About half an hour ago, I let loose my frustrations on the whitewashing of Continental Asian characters in my review of the pilot episode of I Feel Bad. I decided to give it a full three episodes before I wrote the series off as just more self-hating drivel trying to appease to an Anglo-Saxon audience at the expense of our immigrant parents.
Well, although this episode entitled, I Get Sick of Being Needed is better than I Don’t Want to Turn into my Mother, I still am having trouble shaking off those feelings from such a short time ago.
This two’fer night spins the second episode into the ultra busy mom lifestyle. Dad is a lazy bum that can’t do anything on his own, the kids need to to be disciplined and at the end of it, she just can’t say no to anyone, including the semi-racist, rich spiritualist neighbor.
The only line I found funny and yes, racist…is when David (Paul Adelstein) suggests they put her parents up in a hotel while their place is being fumigated and Emet (Sarayu Blue) says, “What like they’re white parents? Why don’t you just spit on them? Okay, they are going to stay here and will be terrible.”
Again the beta, geek, brain trust tries to explain masculinity while failing at being male all together. I found out what, “manspreading,” is, which is something I never unlearn.
Luckily, Maya (Madhur Jaffrey) and Sonny (Brian George) are still the funniest part of the series thus far and hopefully get bigger roles as the series moves along. Blue is really funny and as the writing improves (I doubled my laughter from once in the pilot to two this episode), so too will the use of her comedic skills.
At the end of day, if you’re a man who treats his wife like a second mom, step it up. Your job as a man is to be a man, not a child who needs to be babied. Get off your ass and help your lady out.
Let’s hope this finally breaks away from generic, one dimensional characters and give these actors the type of roles they deserve.
I Feel Bad airs at 9:30 p.m. on Thursdays on NBC.
- Overall Score
Summary
Eh it’s better, let’s see how episode three goes.