New show - The New Normal, pilot

Pic By Nick Step (http://www.flickr.com/photos/nickstep/5923245617/) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

There’s another show up early on hulu.com! This is a Ryan Murphy show. Oh yay! That means the first season is going to be really good and it will only start sucking next year! On this show, Bryan Collins is like a grown Kurt Hummel. His partner is David Murray, a doctor and sports lover. He’s the level-headed one in the relationship. Nene Leakes is an assistant or something working for them. We’re so glad she’s on this show. She’s surprisingly funny and good as an actress. She isn’t great, but she has an amusing way about her. Bryan is making a videos for his future child. He says, “This video is to show you how desperately you were wanted and how much we love you.” He sells the line and we tear up.

David and Bryan meet Goldie Clemmons, a single mom whose man just cheated on her. Her daughter is Shania Clemons, and they also have a racist grandma named Jane Forrest. The grandma is played by Ellen Barkin, who has really aged since we last saw her. But we should be so lucky to look that good at 58. We loved Goldie’s reaction when she caught her man cheating. We also like little Shania’s reaction to her great-grandmother: “Nana, you’re a bigot. I’m unfriending you right now.” Shania is not annoying at all. She’s a sweet little nerd child. Sometimes she’s too wise for her years to be believable. Like in the beach scene.

Goldie dreamed of being a lawyer before she became pregnant at 15. “I wanted to be a lawyer. Wear expensive suits, be independent, and not need a man.” Oh, honey. Being a lawyer is more work and more stressful than pleasing a man. Fact. If you want to argue with us, Erm will take off her clothes and make a sandwich while you do 40 hours of research and then stand in front of someone, be it boss, client, or judge, who will probably end up yelling at you. At least raising kids gets you JOY. Goldie decides to become a surrogate mom to carry David and Bryan’s baby, much to her grandmother’s disdain. We liked the grandma character. It’s not cartoonish. Honestly, we know enough people like that to be able to say that real bigots are actually WORSE.

We don’t like the show’s title. It’s more of a political point and persuasive phrase than a title. We know this show is making the point that straight people sometimes have babies as an accident before they are ready and while they are still children. Gay couples plan, want, work, and fully prepare for their children. The argument makes a heck of a lot of sense. The show is funny. Remember Sue Sylvester’s best one-liners? Ryan Murphy stopped giving them to her and put them on this show instead. We didn’t like all the jokes about how they don’t want a fat child. Gwyneth Paltrow guest starred as the egg donor who “looks a lot like Gwyneth Paltrow.”

At the end of the episode, Bryan and David wait for the results of a take-home pregnancy test and present Goldie with a present. They want to help make her dreams come true too. They picked out a blue suit for her to wear when she is a lawyer. For court, you want to go for black or grey. Nothing attention-getting or cute. But she could wear the blue one around the office. Maybe. The episode ends on a cliffhanger. We don’t know if she’s pregnant. We know she will be though, right? We can’t believe someone would boycott this sweet show that isn’t a threat to anyone at all. One of us goes back and forth on the homosexuality issue (and the other firmly supports gay rights), but even Ann Romney can enjoy Modern Family, so we can too. This pilot was cute, funny, well-constructed, and not at all awkward in tone.

Episode grade: A-