Out of the many shows that premiered in 2010, Raising Hope has been one of my favorites.
The single-cam sitcom, helmed by My Name Is Earl creator Greg Garcia, is surprisingly funny and endearing. Martha Plimpton and Garrett Dillahunt are hilarious as the parents of the main character, Jimmy, played by a lukewarm (but improving) Lucas Neff.
The one qualm I have with Raising Hope is that the show never quite seems to know what to do with Cloris Leachman. In the first half of the season, her character, Maw Maw, was incoherent, a one-note gimmick that wasted Leachman’s comic talent. After the season break, the writers have been changing how they deal with the character. She’s coherent more often, which leads to some wonderful dry humor. She’s still mostly senile, but that still can lend to some good jokes.
Like most freshman shows, Raising Hope had some kinks to work out in the first half of the season. However, by episode 17, the show has a nice stable of recurring characters and in-jokes. The leads are fleshed out, and in general, the show works.
This episode, however, did not.
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