'Mad About You' revival's last three episodes has little to offer its viewers and ends with a whimper and not a bang
In the ninth episode of the 'Mad About You' revival season brought to viewers by Spectrum Originals, Paul and Jamie Buchman had somewhat started working on the issues between them. Of course, in real life, it does not happen in one episode.
The 10th episode sees Paul and Jamie agree to go to a marriage boot camp, only when they get there, they end up confusing the rooms and instead go for a team-building conference meant for real estate professionals.
In this sitcom world, obviously, their mistake isn't pointed out to them and the conference is never explicitly stated through the first day and so the Buchmans work on teambuilding exercises, which lead them to realize that Jamie has trust issues and Paul has unrealistic expectations.
Once they figure out the problems they have, that's the end of the storyline. The bumpiness Jamie hinted in the first part is over and done with. But then, the next problem comes — Mabel has been kicked out of New York University.
The next episode then deals with Mabel explaining to her parents what happened and the family going to the Dean at NYU to sort this whole mess out. But this proves futile. However, this too is somewhat easily dealt with once Mabel pitches a course design to the Dean and easily gets her place at the university back.
The audience knows that the Buchmans are privileged and often most of these issues that are dealt with on the show aren't even interesting enough to excite the viewers. Mabel, in particular, comes across as selfish, spoilt, and downright annoying.
But not more so than in the final episode when she announces to her parents that she is quitting school to spend a year in the Pacific cleaning up the ocean. That Mabel does not acknowledge her privilege is not the most worrisome bit — in fact, it feels like the show expects us to applaud her for her decision — which by itself is commendable, but each episode in the revival just makes the previous episode pointless.
While Paul is upset at first, Jamie helps him process the emotions and Mabel finally leaves. Again, by making this episode mostly about Mabel, the revival's second part brings back the same issues as the first. What viewers would want is more of Jamie and Paul which the initial episodes of Part 2 of the revival succeeded in. In the end, the 'Mad About You' revival leaves us with a whimper rather than a bang.
All episodes of the 'Mad About You' revival are now streaming on Spectrum's On-Demand platform.