TV Review: Bored To Death 3.3, "The Black Clock of Time"

rating: 3.5

After the cathartic brush with death at the beginning of the season, Jonathan Ames, both the show's creator and the protagonist, are on a meteoric rise. I was a little hesitant about the surprisingly real events that occurred at the beginning of the season. The show has a knack for living in a sort of other world, one that runs just parallel to ours. It is a little awkward when the series confronts realities of our own world (cops, murder, horse jockeys). Not that Jonathan and his team should spend all their time coasting through ludicrous scenarios stones, just like, most of the time. Still the ending of last week's episode (George's hallucinations of FBI agents revealed, dramatic noirish climax) confirmed that the show still ives in the world of the ridiculous. This week's episode was by no means profound, but is a nice rebound after the twists and turns of the season premiere. Jonathan's book is gaining some real popularity, enough to land him an interview on "The New Dick Cavett Show." When he gets there he finds himself face to face with his nemesis, Louis Green, who is scheduled to be on the show right after him. Louis manages to leak some pretty revealing information about his childhood and Jonathan continues to tell himself, and to show the world, how cool he is no matter what some dick from GQ says. Ray gets another day with Spencer and meets up with a group of Brooklyn moms. In a turn of events and a case of mistaken identity, Ray takes the wrong child home, gets high, and doesn't notice for hours. George is having some problems of his own. His high class restaurant is doing just fine but his daughter is getting married to a man his age, and completely opposite. Once again, Bored To Death leads us through one crazy twist after another until the stars align and the characters paths converge. This episode was more about each of them settling into their roles then anything else, but the show needs that here and there. Jonathan got some true time tapart, but its good for him to work on his suave factor a little. Ray added the wacky element that every episode has, and though it was a little trivial, it seemed to work. I'll give the show that. The only part that bothered me this week was George's subplot. The introduction of his estranged daughter is setting him loose into some dangerous introspection, which is all well and good, except that its pretty pointless; we already know how it's going to end. George shrugged off prostate cancer. Prostate Cancer. It will be no surprise at all when he applies his usual wax on, wax off mentality to the situation with his daughter and dashingly moves on. George's own fantastical perspective of the world is what makes him such a good anchor for Jonathan. They gel together into this amorphous blob of misguided idealism and sentimentality. I mean Ray is the damn voice of reason. But what makes George so compatible with Jonathan makes him fairly one dimensional on his own. Not for lack of trying, Ted Danson does a wonderful job with the character making him simultaneously shrouded in mystery and utterly predictable. His rediscovered relationship with his daughter feels a tad bit contrived and really serves no purpose in my own humble opinion. George's finest moments are as a father figure to Jonathan and Ray, not as an actual father. Bottom line, the episode was enjoyable and the performances were spot on. This isn't one for the history books, but it had the usual blend of hilarity and absurdity that make the series so damn special. I can only imagine we may see some more alone time for the crew as they search their souls, but the show always makes us feel god at the end when they are reunited into one seriously dysfunctional family.