Review: Bless the Harts “The Drincan Temple”

Overview:

Wayne’s old friend, Travis, is back in town, and they cannot wait to hang out. Unfortunately, every time they do, it causes Wayne to make bad decisions. A fact he quickly forgets when they decide to open a Peruvian themed bar. As usual, it is Wayne that ends up holding the short end of the stick.

Meanwhile, Jenny is also having a hard time letting go of an old friend, her loyal beaten down car. Insistent that she doesn’t want to let go of the many memories she has had in the vehicle. She decides to fix it up herself.

Sometimes, it is simply better to move on.

Our Take:

The final days of Bless the Harts are counting down. The season, and series, only has a few episodes yet to be released. As the show hits its last run this month, it starts with a very relevant episode about letting go of the past – even though this series is still relatively new.

The story features Wayne and Jenny both clinging to the past in individual ways. With Jenny, it is the emotional connection to her old CRX, which has reached its last legs. For Wayne, an old friend is injected into the series to create his own moral dilemmas. Each of their tales is as destructive as the other. Even though Wayne does not seem to learn much from his end of things.

As has been a criticism with many of the Bless the Harts episodes, this again feels like recycled cliché sitcom television storylines. You would be hard-pressed to find any sitcom that has not involved a new friend getting the main character into a sticky situation. If done correctly, it can be an entertaining plot. The problem here, Bless the Harts does things too much by the book and does not add its own individual spin on the theme.

The episode was not a complete throwaway. As has been a highlight through much of the series, watching the three generations of Hart women bond and quarrel is always entertaining. And fixing up an old beat-up car could create enough humour. But their situation gets even more humourous when they fantasize about what they will do with the vehicle. Or, in Betty’s case, it is a horny “fant-nasty”.

Unfortunately, the remainder of the episode can only be described as predictable. The moment the old friend, Trevor, rolls up on his motorcycle, it is easy to estimate what is going to happen next. And each scene is like ticking marks on the checklist of where the story is heading.  

With only a few episodes remaining in the Bless the Harts lifespan, there are some things left that we want to see more of. Maya Rudolph has been nothing but extraordinary on this show. Even without much to work with, she manages to deliver the best content of the show. And it would be great to see the last episodes to have the same fun that we have seen glimpses of throughout the run.  Bless the Harts may be far from the best show on Animation Domination. But it is capable of delivering a solid episode here and there.