Review: Bless the Harts “Toni with an I”
Overview:
After a commendable battle against a hive of bees, Wayne is left with a life-threatening reaction to a sting. Thankfully, his friend, Trevor, has found his new passion in metaphysical healing. However, when it does not work, Wayne seeks medical treatment but allows his friend to think that his methods have worked. Unfortunately, Trevor’s next patient is a menopausal Betty Hart.
Meanwhile, after a disagreement over her latest moral dilemma, Jenny and Jesus decide to take a break from their friendship. The next time Jenny finds herself in a sticky situation she is left to take misguided advice from Brenda. The more Jenny listens, the worse things get, as their boss, Louise, slowly loses everything because of the lies. Hopefully, Jenny can make the right call for herself as Jesus is nowhere to be found.
Our Take:
Bless the Harts just loves to sell its strong Christian values. As if every other episode must involve characters making strong moral choices for the benefit of their friends and family. And this episode puts it all on the table with Jenny literally losing Jesus, and metaphorically, her way. Meanwhile, good-hearted Wayne has another plot that resells the fact that he is so good-hearted.
It is not as if Bless the Harts doesn’t have the capacity or characters to push boundaries and question its own morals. Many of the supporting characters can make some unethical decisions and stand by them.
It is that the series itself is afraid of exploring anything but highly virtuous plots and arcs. Unfortunately, for audiences, it is the same old, and the show rarely offers anything exciting.
This episode, in particular, seemed promising off the start with Wayne flaunting a new chainsaw as he attacks a picnic tables worth of bees. Although out of the thousands of directions this story could have led, it makes the strangest of turns. Reintroducing the newest supporting character, Trevor, as a rookie metaphysical healer. Even that could have opened some new doors, but Bless the Harts wants to continue telling the same story, Wayne has a hard time telling his friends the truth if it may hurt them.
Jenny’s storyline does not offer much more, involving her facing more and more moral dilemmas. To make this plot stranger, the character of Jesus has been absent for the majority of the season. But, having him vanish creates the symbology that Jenny has lost her way. Even though she never really does change. Jenny is one of the most consistently unthreatening, unadventurous, and therefore, boring characters to ever appear on Animation Domination.
Bless the Harts created its own demise, and it is becoming more evident why Fox decided to give the show the axe as the last few episodes trickle out. The series is afraid to take any risks. Its way of spicing things up in the second season was to add BIPOC side characters. Unfortunately, it only hindered the show by putting a spotlight on the lack of representation previously. And these final episodes are like watching a fish flounder on land as it takes it’s last breathes.
"There are also other characters that come and go (also owned by the Warner Bros. Discovery conglomerate media company)."
Huh. Is that just referring to other characters from the show itself, or is this implying that the new season is going to have cameos from other WBD IPs