It's not often Francine gets the main spot in a story, not to mention an episode named after her. "Mean Francine" attempts to give the matriarch of the Smith family her own starring role this week, and while the episode never quite clicked with me, it was a noble effort.
After a cold opening that can best be described as pure chaos, things get moving in the main story pretty quickly this week. Francine is the new guidance counselor at Steve's school, and immediately becomes concerned for her son, believing that his French Club fashion show will get him in trouble socially. This story is honestly quite straightforward, which I was a little disappointed about. The antagonists of this episode, the "Golden Girls", are easily the worst part of this plot, and I found it extremely hard to care about them or Francine's attempts to join their group. I did find her attempts to justify her behavior pretty funny, and the scenes with Stan and Klaus trying to get her attention were also pretty great. When pressured by the other girls, Francine dumps chowder on Steve at the fashion show, and here's where the story starts to get interesting. Francine has completely lost the plot by this point, and so, in a unique twist, Steve takes on the counselor role. He gets his mother to quit worrying about what other people think of her, and ends with the Golden Girls getting taken down a peg. Although it picked up at the end, this was a by-the-numbers style A-plot, with Roger thrown in for seemingly no good reason. It seems like the writers of this episode had good intentions, but nothing here would convince a new viewer that Francine can carry an episode by herself.
But for as dull as the main story was, it was pure anarchy in B-plot land, as Jeff, another underutilized character, loses his hat and goes berserk. His scenes with Hayley were fantastic, absurdist comedy at its finest, and really helped break the monotony of this episode. More Jeff, please.
6/10
Steve's role in the main storyline and Jeff's in the secondary helped a standard episode to an above-average grade, which is a shame, as this was supposed to be Francine's time to shine. Still, I laughed a lot this week reviewing "Mean Francine", so there's no complaints here.
After a cold opening that can best be described as pure chaos, things get moving in the main story pretty quickly this week. Francine is the new guidance counselor at Steve's school, and immediately becomes concerned for her son, believing that his French Club fashion show will get him in trouble socially. This story is honestly quite straightforward, which I was a little disappointed about. The antagonists of this episode, the "Golden Girls", are easily the worst part of this plot, and I found it extremely hard to care about them or Francine's attempts to join their group. I did find her attempts to justify her behavior pretty funny, and the scenes with Stan and Klaus trying to get her attention were also pretty great. When pressured by the other girls, Francine dumps chowder on Steve at the fashion show, and here's where the story starts to get interesting. Francine has completely lost the plot by this point, and so, in a unique twist, Steve takes on the counselor role. He gets his mother to quit worrying about what other people think of her, and ends with the Golden Girls getting taken down a peg. Although it picked up at the end, this was a by-the-numbers style A-plot, with Roger thrown in for seemingly no good reason. It seems like the writers of this episode had good intentions, but nothing here would convince a new viewer that Francine can carry an episode by herself.
But for as dull as the main story was, it was pure anarchy in B-plot land, as Jeff, another underutilized character, loses his hat and goes berserk. His scenes with Hayley were fantastic, absurdist comedy at its finest, and really helped break the monotony of this episode. More Jeff, please.
6/10
Steve's role in the main storyline and Jeff's in the secondary helped a standard episode to an above-average grade, which is a shame, as this was supposed to be Francine's time to shine. Still, I laughed a lot this week reviewing "Mean Francine", so there's no complaints here.
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