Traffic Light – Music class trumps threesome

I’m not too proud to admit I’ve had thoughts similar to Callie’s when she ruminates on what will happen 20 Charmin rolls from now; but every time that happens to me, the rational, normal voice inside of me echoes Lisa’s sentiment, which is, simply, “You think too much.”

Hmm. It seems as though Traffic Light thinks too much, and maybe that’s why I can’t quite get into it yet. This episode was slightly better for me than last week’s, but it still wasn’t as funny as the last five minutes I caught of Raising Hope.

Did Ethan really have to go out the second Natasha left — in his socks, no less — to throw out her lip gloss, scrunchie, and toothbrush? (By the way, I’m almost certain women don’t wear true scrunchies anymore.) Anybody else think her intense look is reminiscent of Ally Sheedy in The Breakfast Club? Loved the crazy eyes on Ally, but not so much on Natasha.

Adam and Callie are sort of boring to me, but her “Get yer coffee and yer dog food” song was Elaine Benes-esque, and I appreciated that.

Lisa was obviously feeding that banana to her kid to eavesdrop on the conversation between Mike and Michelle. And now that I think of it, her pushing that meeting totally reminds me of the Jenkins episode of HIMYM, except a) Amanda Peet was hotter, and b) Jenkins was a much better character, especially since we thought she was a sweaty guy at first. The reason Lisa pales in comparison to Lily (well, there are countless ways, but here’s just one) is because, instead of socking Michelle in the nose, Lisa yaps Mike’s ear off and later institutes a conditional friendship involving the three of them. Careful what you wish for!

But you know what’s annoying about this? That Mike and Michelle’s friendship, or even the promise of a platonic threesome, was dismissed when Michelle just ended up being a freak. I’d like to actually see what would happen if the three-way conversation never happened, and Mike were to have remained friends with Michelle — that would possibly produce some believable tension between him and Lisa.

Another irritating quality of this episode is that the few things I enjoyed about it felt recycled. I’d seen them and liked them elsewhere. The characters are warming up and need to become seasoned enough to be uniquely funny. I’d like to see Traffic Light create some fresh, new material that is clearly its own.

Clacked by Rachel Blum-Jose
on Feb 22, 2011 @ 23:31 EST5EDT