REVIEW: THE CLEVELAND SHOW “‘Tis the Cleveland to Be Sorry”

Cleveland develops a taste for the food at the local shelter, which is much better than what he’s served at home, so he pretends to be homeless and becomes a regular at the facility. Meanwhile, Roberta takes a job as a Christmas elf at Grundle’s store, but gets hot under the collar when she discovers he expects her to wear a sexy outfit; and Kendra saves the holiday for the kids of the town.

Spoilers Below

Donna puts her foot down this Christmas because all of the kids want a bunch of shit for Christmas which means they are forgetting the golden rule of Christmas, “It’s better to give then to receive” and  as a result tells everyone that they will be volunteering at the homeless shelter. Cleveland is in the back helping to stab the potatoes when all of a sudden he snatches one of the sandwiches meant for the homeless and goes on a spiritual journey of deliciousness and transcendentalism that only food can bring. Yep, the sandwich is SO good, that Cleveland even prefers it to his own wife’s cooking and uses a disguise to look like a homeless person so he can keep getting more. While doing so, Cleveland meets a bunch of other homeless folk and after making quick friends, he finds out that homeless isn’t too bad. You get delicious food, stolen presents, and free healthcare!  Eventually, a TV camera crew uncovers the truth and tells all of Stoolbend that Cleveland was acting homeless for the perks and when Donna finds out she is PISSED. To try and smooth things over, Cleveland goes on an apology tour, which includes one last stop at the shelter to say goodbye to his homeless friends. As luck would have it, they don’t even care, and decide to go with Cleveland to make a public spectacle of himself at Grundle’s so that the homeless can get treated better all year round, not just on Christmas.

Roberta opts for getting a part-time job at a store in an effort to get a new Gucci purse instead of giving anything to the homeless.  She does just that by working as an elf at a local department store owned by Harris Grundle. Turns out Kendra also works at the same store, and this year she wants to be Santa Claus, but Harris won’t give her the gig because she’s not a dude. Later on, Kendra and Roberta come across a laundromat that is actually looking for a Santa, but Kendra wants the gig at Grundle’s.  As time goes on, Roberta begins to get fed up with Grundle’s pick for Santa, so she gets a scooter for Kendra tricked out like a sleigh in hopes of inspiring her to go for the job. Kendra’s opportunity knocks when the Santa goes missing and as such she attempts to zoom her fat ass up a snowy mountain to get to the store, but she gets stuck and topples into a snow ditch. Eventually, Cleveland and his homeless friends find her, and are forced to pull Kendra all the way to the department store. Once there, Roberta quits because of her detest for the uniform, and Cleveland gives a heartwarming speech.

The Cleveland Show stops by to give us a pretty decent gift for Christmas in the form of laughs, but “‘Tis the Cleveland to Be Sorry”‘s plots were all over the place despite some pretty decent guest star roles from Nick Offerman and Rachael Dratch. For example, Cleveland going on a head trip after eating a sandwich is pretty damn funny as was the apology tour. But, at the end of the day, the ‘A’ plot seemed pretty common place save for some Christmas hats and snow as it really was just another “Cleveland did something wrong, so Donna yells at him, Cleveland apologizes, the end’ type setup.

The ‘B’-plot was ALL over the place, but you had to appreciate the effort in trying to put Roberta and Kendra together for a dry run to see how they’d do. That said, Nick Offerman as Harris was very seldom used, and I think he had some great lines in there at the expense of Roberta’s sexy outfit, but instead the majority of the plot was Kendra wanting to be Santa which makes me think if we just got Roberta being sexually harassed the entire time, it would have made the episode a bit funnier. Also, I’m not sure as to whom played as Santa Claus, but he was a laugh riot, and I think he should be a bigger part of the show.

 

(8.0 out of 10)