Cougar Town “Too Good To Be True” 

I’m taking the title of this episode literally as it pertains to Tom. It’s too good to be true that he would be the boyfriend of his neighbor Jules. We all know being cuddly with Jules and wishing Grayson were dead is Tom’s ultimate fantasy. He gets to live this out (with the exception of Grayson dying of course) to a certain point and I think deep down Tom thought he could avoid telling his daughter the truth and keep the lie going until her visit was over. But this was too good to be true for poor old Tom. However, he had a main storyline for once on this show and it turned out to be one of the funnier episodes of the season. This isn’t necessarily a surprise, but it’s a little odd that the neighbor from the window was the catalyst to a laugh-out-loud episode of Cougar Town.

Putting the laughs aside for a moment, the undercurrent of Tom’s storyline is that he would be completely alone if it weren’t for Jules and the gang. He doesn’t want his daughter to think he’s alone down in Florida, so it makes sense that he would lie about dating Jules. This isn’t wholly original, but it fits well with some pretty weird high jinks like Grayson getting his Forest Gump moment and Bobby hallucinating a giant burrito. It’s goofy fun, but it’s also some of the shows best use of all of its characters. The episode also brought back Andy’s stand up comedy one liner “bitches be loco,” which is always welcome.

There are a lot of highlights with Tom’s storyline though. He’s overly enthusiastic when he lives out his fantasy with Jules, but it’s not without Jules trying to fend off his kisses, which is instigated by Ellie of course. Grayson having to go along with being Jules’ disabled brother and putting on a hilarious performance in the process was fantastic. I like how his acting aspirations were brought up again and I also thought the bit about his bar food being pretty bad was a nice running joke throughout.

Travis putting on an open mic night at Coffee Bucks was a great way to bring back Andy’s fondness for stand up comedy. It also kept the hipsters from last week around, snapping their fingers instead of clapping, as hipsters obviously do. Andy wasn’t particularly a treat for the hipster crowd, but just hearing him say “bitches be loco” again made the whole storyline worth it (sorry, I needed to type that line again for my own amusement). And Ellie sacrificing for Travis so that open mic night wouldn’t get cancelled isn’t something Ellie usually does, but it’s a nice touch since Travis truly believes in local artists expressing themselves.

Bobby Cobb storylines are always a highpoint when it’s Bobby battling with himself. In this case, he wins a golden ticket that allows him to have an unlimited amount of burritos for a year. This sounds amazing, but he quickly gets sick of them, which is followed by him hallucinating and then beating up a life-sized burrito. I would usually say Bobby and Andy make a great pairing and we need to see them together as often as possible, but Bobby seems to be just fine on his own here.

“Too Good To Be True” has some really good laughs, while also highlighting Tom for once. It’s nice to see Cougar Town bring back recurring jokes like Andy’s stand up and introducing what I hope is a new recurring joke in Grayson’s horrible bar food. This is a show finding fun ways to keep the mojo going. I hope that doesn’t sound like an insult because I enjoy a comedy with some serious mojo. Seriously, I do.

Cougar Town airs Tuesdays at 10/9c on TBS.