Bless This Mess TV-Show Review 2019 Cast Crew
Stars: Madison Curry, Lake Bell, Pam Grier
Bless This Mess has a family premise: Rio (Bell) and Mike (Shepard), who take pride in the fact that they never fought in their first year of marriage, decide to move from New York to Nebraska to live. A farm left to Mike by his recently deceased great aunt, Maggie. Rio is a lifelong New Yorker, while Mike comes from the suburbs of St. Louis, which makes him think he has rural life in his blood. (Incidentally, it's strange that the series emphasizes the idea that Mike and Rio are so happily married: it makes their life-altering decision all the more disconcerting). When they arrive at the farm, it turns out that they have sold them a list of assets, since the house that Mike remembers from his childhood is exhausted, the ground is useless and neighbor neighbor Rudy (Ed Begley Jr.) now lives in the barn Then there's Constance (Pam Grier), a woman with seemingly endless patience and a thing of will / no-them-them with Rudy, who owns the general store of the city, serves as a sheriff and also directs the local theater.The life of a small town, you know?
The obvious point of the comparison is Green Acres, only Bless This Mess makes its customers feel enthusiastic about their new way of life: when the series begins, Rio and Mike are in a hurry to give up their work and leave New York. and in the culture of the Nebraska farm. A more contemporary inspiration could be Schitt's Creek, especially its first season, one that is particularly evident when it comes to Rudy, who essentially plays the same role as Chris Elliott's Roland Schitt: in both cases, a talented comic actor interprets the link more weak of the writing, the weird people who stop the impulse of all the others. Unlike Roland, Rudy literally slows everything down, with mixed results.
The fact that Bless This Mess does not have the most original premise is not necessarily a blow against it. The co-creator of the series (with Bell), Elizabeth Meriwether, is responsible for the successful first-year comedy of ABC, Single Parents, and has just finished a seven-season career in front of one of the greatest comedians of all time. story, New Girl. Bell is a triple threat, acts, writes and directs projects from Children's Hospital to World A ..., and Dax Shepard, in Parenthood and elsewhere, has proven to be more than "the Punk'd guy". The talent behind Bless This mess is the epitome of competent comedy.
In fact, if the series is successful, it is thanks to the pleasant chemistry of Bell and Shepard, which takes the premise further than seems possible if the cables are launched differently. Bell's performance in particular is the key ingredient, and it is clear from the driver that she is so dynamic and magnetic that she could (and perhaps unfortunately) push her partner. See the scene in which Rio has a telephone conversation with his mother (Susie Essman) while he is in the middle of a panic attack in front of a cow, a master class in comics. Every line and sound that comes out of Bell's mouth is a reason for Bless This Mess to exist.
What ultimately does not work with the focus of the series, however, is that Rootear is asked for Rio and Mike is asked to root for gentrifiers. The switch to Nebraska is his choice, one based solely on a free house ( understandable) and stereotypes (less understandable). No real justification is offered for the part about wanting to give up their current careers: he is a music journalist, she is a therapist, to take on a new vocation of which they know nothing. (They can not even tell the difference between a weed and an alfalfa). The antagonists of the series are married farmers Beau (David Koechner) and Kay (Lennon Parham) Bowman, who want to buy Maggie's farm to expand into the killing business, and while they are patronizing towards Rio and Mike in each scene ... they have many reasons to be condescending. Especially when newcomers adopt a "What is difficult?" Approach in agriculture. The culture shock alone is enough to boost the series, without the protagonists trying to become farmers.
In fact, despite being in a "mess" of a house, there is nothing rough on the edges of the series, which is a shame, given that Bell, Shepard and Meriwether have won great praise for much less polished projects. Maybe it's just a function of ABC's evolving house style: the days of more relaxed and thick comedies like Happy Endings, Suburgatory, Do not Trust the B ... in Apartment 23, and Selfie are gone, but Bless This Mess comes out completely formed, with little (if any)space to grow. "Nice" is a fair description of the series; this is "safe". It feels immaculate from the first moment. That could ensure a longer life on ABC, but it's also a lost opportunity to roll in the mud.
Bless This Mess opens tonight at 9:30 on ABC.
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Bless This Mess TV-Show Review 2019 Cast Crew