Is there anything better than a Halloween episode? If you said a Christmas episode you are wrong, but I appreciate you saying it alone to yourself in your cubicle like a mad man. Or woman. On last night’s Spooky Endings ep, Jane (dressed as a piece of bacon) and Brad (dressed as nothing, as he intentionally forgot his eggs costume) have to spend the best night of the year house-sitting in the suburbs. Jane squees at the amount of square footage and the good schools nearby; Brad pouts until he find out about the glorious backyard hot tub in their future. Unfortunately they have no idea how hardcore trick-or-treating gets in the ‘burbs (I still wake up screaming out of a dead sleep when I remember), and things take a dark, egg-throwing, door-stealing, cake-hurling turn when the neighborhood kids discover that the couple has run out of candy. Luckily Jane and Brad realize through it all that they love each other and want to have kids and maybe the suburbs wouldn’t be such a bad place to live, and the whole time I’m wondering how much it’s going to cost to get that door replaced, because the frame it goes in is HUGE.
At the big warehouse party attended by the rest of the gang, Penny and Max foolishly agree to go in a couple’s costume, which seemingly requires Max to squat the entire time as the infant in Penny’s Baby Bjorn. Despite being forced to stick together all evening, they inevitably meet two hunky dudes they are each respectively interested in: Abraham Lincoln as played by Matt Besser for Penny, Top Gun as played by ZZ Top for Max. Due to some unfortunately underwear -related decisions, they are forced to shuffle between Abe and the “weird gay turkey party” being held by Max’s buffet-loving prospect. When it comes to couple’s costumes worn by non-romantic partners, there can be no winners.
Alex and Dave take on a more sizable storyline this week, which I felt successfully acknowledged their continuing antagonism as exes while still allowing room for Alex to be mistaken for a man in drag. Finally freed from the shackles of The Couple’s Costume, Dave busts out his Austin Powers suit 10 years too late or 3 years too early. Alex channels Marilyn Monroe (this is supposed to take place in Chicago and not one mention of the ginormous Monroe statue downtown? For. Shame.), but her raspy flu voice has a charming party goer convinced she’s a MAN, baby. We all see what we want to see, I guess. Dave stews and smirks while Alex makes a series of ambiguous blunders (explaining how she wasn’t going to “come out” that night, that she got her boobs in the eighth grade, how it wouldn’t be fair if she entered the drag competition) until the miscommunication comes to light. “I can’t wait to see your penis,” her hook-up enthuses. Luckily Alex has the strength to carry on and win second overall in the drag show, runner up to Max in Penny’s one-piece. Seeing Matt Besser’s face jut awkwardly from Casey Wilson’s abdomen in the show’s last minutes seems appropriately, festively haunting.
