natalie but without being able to say 'no' to her. There might be a
reason for doing this when she remembers back to her own childhood.
Her mom and step-dad were so per-occupied with themselves that they
expected her to take New York City public transportation by herself.
They didn't put the needs of their child first nor did they seem all
too concerned about her safety. There are some viewers out there who
probably saw that and decided that Elaine and Max were terrible
parents who deserved to have their daughter taken away by Child's
Services but it was a different time period. It might be an
out-of-date parenting style but it did have one big advantage.
There's a moment in the episode where the nurse she's dating notes
that his kids can't even take the kiddy train by themselves while at
their age Polly knew the subway like the back of her hand. Max and
Elaine's selfishness forced Polly to become independent while Polly's
parenting style might be making Natalie too dependent for her own
good. Forcing her daughter to remain dependent on her might be what's
causing Natalie to rebel or perhaps it's calling attention to the
lack of discipline in the household. The two parenting styles are
being contrasted but they both lacked discipline. Max and Elaine had
no structure in their parenting style forcing Polly to adapt and
become responsible for taking care of herself. Natalie might have a
more attentive parent but her inability to reject her child's whims
removes any structure that might exist. The lesson that Polly and her
parents learned is that it's best to go in the middle-ground on how
much freedom to allocate to the child which should hopefully come
with a sense of discipline and structure. It's not a bad idea for the
show to explore and, while the writers may not have touched upon the
root of the problem with their parenting styles, the episode did a
good job with it.
The
main plot of the episode has to do with Polly. She can't go on a date
with the nurse she's currently dating because her daughter is taking
too much time of her life. As she notes, it takes hours just to get
Natalie into the car. Her parents decide to step up to the plate and
agree to take care of Natalie. This selfless action quickly gives
into what they really want to do. They decide they're going to take
Natalie with them to a cheese-and-wine festival. Once they get there,
Natalie is bored and complains that she wants to leave. She's acting
like a child but she quickly notices a goat. Max and Elaine realize
they can just tie a balloon to her wrist so that they can keep an eye
on her. The problem? Max picks a balloon that a whole cancer group is
using. They quickly lose Natalie. They go on a desperate search
especially after Polly arrives to the event with her date. Just when
they give up, Natalie finds them because she's thirsty. The
grandparents are happy but they don't want Polly to know they lost
her daughter so they bribe Natalie to stay quiet. A bribe that fails
when Polly catches them buying a goat for Natalie. She forgives them
because she knew they didn't mean to lose Natalie but she remains
annoyed with them for buying a nocturnal animal. She does admit that
she indulges Natalie's desires too much but she's taken the right
steps. When Natalie complains she doesn't want to go home, Polly
leaves her daughter with Julian to help clean up the side of the
road. On it's own, this would have been a pretty sit-commy plot but
it's helped by the other half of the plot.
Polly's
date with the nurse quickly goes a different direction because he's
stuck with his two sons. This is after she accidentally exposed
herself to all three of them. It's kind of surprising how funny the
boy's reactions to seeing her in lingerie was. The two decide to try
and make the date work even as they try to make the two boys happy by
going to fast food. When they're eating in the car and the nurse has
little control over his sons, Polly starts to realize the weaknesses
in her parenting style. It isn't until they're forced to eat the
burgers in the kiddie train while being hit by plastic hammers that
the two have had enough. They take a stand against letting their kids
control their lives. When the two boys try to protest, Polly leaves
them with her ex-husband to help him clean up the highway he adopted.
The nurse and Polly end up going to the wine-and-cheese festival
where they have a good time as adults. This half of the plot is very
bare-bones. It has a lot of great moments but it functions well
because of what Max and Elaine are up to. The two sides learn the
problems with their parenting styles and agree on the middle. It's a
little clean and there's a feeling this would only happen on
television but I still think they work well to compliment each other.
If they didn't have the same theme then the plots would have felt
even more sit-commish, pointless, and there wouldn't have been the
sense of focus that tonight had. It's yet another episode that proves
me right that this is a show that's best when it's about having to
raise Natalie or any kids for that matter.
How
to Run the Show is a pretty basic episode of television. The two
plots are pretty simple and there aren't any twists that lead to an
outcome I wasn't expecting. It's not reinveting the wheel but it
doesn't need to. What it does instead is show that the writers are on
the right track. They're concentrating more on what's working:
stories about parenting. They are also creating plots that feel
organic and together rather than separate to explore one single
theme. It's not the best episode as there were many moments where the
comedy felt forced or the interactions could have used some work. The
white arrows and words still need to be phased out but at least the
voice-over narration stopped sticking out like a sore thumb. The
theme was nice but it missed a key component in what both parenting
styles lack which made the resolution underwhelm. Overall, it's a
pretty good episode in what is turning out to be a pretty fun show to
watch. It might not earn any accolades but it's starting to earn a
place on the Wednesday night comedy block. How to Run a Show is a
step in the right direction towards creating a solid and consistent
comedy.
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