Cougar Town, "Ain't Love Strange": and so it is

Quick Take: Cougar Town, “Ain’t Love Strange”
"Yes, it's still called that. We're upset, too." - Opening credits

Review: Cougar Town, “Ain’t Love Strange”
(S0301) Even though Cougar Town still has a long, uncertain stretch to go before Bill Lawrence can prove to me that it’s a better comedy than his previous masterpiece, Scrubs, I’ll continue to give it a chance. Sitcoms usually take a few episodes for the writers to hit their stride, but, perhaps due to their extended hiatus, “Ain’t Love Strange” made a perfectly-paced return with a Valentine’s Day vibe without being about Valentine’s Day.

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The residents of Cougar Town are as quirky and quarrelsome as ever, seeing the return of blossoming lovers Jules (Courtney Cox) and Grayson (Josh Hopkins), panicking parents Ellie (Christa Miller) and Andy Torres (Ian Gomez), bubbly party-girl Laurie (Busy Phillipps), and Jules’ ex-husband, Bobby Cobb (Brian Van Holt) and their son Travis (Dan Byrd).

With Travis enrolled in college, Bobby sees fit to furnish his son’s shared house with a beast of a dog. He has ulterior motives, but he gets so caught up in using Travis’ green screen that he doesn’t quite get around to it. For such a simple gesture, giving a character on a sitcom a green screen can have some obvious and absurd implications; never mind what a character on Cougar Town would do with one.

Jules eventually takes advantage of what the green screen has to offer, too, giving us – and Travis – a taste of what to expect this season. Before that, however, Grayson leads Jules on by suggesting that she’s very predictable, anticipating her every ensuing response to such an outlandishly accurate accusation. He gets her to tepee one of her empty real estate listings in toilet paper as a perceived act of prank-revenge, then gets down on one knee and proposes in the best fairy-tale setting he can manufacture.

Ellie and Andy, meanwhile, are struggling to cope with their son’s apparent Damien-syndrome. It’s not so much of a medical diagnosis as it is something I made up, but I’d be slightly put off by a toddler roaming the suburbs, taking out patio lights with a hammer. When Laurie steps in to cover for the fearful mother and father, she makes quite an impact on the kid, making Ellie realize that if her son’s not going to be a devil-child, he’s going to be just like Laurie. If only she knew which was the lesser of two evils.