It's always tough to say goodbye no matter what the situation, but I feel it's always especially hard to say goodbye to a fantastic show one that you've watched since the beginning and kept right along with. Cougar Town may not have started out as that kind of show for me but it did grow on me after the initial effects of it's premise began to fade. It's hard to believe that the show was actually going to be about Jules Kobb (Courteney Cox) dating younger men for an entire show. A plot like that would be at best a one season type deal but the characters and story grew into so much more than all that and all that remains of the God awful idea is the reruns of the first season and the title for the series. Now though it is time to say goodbye to Jules and the rest of the cul-de-sac crew so let's see what the final season has in store.
The big shocking reveal at the end of the previous season turned out to be that Laurie (Busy Philipps) is pregnant with Travis's (Dan Bryd) child. Now normally a show would make the entire season be about the pregnancy but Cougar Town took a different approach to the whole ordeal, maybe because it was their final season or maybe because the whole having a baby thing has been done to death as I just mentioned. The first couple of episodes do see some shenanigans with an insane Laurie, her character is already crazy enough without all the hormones but with a child driving her insane she becomes a lot worse. Perhaps my favorite pregnant Laurie moment was during the episode where Jules decides to give up wine while Laurie is pregnant. Since Jules can't do anything alone she makes everyone also give up wine as well too soothe the savage beast that is Laurie Keller. When it turns out that they all betray her though in an elaborate "speak easy" style escapade she goes full juvie on all of them and whips around a sock full of nickles.
As I said though the whole pregnant Laurie bit gets condensed down rather quickly and in one of the episode an eight month time skip occurs and Laurie has baby Bobby in the second episode. The rest of show sees real change and growth for the rest of the characters with plenty of other interesting changes that surprised me. Adult Bobby (Brian Van Holt) ends up finding a high paying job opportunity out of state and ends up moving away from everyone. It's a move I didn't see coming or rather I didn't want to see coming as Bobby was probably my favorite character and it was certainly hard for Andy (Ian Gomez) to lose his best friend and because of this we actually see a major change for his character too. Andy was always the bread winner for his home while Ellie (Christa Miller) stayed at home but after Bobby leaves he ends up becoming a stay at home dad. This leaves Ellie to return to work herself, if any of you forget she use to be lawyer. Everyone's roles get reversed and changed and I actually really enjoyed seeing these new changes being brought out, I would have loved to see more of them if the show continued but that sadly that won't happen.
Midst all of the switching and changing though much of what Cougar Town's core strengths continued to shine through for it's send off season. Plenty of the earmark moments for the shows humor have continued forward this time around such as Ellie and Grayson (Josh Hopkins) duking it out together. Then we have Andy who spends some of the season sulking without his best friend Bobby around (their bromance is something the writer Bill Lawrence does well and has plenty of experience with i.e. Scrubs). Then you have Travis and Laurie who only just began to figure out their relationship now they have to figure out how to add a kid into their own craziness. One thing that I didn't enjoying seeing occur all over again was Grayson and Jules arguing over the two never having privacy, Jules wanting everyone around her to be involved in everything and Grayson wanting some alone time for them. It's an issue and plot device that should have been nipped in the bud the season following the twos marriage to one another. Grayson really just needed to get over it already and move on but for the most part everything else continued to move smoothly and in classic Cougar Town fashion.
In the end, I feel like this final season for Cougar Town was a fantastic send off for the series, it didn't feel like a goodbye sort of thing but rather each character continued forward with each of their own story arcs. This is a great thing because for the first time in awhile the dynamic of everything the show was founded on was shaken up, it wasn't all about drinking wine and everyone hanging out at Jules's all day long for once. Bobby moved away and got a job, Laurie and Travis have their own kid, Ellie went back to work, heck even Jules managed to change a little when she reads her first book. Again, it's too bad this change didn't occur sooner and if it did maybe that could have spelled out another season for the show, but it was a fitting end for a show that evolved quite a bit from it's start.
Good:
- The show finally saw some real change
- Plenty of the core strengths continued throughout the season
Bad:
- Some of the more lack luster gags and plot elements continued
- Why weren't these changes made sooner? Why were they done in the final season?
Scully Rating: 7.0 out of 10
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