I watched the premiere of this series the day after it debuted, Aug. 4, 2014, on FX. It stars Martin Lawrence and Kelsey Grammar as two lawyers who become partners for no apparent reason other than they needed some part of the series to go along with the title.
Allen Braddock (Grammer), has just been fired from his law firm—by his father. He sees Marcus Jackson, (Lawrence) representing himself in finalizing his divorce.
Marcus supports his mother and daughter in their Chicago home. Allen approaches him in the men's room, offering to represent him, saying he can get him a much better settlement.
Although totally turned off by Allen's demeanor and brashness, Marcus agrees and he invites him home to look over his finances. While there, they hear from the daughter about how his ex-wife has moved into the rectory of a church, where she works as an accountant for the parish. They immediately suspect she is shacking up with the priest and proceed to sneak into the rectory and into the priest's bedroom, and find something that appears to prove the two are more than just co-workers. Now I should make clear that, while they spoke of a "rectory" and "priest" they never said the word "Catholic." But the statue outside the rectory was not Abraham Lincoln. And if it was supposed to be some Protestant "priest" there was never a hint that he was already married, so the lawyers would not have had much ammunition to get the ex-wife to readily agree to changing the settlement.
After winning in court, the two men decide to become partners, largely because Allen can provide much money to Marcus's struggling practice.
I picture the creators meeting to discuss their idea for the series: (I'll call the creators A and B)
A – So, should we have our stars be longtime friends and partners in law? B – Naahh. Let's have them meet in the pilot and immediately hate each other. That's set up lots of insult jokes between them. A- And you liked my idea of the black guy being mild mannered, living with a smart-mouthed mother and daughter. B – Exactly. The two of them can bombard him with insults whenever they open their mouths. The audience will love it. A- And Grammar's character will be a pompous, bore who is wealthy but disliked by almost everyone around him. Novel idea. Although I seem to recall a somewhat similar character on an old series about radio show in Seattle. B- Yeah, I sort of remember that. It'd be good if we could get the guy that was in that show, because he was funny. A – So our black guy is divorced, what about the white guy is he married or divorced? B – Yes. He has an ex-wife somewhere, but has remarried. And we'll give him a manipulative step-daughter, who's also got a smart mouth. A- O.K., so we're going with the stereotypes for both men, their family members, their marital status—who in TV world is happily married to their first spouse these days? Any other stereotypes we can exploit? B – Well I was thinking about having a paralegal working for Marcus who is in every way the stereotype of a gay man. A- Great! Can't have a show today without a gay character. B- In the pilot episode, we'll develop the plot so the unseen, Catholic priest is violating his vows by having an affair with the almost-divorced wife of our star. A- Hey, you can always get laughs by portraying priests in a most negative manner. Now we're rolling.
The second episode, featured a sham of a pretend marriage between our two stars to see if a famous caterer was indeed gypping her customers, I give you some samples of the unrealistic one-liners:
When Allen said they weren't going to get involved in a case, Marcus countered with, "Oh, we'll get involved just because you said 'hence.'"
When the step-daughter walked through saying some stupid line, the gay man responded immediately, to himself, "Someone call Satan and let him know there's a hole in his fence."
When everyone is together the same step-daughter said, about Marcus' mother, to everyone, "Is she O.K.? She seems really old," as though that were a crime. Later, as the young woman was talking to Marcus's mother, the mother retorted, "You are one question away from being buried in the garden."
As Allen told the gay couple they were going to help handle the bad caterer, "I say, 'You're here, you're queer. Let's sue for it!"
The second episode happily added to the stereotypes by stating that all of the gay couples cheated by this caterer were too reluctant to complain. I thought we were trying to move past the stereotype of having all homosexuals be so mild-mannered that they would refuse to assert themselves when the situation called for it. You don't have to be gay to be offended at this depiction.
This show goes for every stereotype in the 21st Century playbook, uses wisecracking, mildly-vulgar dialog in almost every scene, and thinks we are going to laugh just because we remember when the stars were funny in other roles. I didn't laugh at all and would consider it mild torture to be forced to watch any more episodes. A "2" might be too high.
