March 24, 2017

Baskets: Season 2


Don't have a ton to say about this one. This show is now two for two at having seasons that start out kind of meek and forgettable, but that also pick up just enough emotional catharsis to rekindle my interest in time for a satisfying conclusion. I probably overrated this last year, which set my expectations even higher this year, and, yeah. I dunno. It's probably one I could stand to bail on, as it's barely compelling enough to get by on interest alone most weeks and seldom funny enough to watch as a low-stakes source of laughs. But then, hey, at half an hour, it's really no sweat to sit through ten episodes a year, and when it works it works, as Louie Anderson's Christine is legitimately one of the saddest and most fascinating characters on television and Martha Kelly's Martha isn't far behind. I dunno. The whole thing's tough to describe. It isn't exactly depressing, or mining for sadness even - it's a comedy, really. It's just the type of comedy that, well, look at the poster above. It's the "sad clown" of half-hour comedies. Actually, wow, that's perfect. Ye,s it's all coming back to me - I've read this before, but FX has called Baskets a "slapstick drama," a show where "the comedy is very dumb, but the emotions are very real."

Yes, you've just seen me come back around on Baskets over the course of one paragraph. Season 3, here I come. In ten months. At least.

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