Even though the Valentine’s Day special preceded the rest of the season by about six months, this episode follows pretty directly from “My Furry Valentine,” with important plot points from the special carrying over here (some spoilers from “My Furry Valentine.”)
After a sex-starved Jay causes an accident in shop class, the school reacts by implementing a dress code designed to keep all the “strong empowered young women” safe from the boys, who are “animals who can’t control themselves.” Translation? All the restrictions are aimed at girls’ clothing. The girls decide to protest the dress code, but the circumstances place both Jessi and Missy in uncomfortable positions. Meanwhile, Andrew is still trying to reconcile with the hole he dug himself into during the Valentine’s Day special, and Nick doesn’t know how to react to the battle of the sexes that seems to be waging at the school.
Sexist dress codes are a particularly aggravating time-honored tradition of education, so the subject is ripe for some Big Mouth skewering. This episode goes hard and fast into the double standards of the dress code and the rape-culture notions it reinforces, showing how many of the boys have adopted these ideas for their own justification for their actions. Andrew’s plot especially examines this stuff in an unflinching light. It’s really good – the show has been dancing around this line with him for a while, and now, it’s all in.
The best Big Mouth episodes usually have something to say about both girls and boys, and this episode delivers in that regard. I really love the scenes of Missy trying to go to her “happy place” when other characters push her buttons, and not just for the return of her fantasy crush on Nathan Fillion. There are a lot of ideas she’s internalized too, and we see that in how she tries to resist reacting in an emotionally-honest way for the sake of being “likable.”
Lots of good humor here. I love a parents meeting at the school where all the parents label their ideologies before they comment, i.e. “Marty Glouberman, Fox News Jew,” Jay’s mom gets a couple of killer one-liners, and Connie being the Hormone Monstress for both Jessi and Nick is used to good effect. Hands down, though, my favorite line is from Jay, when asked if he’s gone “cold turkey” on masturbating: “If I fucked a turkey, I’d warm it up first, like a gentleman!!”
Light on Andrew Rannells/Matthew in this episode. He sticks mostly to his Greek chorus-type role and the occasional reaction shot, although he does get in a good crack about Andrew’s unfortunate haircut. I smiled at a bit featuring him getting his Cabaret Emcee on and introducing the girls’ protest.
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