Allen Braddock (Grammer), has just been fired from his law firm—by his father. He sees Marcus Jackson, (Lawrence) representing himself in finalizing his divorce.
Marcus supports his mother and daughter in their Chicago home. Allen approaches him in the men's room, offering to represent him, saying he can get him a much better settlement.
Although totally turned off by Allen's demeanor and brashness, Marcus agrees and he invites him home to look over his finances. While there, they hear from the daughter about how his ex-wife has moved into the rectory of a church, where she works as an accountant for the parish. They immediately suspect she is shacking up with the priest and proceed to sneak into the rectory and into the priest's bedroom, and find something that appears to prove the two are more than just co-workers. Now I should make clear that, while they spoke of a "rectory" and "priest" they never said the word "Catholic." But the statue outside the rectory was not Abraham Lincoln. And if it was supposed to be some Protestant "priest" there was never a hint that he was already married, so the lawyers would not have had much ammunition to get the ex-wife to readily agree to changing the settlement.
After winning in court, the two men decide to become partners, largely because Allen can provide much money to Marcus's struggling practice.
I picture the creators meeting to discuss their idea for the series: (I'll call the creators A and B)
A – So, should we have our stars be longtime friends and partners in law? B – Naahh. Let's have them meet in the pilot and immediately hate each other. That's set up lots of insult jokes between them. A- And you liked my idea of the black guy being mild mannered, living with a smart-mouthed mother and daughter. B – Exactly. The two of them can bombard him with insults whenever they open their mouths. The audience will love it. A- And Grammar's character will be a pompous, bore who is wealthy but disliked by almost everyone around him. Novel idea. Although I seem to recall a somewhat similar character on an old series about radio show in Seattle. B- Yeah, I sort of remember that. It'd be good if we could get the guy that was in that show, because he was funny. A – So our black guy is divorced, what about the white guy is he married or divorced? B – Yes. He has an ex-wife somewhere, but has remarried. And we'll give him a manipulative step-daughter, who's also got a smart mouth. A- O.K., so we're going with the stereotypes for both men, their family members, their marital status—who in TV world is happily married to their first spouse these days? Any other stereotypes we can exploit? B – Well I was thinking about having a paralegal working for Marcus who is in every way the stereotype of a gay man. A- Great! Can't have a show today without a gay character. B- In the pilot episode, we'll develop the plot so the unseen, Catholic priest is violating his vows by having an affair with the almost-divorced wife of our star. A- Hey, you can always get laughs by portraying priests in a most negative manner. Now we're rolling.
The second episode, featured a sham of a pretend marriage between our two stars to see if a famous caterer was indeed gypping her customers, I give you some samples of the unrealistic one-liners:
When Allen said they weren't going to get involved in a case, Marcus countered with, "Oh, we'll get involved just because you said 'hence.'"
When the step-daughter walked through saying some stupid line, the gay man responded immediately, to himself, "Someone call Satan and let him know there's a hole in his fence."
When everyone is together the same step-daughter said, about Marcus' mother, to everyone, "Is she O.K.? She seems really old," as though that were a crime. Later, as the young woman was talking to Marcus's mother, the mother retorted, "You are one question away from being buried in the garden."
As Allen told the gay couple they were going to help handle the bad caterer, "I say, 'You're here, you're queer. Let's sue for it!"
The second episode happily added to the stereotypes by stating that all of the gay couples cheated by this caterer were too reluctant to complain. I thought we were trying to move past the stereotype of having all homosexuals be so mild-mannered that they would refuse to assert themselves when the situation called for it. You don't have to be gay to be offended at this depiction.
This show goes for every stereotype in the 21st Century playbook, uses wisecracking, mildly-vulgar dialog in almost every scene, and thinks we are going to laugh just because we remember when the stars were funny in other roles. I didn't laugh at all and would consider it mild torture to be forced to watch any more episodes. A "2" might be too high.