This just can't be the end. How can a show so full of heart, so full of sweetness and love and humor not be embraced by everyone? It escapes me.
If this is it, though, if this is the last time we get to see Bryan and David and Goldie and Shania and Jane and Rocky and Clay, then let me take a moment to thank the writers, the cast and the network for giving us an entire season of this fantastic show.
Finding Name-O
We begin with our boys facing off against the host of wedding decisions that need to be made. Bryan, the producer, wants things to be elegant. David, the lovable geek, wants things to be fun. Trust me, folks, fun is the way to go. Pomp and circumstance may seem spectacular on paper, but it won't be a wedding people will remember.
Anyhoo, what David really wants is for Bryan's mom to be at the wedding. Bryan pouts and whines, because he doesn't want her ruining his day of joy. Boy, did that bring back memories. I stressed so hard over whether or not to invite my father and brother for pretty much the same reason.
Oh, and to people who don't think these two are affectionate? We're less than five minutes in when David goes into his Gollum impression and Bryan says, "And you were so close to getting some tonight" before David leans in to nibble Bryan's neck. Just wanted to point that out.
Bryan concedes on the mom issue and so we will finally get to meet Mama Collins.
Shania's Weirdness of the Week takes the form of her freaking out over the fact that she got her name because her mom and dad made her while listening to Shania Twain. First, was that really an appropriate story to tell your little girl? Second, do we really need Shania to obsess over a new minor detail of her life?
Happily, this very minor plot point is actually just an excuse to bring Clay into the story. And while it is very sad that we don't get to see him shirtless, he does provide some much needed Clay-ness to the show. I think TNN really did itself a disservice by so under-utilizing the hilarious and adorkable Jayson Blair.
When Shania brings up the story of how she got her name, he says in his impossibly dense way, "That was you?" to Goldie. I don't know how he manages to deliver these lines, which clearly paint him as a cad, with such innocence that I can't be mad at him. He really has absolutely no idea how the things he says hurts Goldie.
And when he finds out Goldie is going to drop his last name, he has a small tantrum because he thinks that will mean they're no longer a family. Poor Clay. He really has no clue as to how over his relationship with Goldie is. Though, to be fair, she didn't help the situation by sleeping with him.
Mary Kay Place (Latter Days) joins the cast as Bryan's mom! What a simply marvelous casting choice.
Given how Bryan is basically Ryan Murphy, I wonder how much Colleen resembles Ryan's own mother?
Very quickly we discover that much like David's mom, Colleen likes David better. Poor Bryan. It's so hard for him to be the star in his own world when he keeps getting upstaged.
She immediately sets out to undermine Bryan's every wedding idea, which makes him sulk. He and David decide that in order to prove how united they are and committed they will just make all decisions based on draws from a hat.
No, I don't get it either.
In complete defiance of all probability, every single draw goes David's way. This includes ushers dressed up as Sith Lords. I love you David. You are my big dork fantasy.
Unwisely, Bryan ups the stakes by also letting the hat choose the baby's name and of course that also goes to David. Bryan throws a full-out tantrum, which is entirely understandable even if it's not really the best side of him.
Later, Bryan goes to have it out with his mom. He basically lays into her for not only not supporting his choices for the wedding, but for all the slights and failures when he was growing up.
This is such a wonderful scene. It shows what happens when two high-caliber actors get together with great material. Colleen doesn't defend her mistakes. She owns them. She explains that she was just exhausted trying to keep up with Bryan—something I can easily believe.
And then she tells him he should let it go and that it's time to grow up. It's not mean, not the way she says it, and it's something he needs to hear. It's a really beautiful, honest moment and one that was worth waiting all season for.
The scene ends with Bryan realizing that he's much more like his mother than he ever knew, and maybe that's why they get on each other's nerves.
The Shania name silliness comes to an end with Shania realizing her name makes her unique, which is something she always prided herself on before and apparently just forgot for the purposes of this plot.
After his talk with his mom, Bryan goes to make things up to David. They dance to Hootie and the Blowfish (Oh, God, the 90's....) which is an awful song, but seeing these two dancing and laughing and being so in love fills me with joy.
