Necessary Roughness – Marshall Pittman stirs up trouble

We get to know Marshall Pittman better on this week’s Necessary Roughness. A lot better. And I am loving it because he comes across as unhinged, but in a totally calculated way. After firing the GM and taking on the job himself, he tries to play Nico, Dani and Matt in turn with booze in order to get them on his side, but without much success. In fact, I am pretty sure he’s drinking or wanted to in every scene. He keeps threatening to pull the team option on TK due to the injury, and things look bad when TK is not recovering quickly enough for Pittman’s deadline. Instead, Pittman ends up bluffing: he keeps TK, but gets rid of “half the secondary for a player that can’t run,” as Coach puts it. Nico surmises that this is all to devalue the team so he can pay his wife less. I am guessing nothing is as it seems with Pittman, so I can’t wait to see this plot line develop.

TK starts off the episode by keeping to his apartment. Even though Nico gets rid of his guns, gets him a security detail, and gets him out of the house and on to the field, TK still seems depressed about his shooting and won’t talk to anyone about it. Making the usually ebullient TK quiet and sullen is actually a bit frightening; he really seems to be in trouble now. The fact that he ends the episode hanging out with his gun-selling childhood friend is probably not a good sign.

Compared to the story surrounding the Hawks, which took up a fair bit of the episode, the Case of the Week seems even more perfunctory than usual. It was neat to see some Roller Derby — not surprising that the show would eventually get to such a sexy sport. Dani does some nice detective work with the marker, though. Of course, the case parallels Dani’s struggles with wanting to protect her son from sex. The big upshot of the case is that it makes her … buy the kid condoms! Uh, Dani, I bet he already knew about them…. While this story was pleasant enough, though, it definitely took away from the meatier stuff with the Hawks, which I liked quite a bit. I understand that these procedural elements are required for a show like this, though.

Notes and Quotes:

• TK sitting on nunchucks? Priceless. Well, if it’s good enough for Bruce Lee….
• I love Roller Derby names: DisGrace Kelly and Lucille Balls were the ones in this episode.
• RJ and his girlfriend still bore me to tears. BUT! His PowerPoint on being allowed to have sex with his girlfriend was pretty hysterical.
• Mouton Rothschild, 1974 seems like a very fine wine indeed. I wouldn’t mind if Pittman showed up on my doorstep with that. It also led to drunk Matt, which was pretty funny.
• The show’s timeline puts us at ten weeks from minicamp. Looks like most of this season will cover the Hawks off-season.
• Scott Cohen and Evan Handler have a great chemistry in their scenes together.
• Marshall to Nico: “We are both afflicted with a taste for the best: whiskey, travel, women.”
• Matt on TK’s reclusiveness: “Like Howard Hughes. Minus the fingernails.”
• TK on the view from his place: “You know after Happy Hour if you look straight across you can see bosoms.”
• DisGrace: “The biggest rule in Derby: don’t be a douche.” Dani: “That’s funny because that’s a rule in my life too.”
• Dani: “I take it you’ve never been in therapy.” Marshall: “Aside from some ill-fated marriage counseling, I am a therapy virgin. But I’m game if you are.”
• Marshall on Matt wanting to get down to business: “Old school. Business first. Like the Yakuza!”
• Dani on Ray .: “I am gonna get that little Romeo and he is gonna WISH he drank poison!”
• Ray J: “So you’re saying sex leads to prison.” Dani: “Yes I am. Put it in your PowerPoint!.”

Clacked by Christina Furtado
on Jun 14, 2012 @ 01:29 EST5EDT