The Job Virgin Diary – Reaching the unfortunate end

What? It’s over?! Yep, sadly, I’m down to the last three episodes of The Job. Denis Leary and Peter Tolan have continued to create a show that’s inappropriately hilarious, but these concluding installments also get more and more messy and at points, downright poignant – creating the combination of dark comedy and drama that they’d go on to win quite a few awards for. The laughs are still here, but they also make their characters at least attempt to face their problems, for better or for worse…usually worse.

“Parents”

Mike’s personal life hits its biggest speed bump yet when girlfriend Toni (Karyn Parsons) demands that he meet her parents, and doesn’t tell him that her father is a priest. Here’s one time I actually found myself agreeing with Mike: she knows he’s married and has no intention of leaving his wife, but wants him to do something that’s a sign of a serious commitment? Predictably, this goes horribly wrong, as Mike digs himself into a deep hole that is made insurmountable by the random appearance of one of his wife’s friends. Under pressure from Toni’s father, Mike appears to call Karen (Wendy Makkena) and tell her about his affair, but he’s really not.

Mike isn’t the only one with relationship issues, though: Tommy (Adam Ferrara) decides to hit on a woman brought in for assaulting her boyfriend, and Jan (Diane Farr) dates a cop who likes to dress up as a hooker on occasion (Donovan Leitch), therefore continuing her streak of miserable dates. The former situation is laughable and made me reconsider my earlier opinion of Tommy as the sane one in the bunch; the latter is actually a little bit painful. While Jan certainly has a point about being uncomfortable, it’s clear that there’s a fair amount of heartbreak involved. Darn it, can’t anyone on this show be happy?

…Considering who created it, probably not. Happy people don’t lend themselves to as much humor as screwed-up people. This episode reaffirms a couple of points about the show: A) no one is going to be “normal” and B) the crazy things Mike does have consequences. He may be an adulterer, but he’s going to face the music for it.

“Barbecue”

Pip (Bill Nunn) and his wife hold a barbecue to celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary, and the vices and debauchery of the rest of the 21st Precinct soon drag the whole thing down. Thinking his wife won’t be there, Mike tries to make Toni happy by inviting her, only for Toni to get furious when she realizes that Karen still doesn’t know about their affair. Thus begins her unhinged quest to tell Karen everything, leaving Mike scrambling to preserve his way of life.

Meanwhile, Tommy’s new girlfriend (the crazy one from last episode) takes her homicidal impulses out on Pip’s neighbor, everyone else – including the local reverend – gets trashed, and the cops end up being called on the cops.

For my money, there’s less sense in this episode and more utter insanity, most of it alcohol-fueled. It takes just a few minutes for the party to go by the wayside and the remaining airtime to devolve into almost everyone acting like utter morons, including Karen and most of Adena’s friends. Its lack of real plot is a nice diversion considering the next episode drops quite a bit of weight on us. Is there a lot of coherent story here? Less than most. But is it still funny? Yes, it is.

“Betrayal”

While continuing to try and keep his girlfriend away from his wife, Mike tackles the case of an elderly woman who’s gone missing, and it’s clear to everyone that her husband is the prime suspect. Toni eventually makes it to Mike’s house, only to see Karen kissing Ron, the neighbor Mike suspected had a thing for her episodes ago. Rather than cause a scene she decides to inform Mike, who gets a taste of his own medicine when Karen insists that no one came by the house while he was gone – lying to his face like he’s done to her so many times before.

The series finale is bittersweet: it’s a really good episode, but hard to swallow knowing that it’s the last one, and it leaves most of the characters in difficult places. For example, Tommy understandably flips out when he thinks Frank (Lenny Clarke) has had a heart attack, which is one of the rare touching, compassionate moments in this show. After the incident frays his relationship with Tommy, Frank tries to change his eating habits again…but the last scene of the series is him sitting on the curb outside a bakery, eating a cake he threw away. It seems to suggest that he’s never really going to get it, and is probably headed for a real heart attack someday. Most of the characters get some sort of closure, it’s just not that positive.

Therein lies the frustration. There’s a great musical montage here that leaves so many story options, and for once I wasn’t laughing, I was just honestly concerned about the characters. How would Mike react to being the one cheated on? Would Pip be unfaithful to his wife with his childhood friend? It’s a great way to end because it left me wanting more.

Unfortunately, ABC didn’t give it to us. Then again, this is the same network that cancelled Sports Night, Cupid, Traveler and Line of Fire, so I’m not that surprised. I’ll just add it to my list of short-lived classics.

And now, some quotes…

“You’re a dreamboat. You also need a ton of professional help.” — Jan to Tommy

“You can’t go two days without eating a cake, or a pie, or some landmass.” — Tommy to Frank

Better late than never: I’m glad that I discovered The Job (for which I must profusely thank my friend Adam Ferrara). As a fan of cop shows, and with a particular soft spot for those which are just a bit left of center, this was a show I genuinely enjoyed. I can understand why it had a certain cult appeal amongst my fellow TV fans. Whether or not you agreed with half of what the characters were doing, it was always funny. It was certainly sharper (in all senses of the word) than the average half-hour on ABC at the time.

It makes me curious to move on to Rescue Me and see what many of these people came up with next, on a network better suited for them and with the benefit of this experience. I think I’m about to be pleasantly surprised.

Clacked by Brittany Frederick
on Apr 03, 2012 @ 12:00 EST5EDT