RAISING HOPE “Mongooses” Review

RAISING HOPE “Mongooses” Season 1 Episode 17 - Jimmy’s decisions to choose a guardian for Hope and have her watch educationalish shows leads to him, his parents, and Sabrina almost dying in the attic as Maw Maw hunts pygmy mongooses in the “Mongooses” episode of RAISING HOPE.

Well, the clear moral of this episode is never to watch watch nature shows where animals decapitate each other or you run the risk of later being hit with buckshot. Alternatively: lock up your shot gun. Either way, a valuable lesson, indeed. Not many shows can get me laughing within the first minute, but Raising Hope gets funnier by the week. The writing was always great, but it’s become sharper and more tailored to each actor’s strength and the devolution of simple family situations into hilarious chaos feels not only real, but absolutely right.

All lawyers should have cab meters and I hope the Chances have many more opportunities to visit their attorney because so much goodness is packed into that scene. No show has better montages, and the shots of the guardianship game losers perfectly capture each one. “Forty-five to stay alive.” Oh, Shelley. I love that characters are fleshed out each week in such interesting ways. Burt’s inability to keep pairs together is a terrific quirk and his trying (and failing) to get the sock clinging to his back is a hilarious sight gag. Plus he threw in a “All I can think is think,” which tickles me to no end.

This is my favorite Sabrina episode so far. She is such a good counterpoint to Jimmy and her anxiety over taking care of Hope is natural and adorable. Baby eating zombies. Heh. I love that Sabrina is always completely unfazed by the Chances’ eccentricities and she’ll just settle in and pop the top off some beer meant to ease the end of the world. That episode should be epic, by the way. Oh, and I hope we do get to see Sabrina, Hope, and an attacking hawk. My money’s on Hope’s death ray glare.

“Who would’ve thought being semi-helpless is what keeps a family together?” Admittedly, the Chances may be a little too close since Burt is reading Jimmy’s dream journals and hanging out in the bathroom shooing ants with Maw Maw, but wow, are they fun to watch. I’m not sure which I like better: the scenes of all that Burt does for Cinderella and Rip Van Dingleberry or the ones of everyone learning the proper way to whack things to make them work. Martha Plimpton, Garret Dillahunt, and Lucas Neff have a seamless rhythm now, and that’s rare for so early in a show’s run. This is a family I would love to be a part of, electrocuting iron or not.