Sleep deprivation, check. Having trouble fitting into pre-baby clothes, check. Adjusting to returning to work after having a baby, check. Fearing that you’ve lost your hipness because you’ve become a parent, check. Sex life isn’t as thrilling as it once was, check.
I suppose the obvious next subject for Up All Night to tackle was ditching the cool car for a family friendly vehicle. And while there were many disappointing cliches on display in this episode, the writers sprinkled in enough new angles to make it feel a little less stale.
It was not entirely believable that Reagan had to sell her convertible because she couldn’t fit her daughter’s car seat, along with the various infant accoutrements, inside the car. She only has one baby. Surely the baby and all her stuff could fit inside, the ridiculous scene with Reagan and Chris trying to cram an absurd amount of junk into the car in order to go to the beach notwithstanding. They didn’t have to get rid of the car if they just brought less stuff with them.
But I tried to put that critique aside and attempted to buy into the premise that they needed a new vehicle in order to enjoy Christina Applegate and Will Arnett‘s comedic performances. However because the selling-the-cool-car-once-you-become-a-parent storyline is a cliche, along with the false imperative that they had to get another vehicle immediately, made this the weakest episode thus far.
What salvaged some of my disappointment was the seemingly contradictory messages the episode sent (reflecting the inner confusion of Chris and Reagan who aren’t quite fitting into their new roles like they thought they would): The duo still want to be considered young and hip, desperately so, yet they continue to cling to things that age them regardless of their parental status, like cassette tape decks, 80s music, the A-Team van and ’70s era racing stripes.
To have Reagan and Chris wake up after an impetuous night of too much wine imbibed, while shopping shopping and learn that they’d won an online auction for a tricked out ’70s van with a funky smell, thick racing stripes down the side, and was the birthplace of two babies, was an unexpected twist. Seeing the car salesman later tell them that they could not park the van in the lot if they planned to sleep in it was comical, given the wannabe hipsters inside that psychedelic set of wheels.
Meanwhile, the Ava storyline has been incrementally improving. Seeing Ava fret that she’s perceived as a peddler of fluff and then attempt to destroy that perception by talking about economics — and fleeing to Vegas so she wouldn’t have to read a thick expose on the United States’ recent financial meltdown — felt fresh. But a showy, Saturday Night Live shtick still clings to her character, particularly when she does things like spontaneously break out in an R&B song.
Hey writers: Give Maya Rudolph something meatier, material akin to what Ron Swanson from Parks and Recreation gets. I’m sure she’ll crush it and be able to transform her character into something unique, instead of a watered down SNL persona.
Clacked by Meredith O'Brien 
on Oct 06, 2011 @ 11:42 EST5EDT
