This episode caught me off guard. I wasn’t expecting a whole lot from former American Idol runner-up Katharine McPhee, but I was pleasantly surprised by her performance. However, this episode as a whole was by far one of the weaker ones we’ve seen. Maybe it was because they focused so much on McPhee and had to split the group up, but there were very few laugh-out-loud moments.
Katharine McPhee was a way better actress than I expected, but I wouldn’t call her funny. Troy and Abed were split up, Britta spent the entire episode looking for a switch, and Annie just flitted around in the hallways acting as Jeff’s conscience. Even Jeff’s girlfriend was only brought back to serve as a way for him to go after Amber. Everything was disjointed, and the flow just wasn’t there this week.
Chevy Chase is hilarious in general, and Pierce is funny when he’s a bumbling, vaguely racist, sexist old man who has a disturbing thing for Shirley. When you get too deep and see how truly pathetic it is, it’s just kind of sad. We’ve seen glimpses of that before, but this is the first time we’ve really gotten an entire episode of it.
This entire episode felt like the “special lesson” part of an episode of Full House. Shirley gets told she’s a good mom while helping a repressed young girl, Troy helps Britta stop being quite so ridiculous, and Jeff helps Pierce realize he has a family. This is all quite lovely, but it’s not that interesting, and it’s definitely not that funny.
With all that said, there is one moment in this episode that makes up for everything I didn’t like about it, and really just sums up the character of Annie better than anything else I’ve ever heard. In fact, I would go so far as to say that it sums up any character better than anything else I’ve ever heard: when Jeff agrees to help Pierce because Annie asked him to and he tells her, “You’re becoming dangerous; it’s those doe eyes. Disappointing you is like choking The Little Mermaid with a bike chain.” Now that’s what I’m talking about.
Clacked by Kona Gallagher 
on Mar 11, 2010 @ 21:22 EST5EDT
I thought there was alot of good one liners! I really enjoyed the show tonight! And Katharine was really good as a biotch. So out of character for her. I want her back!!!
That line was fantastic. Though I must say, my favorite scene was when Jeff and Amber walked in on a crying Troy and Britta as she was getting spanked.