Review: Tender Touches “The End Of The World Concert”

Overview (Spoilers Below)

The guys go viral and almost sell out. Charlene comes back in time for the world to end, everyone lives in pyramids, and the screams of Curtis’s mother reverberate throughout the episode.

Our Take

Welcome back, Charlene! “The End of the World Concert” closes out a hysterical third season of Tender Touches with an apocalypse. However, that is more of a sub-plot when compared to the continued musical pursuance of Taishi, Steve, and Curtis, which carries the episode.

Even though we only spent a short amount of time with the boys’ mother in this episode, her presence brought another aspect to the series and the characters of Steve and Curtis by utilizing her for a mere thirty seconds. After being treated to her screams, which are not only used to “sing the boys to sleep each night,” but also to remind them of the noise that they’ll hear when the world ends. Sure, it’s weird, but if you’ve made it three seasons into this show, chances are you’re probably a little odd too.

The season finale continues where “Rock and Roll Guys” left off, picking up the pieces of “What’s That Pounding” and trying to put them in together in a way that the recording managers approve of, which proves an impossibility for our heroes. The audience gets to hear a verse for the song that wasn’t in the previous episode, but nothing seems to be enough to sell the song they have in mind. So they do the only thing any self-respecting artist can do in the situation – sell out.

To be fair, the guys only try to sell out, but it doesn’t take long for them to realize they aren’t sports guys, but rock and roll guys after all. Unfortunately for them, they only manage to be true to their music in time for the apocalypse to arrive, interrupting their big concert.

Michelle leaves for space with most of the other humans, but luckily, Charlene returns to the spotlight! For the first time in several episodes, Steve, Curtis, and the woman who drove them apart become close once more under the safety of a cardboard box. Though I could have gone without the imagery, Charlene says it best when she states that she’s the igloo that holds the Eskimo brothers together.

The episode was great, and it served as a fantastic ending to a hilarious season that nearly left me in stitches. Twas sewn together by the reverberating (synthesizer-produced) screams of Steve and Curtis’s mother, which foreshadowed the impending apocalypse from top to bottom. And speaking of foreshadowing did Taishi’s chip clip hint at the end of the world even before this episode?

With so much of the population leaving Earth, I wonder if that will have any lasting effect on next year’s outing? Saying goodbye to Michelle wasn’t easy, but if it means that Charlene is going to return with a more substantial presence in Season 4, then shut up and take my money.