And now it’s time to talk about the most controversial (apparently) show on TV today! This week on Franklin & Bash, there are only two plots, each with about the same amount of screentime. One of Stanton’s former wives Evanthia Steele (Cybill Shephard) shows up — her dog is up for a custody battle with Carrie Dutton. She claims Evanthia stole the dog (they even mix up the dog’s gender between them). At first, good ol’ competent Damien is supposed to work with Evanthia, but he trades cases with Franklin & Bash to instead help Pindar with a robbery case. Because, um, he had accidentally hit on his aunt (not blood-related)? That’s very odd.
The guy Pindar is helping is Jim Sweeney, who robbed pizza place Lucky Louie’s because he needed the money. But the gun was fake, made of hard cheese — he ate the gun to remove evidence. And the footage of the robbery is all over the internet. As it evolves, we get our classic Franklin & Bash “twists.” Jim says he got the idea from someone else, a Chuck Hillenbran, but Chuck is a minority owner of the pizza place. Doesn’t add up. And of course, in our classic “second act twist,” it turns out Louie had installed cameras three days prior to robbery — proves he may have planned it? So Jim gets off easy. Not much in this plot, just cheese jokes and Damien being competent again.
As for our other subplot, Carrie is being represented by the (evil?) twins of F&B, Ted Rossi (Eric Mabius) and Eric Jango (Seth Green), who are just as ridiculous. We see all manner of stunts, including nonsense from Ted anthropomorphising the dog and trying to call the dog as a witness. But in our classic “twist”, it’s revealed that Evanthia had found the dog after it had run away (or so it seems), saving its life. In some additional stuntwork, F&B take temporary custody of the dog so he doesn’t go to the pound. Sure. Why not?
After a disconcerting scene where Stanton tells a longwinded explanation of his lovemaking skills, it’s time for more stunts. But this time the judge allows the stunt because F&B “respected” the court by not trying to bring the dog as a witness. They bring in the “real” owner Andre Carson (Rick Fox) — another classic F&B twist! After some “out-jackassing” of each other (judge’s words, not mine), of course Andre gets custody of the dog. Huzzah?
Kind of a bland episode, but the fun parts were the meta bits with Rossi and Jango (as Breckin Meyer and Seth Green are friends in real life, and worked together on Robot Chicken).
Clacked by Jeremy Fogelman 
on Jun 20, 2012 @ 00:55 EST5EDT
