Review: Bless the Harts “Mega-Lo-Memories: Part Deux”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)
It’s Black Friday again and the Harts decide to recount their own earlier misadventures at that time of the year. This time, the stories take place before Violet was even born, with Wayne in a Michael Bay inspired nog-distribution tale, Betty trying to attempt a slip and fall at the mart to sue them, and Jenny getting a dancer job out of town that she ends up having to give up when she finds out she’s pregnant with Violet. And to top it all off, Jenny actually met Wayne BEFORE meeting him later on, as he handed her a violet to keep her spirits up, inadvertently naming Violet.

OUR TAKE
Just as the Dead Mall episode was a major improvement on the first season’s Halloween episode, we’re also seeing a major jump from the last Black Friday episode. Washed out and creepier character designs aside, each plot works to the strengths of the characters they focus on. Wayne’s is an endearing action movie parody about him doing a mundane job, Betty trying to Ocean’s Eleven scam during the sale, and Jenny’s story cutting to the HART of the show (see what I did there?) by showing both the upsides of showing your small town that you’re leaving them behind AND the complicated feelings of suddenly getting pregnant just as your life is taking off, as well how the community can come together to support her once they find out. This isn’t like Futurama’s “Jurassic Bark” levels of feels or anything, but it’s definitely the most heartfelt Bless the Harts has ever felt. Last year’s take definitely showed how green the show was at finding its identity, with a lot of jokes just not landing with me. This time though, the stories involved felt different enough that they balanced each other out while using the framing device to pull towards a central theme and having enough callbacks to the last year that it feels like an expansion on those ideas.

It’s good to see Bless the Harts continuing to figure itself out, learning how to make its holiday specials feel as original as they can and continue to build on the humor and character development. Although an interesting similarity between this and the Dead Mall episode is that they both focus on references to the 2000’s as a formative period for the characters. That’s pretty untapped material, considering how often the 80’s and even the 90’s seem more likely to be referenced as in the past, despite the 2000’s being over two decades away from us by now. And while it continues to make me feel older and older the more it’s brought up, I can’t deny that the potential for comedy about that period of time is full of things that can now be put in the frame of mockery that we gave parachute pants and flannel jackets or whatever one might choose to mock from previous decade. And perhaps we’ll see what in the show’s next Christmas related episode, though we’ll have to find out in at least two weeks when the show returns.