The Book of Rannells: Duncanville: Season 3, Episode 14 – “The Pursuit of Daddyness” (2022)

Here’s Andrew Rannells’ other episode of Duncanville. I like it better than the first—not sure whether it’s a funnier episode, I’m just more in the swing of things now, or it’s due to Rannells being more heavily featured here. Maybe a little of all three?

When Annie’s friend Garrett needs help convincing his husband that they should have a kid, he enlists Annie and Jack to give him a hand. Jack offers to let Bryce “ride along” parent with him for a day, and they wind up getting enmeshed in some teen drama plaguing Jack’s daughter Kimberly. Meanwhile, Annie tries to teach Duncan some useful housekeeping skills, but his friends soon become weirded out by the new Duncan.

We’ll start with the Annie-Duncan plot. It definitely leans into the old “guy does ‘mom’ things’ comedy trope, with jokes that stem from Duncan wearing an apron or fussing around his friends’ junky hangout spot with a vacuum. Those are a bit stale, but the dynamic between Annie and Duncan is good, and there are some funny bits early on skewering Duncan’s intense state of teen helplessness, such as going to the restaurant his parents are having dinner at because he can’t find his sock (no worries, Jack keeps spares on his person.)

Speaking of which, Garrett invites Annie and Jack out with the express purpose of selling parenthood to Bryce. Naturally, they arrive in delight to have gotten out of the house, talking about how busy their needy “parasites” keep them, and just as naturally, they switch on a dime to praising their “gifts from Heaven” as soon as they know why Garrett invited them. An obvious joke, but well executed.

The resulting “ride along” with Jack and Bryce is pretty fun. I’ve said before that Rannells has a talent for fitting seamlessly into the humor/style of the many comedies he’s guest-starred in. Here, he plays nicely off Ty Burrell’s Jack, with Bryce sometimes panicking at the implications of fatherhood and sometimes getting into the spirit of things.

A few great line deliveries from Rannells:

·        On his reluctance to have kids, he explains, “I’m just not ready to give up my freedom, sleep, and white sofa.”

·        As Jack prepares to deal with his moody teenage daughter, Bryce hedges, “This seems like a private moment for you and Kimberly. Maybe I should go home and get a vasectomy.”

·        Jack likens their ride along to Training Day, but when he finds that Kimberly is being bullied by some mean girls, he announced, “It’s a different Denzel movie now: The Equalizer.” Bryce responds, “I haven’t seen it, but I’m in.”

Okay, final thoughts.

Recommend?

In General – A soft maybe. Between the two episodes, the show didn’t fully win me over, but there’s some entertaining stuff here and a talented voice cast.

Andrew Rannells – Yeah. This is a fun role for Rannells, and he plays it well.

Warnings

Drinking, a little gross-out humor, language, and suggestive content.

The Book of Rannells: Duncanville: Season 3, Episode 3 – “(Work) Marriage Story” (2022)

Okay, before I get started, can I just say: Our Flag Means Death trailer out today!!! I have been hyperfixating hard ever since the first look images came out, and I’ve really been waiting for this. New season October 5!

I’m holding off on Marvelous Wednesdays until tomorrow, since I already had this post in the can and I’ve had too long a day to write something new. I’d never heard of this animated family sitcom before seeing it on Andrew Rannells’ filmography, but apparently it ran for three seasons on Fox, and as recently as last year! Shows what I know.

Since I’m dropping into this episode with zero knowledge of the series, here’s what’s going on in this episode. In the central family, dad Jack has just learned about mom Annie’s “work husband” and is freaking out about it, while daughters Kimberly and Jing watch the ensuing trainwreck. Son Duncan thinks he and his friends have it made when their favorite chill teacher is promoted to vice principal.

For a show I’d never heard of, I caught a lot of familiar voices in the cast. Ty Burrell voices Jack, while Amy Poehler plays both Annie and Duncan (she’s also a co-creator of the series.) Rikki Lindhome voices Kimberly, and Duncan’s friend group includes Rashida Jones, Yassir Lester from Black Monday, and Zach Cherry from Severance. Plus, this episode features Bowen Yang as Annie’s work husband Garrett.

We’ll start with the school story, since Rannells isn’t in that one. Some good bits with the teacher’s excitement at the increased salary and perks that come with being vice principal. “Dang!” he exclaims. “With that kind of money, I wouldn’t have to run out of class to deliver Postmates.” And there’s an amusing sight gag involving the administrators’ parking spots being valeted by deer (it makes sense in context.)

The setup for the “work husband” story is that of a million tired family sitcom plots, with Jack reacting entirely out of proportion to the innocent “scandal” of Annie’s closeness with Garrett. The main wrinkle here is that Garrett is gay. Even though Jack is quick to understand that, never worrying that they’d have an affair, he still feels threatened by their emotional intimacy and throws himself into, say, proving he can give backrubs as well as Garrett or flips out over the discovery that they’re “raising a fern together” at the office.

Rannells plays Garrett’s husband Bryce, who Jack tries to rope into a mutual freakout over their spouses’ relationship, but Bryce isn’t having it. “Who wants a needy, suffocating husband who gets all his validation from his spouse?” he remarks to Jack (with maximum irony, of course.) However, rather than purely being a bland side-character husband or an obliging rational voice to Jack’s unreasonable flailing, he gets in on the action in an entertaining way.

I liked that this is a gay character who plays against Rannells’ usual type. Bryce likes wrestling and Guns N’ Roses, and he has a very adamant story about that time he saw a UFO. Even better, none of these things are presented as implausible interests for him to have. On the whole, Rannells is a fun addition to the episode.

He appears one more time on Duncanville, but here are my quick first impressions:

Recommend?

In General – A cautious maybe. It didn’t quite grab me, since a lot of the plot beats are pretty tropey, but there are some good one-liners here.

Andrew Rannells – I probably would. This role isn’t really anything special, but Rannells does well with it and blends nicely into the overall vibe of the show.

Warnings

Drug use, a little gross-out humor, language, and suggestive content.