And then they have sudden inspiration for the baby's name—Sawyer Collins. It's an awesome name, but I'm not sure how much sense that makes. I mean, they've already decided on having more kids. The next one will have to be something Sawyer-Collins, and won't that be weird?
"These are our kids, Sawyer Collins and Julie Sawyer-Collins."
I'll let you all think that over.
Meanwhile, at the bowling alley, Clay proposes to Goldie. Oh dear. Shania overhears. Double oh dear. I don't really want Shania to go off on a new obsession of planning her parent's remarriage and that seems like the sort of thing she would do.
The Big Day
The day of the wedding is here! Now, let me just say that I find this a little weird. I mean, why have a commitment ceremony when very likely you can get legally married in a few months anyway? I don't get it. But I'll overlook it because we get one of my favorite things of the entire season.
Since the pilot, people have hated Nana—mostly, with good reason. She was a racist, homophobic, horrible woman.
However, the writers had a plan that none of us gave them credit for. This woman has grown and evolved as she has encountered new ideas, new people and new experiences. Now that she has met black people and gay people, she has had her whole world expanded.
First she apologizes to Shania for ruining her fake wedding. Then she gives a wonderful toast to Bryan and David for opening her eyes. Having this close-minded, backward-thinking woman's attitude turned around through her friendship with two gay men is the most subversive thing any show has ever done. The New Normal deserves massive credit for giving Jane a whole season-long arc and showing that even those who seem irredeemable can be saved from ignorance and hate.
Frances and Colleen have some really great scenes together. It's clear that the modern, no-holds-barred woman that Frances represents is not Colleen's cup of tea. I hope we get to see more of these two in the next season.
Well, to no one's surprise, the baby interrupts the wedding. Sometimes it's okay to be predictable.
The delivery scene was another awesome picture of "the new normal" that this show is depicting. Goldie being comforted by Jane. Bryan and David there helping to bring their baby into the world. Colleen holding Goldie's hand. Frances on the other side, offering comfort and support.
I was expecting the birth to be the end, but the show isn't done yet. Jane has a sit-down with Goldie where she says they both got what they wanted. Goldie thinks this means that Jane wants to go back to Ohio where they worship football.
Jane's response: "I want to say thank you Goldie for changing my life. Look at what you've done. You came here, you got this incredible apartment for you and your daughter. You started your own business. You showed me how to be an independent woman. And now I've got green in the bank and a black friend named Rocky. I don't ever want to go back to the way things were. Why would you?"
Excuse me, I have something in my eye...
Look, I know Jane was a horrible person. But I believe this moment would not have been nearly as powerful if she had not walked such a long way to get to where she is. So I applaud the writers and I tip my hat to Ellen Barkin for committing to this role.
Shania, it turns out, also doesn't want her mom to marry her dad again. I am relieved beyond words. She is worried that if Goldie does marry Clay again, things will go back to how they were, and Shania doesn't want that.
So she runs away to the beach where it all began. Goldie, Rocky and the boys track her down and she explains that she wanted to remind her mom of when they had last sat on the beach and talked about changing their lives.
Oh Shania, I love you, you crazy, weird, freak of a child.
Bryan and David decide to have their ceremony right there, right then. They slap together a beach-themed altar. They hire a local busker to play music for them. And then Father Michael arrives to perform the ceremony.
Okay, I kind of liked that he decided to do the ceremony in spite of his earlier refusal. I found his excuses about why he couldn't do it to be rather flimsy and unacceptable, especially after all his "no, the Catholic Church loves you gays and no one cares what the Pope says anyway" spiel.
So seeing him realize the error of his ways was really nice. "Well," he says, looking up at the sky. "No lightning bolts...." Maybe he had a little journey to walk too.
I really like The New Normal. It makes me laugh, it makes me sniffle, it makes me cringe. But what it does the most that I think is so important for a show is that it makes me feel good.
I want to thank you all for chiming in and contributing to the discussion of this sometimes hilarious, sometimes painful but entirely unique show over the last few months. I hope we get a chance to do it again with a season 2.
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