Review: Duncanville “Born to Run (A Small Business)”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

Jack takes over a music store, Ronnie D’s Axe Hole, from his old friend Ronnie.

Our Take:

This week sees Duncanville returning to its one-episode-a-week strategy for the last two episodes of the season. As much as I enjoy having double the Duncan and double the fun, I understand that Fox wanted to slow the antics down before it becomes too overbearing. This episode starts the final stretch of the show’s third season with Jack running a store based on his favorite music: rock and roll.

The episode started with Jack coming home after fixing a massive clog at a 24-hour truck stop. While attempting to get the kids to school on time, Jack comes across a music store from his youth and reencounters his old friend, Ronnie D (Dave Grohl). During a fun guitar battle between Jack and Ronnie, the latter broke his leg, resulting in him having Jack run his store. While Jack struggles to keep the business running, Annie takes care of Ronnie during his recovery. Unfortunately, Jack winds up in a position where he has to make a payment to the IRS, or they’ll take his home.

This rocking episode features a special guest from the music department. That guest is Dave Grohl, the founder/singer/guitarist/songwriter of the Foo Fighters. He also made a recent film appearance in the horror-comedy Studio 666. His role as Ronnie D is a fitting addition to the show’s impressive guest lineup considering the episode’s focus on rock and roll music. Unfortunately, Grohl’s voice work wasn’t enough to help the episode rock my socks off compared to the last two I’ve seen. However, there’s still some enjoyment to be had in Jack’s return to rock and roll.

“Born to Run (A Small Business)” offers a tolerable story about Jack hoping to bring rock and roll back into the spotlight by taking over Ronnie’s store. This eventually leads to Jack and Ronnie saving their store from the IRS by performing insurance fraud with explosive results. However, the story struggled to juggle its central plot with its other scenarios that weren’t music-related, resulting in it being unfocused.

One of the side-plots in question involves Duncan getting sign-spinning advice from Mr. Mitch. When he sees Mitch stealing his audience with his own sign-spinning skills, Duncan challenges him to a spin-off, with the winner leaving town. This one does feel necessary to its plot, with Duncan and Mitch’s spin-off setting off the fireworks during Jack’s concert. However, it also had an inconclusive ending to Duncan’s dilemma, with no clear winner of this competition.

Overall, “Born to Run (A Small Business)” has enough musical moments to keep the show’s third season running, including Dave Grohl’s performance. Sadly, its unfocused plot prevented it from achieving rock and roll greatness. Even the humor in this episode was lacking compared to the previous ones. Jack adding “rock” to everything was pretty tame despite the joke being used once, and Ronnie hitting on Annie just came off as both unfunny and pointless. I would say that this is the weakest episode of season three since its season premiere back in May. Hopefully, next week’s finale will help the show conclude its recent season on the right note.