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Cougar Town Ep. 5.13 “We Stand a Chance” ends the season (series?) on a high note

Cougar Town Ep. 5.13 “We Stand a Chance” ends the season (series?) on a high note

COUGAR TOWN

Cougar Town Season 5, Episode 13 “We Stand a Chance”
Written by Peter Saji
Directed by Courteney Cox
Aired 4/1/14 on TBS

 

With no word on a possible sixth season, Cougar Town found itself in a familiar place entering “We Stand a Chance” facing an uncertain future. It also found itself in a very new place: without a large overarching story to close in the final episode (like a graduation, wedding, runaway kid, or dying grandfather’s life long wish), “We Stand a Chance” was easily the lowest-stakes finale in the show’s five-season run, given the episodes preceding it, which appeared to tie up the season’s loose threads quite neatly. But “We Stand a Chance” is not a low-key season finale, manufacturing an interesting quasi-cliffhanger out of one of the season’s less explored elements – and despite that, is one of the strongest episodes of the season, ending an up-and-down season full of wacky hijinks and scattered emotional moments with a strong half-hour about uncertainty in the face of change.

That’s not to say “We Stand a Chance” doesn’t feel like a fifth season episode of Cougar Town; but the goofiness of previous episodes channels itself into something meaningful when it uses Jules and Andy’s attempts to weasel out of uncomfortable situations into catalysts for big moments in Laurie and Travis’s relationship. Even though those two haven’t been a major focus of the fifth season, it’s really the only emotional card the show had in its deck from the last 12 episodes: with nothing to report on with most of the Cul de Sac Crew, “We Stand a Chance” turns to the largely-ignored thread of Travis and Laurie’s relationship, and whether they have a future as a couple, given their different personalities and goals in life (goals that only come to light in this episode, but still serve their purpose effectively).

But “We Stand” even takes it a step further than that to give the finale an appropriately dramatic feel: turns out Laurie is pregnant, something Jules finds out when using her pee for the urine test at her physical (she didn’t want Ellie’s happy pills to show up in the results). And while Jules struggles to break the news (with no help from either of her husbands, who are locked in intense preparation for a breakdancing battle), Andy’s attempts to turn them into fake rich people uncovers a raw nerve in Laurie and Travis’s relationship: they’ve both got different ideas of the future for themselves, plans that have nothing in common except that they’re still together.

That idea of projecting one’s future gets its comedy from the aforementioned Bobby/Grayson subplot: two men whose age is beginning to change their definition of “masculinity”, as their physical abilities will no longer hold up to their own personal standards. Like Travis and Laurie, Bobby and Grayson have always held a specific vision for themselves, visions that haven’t changed over time, even as their lives and everything around it has changed – including their physical abilities, something Bobby and Grayson both struggle with through the episode. Sure, the stakes are a lot lower than an unexpected pregnancy, but it all serves the same purpose: forcing each and every character to face the unknown in some way or another (even for Jules, who is afraid to go to a physical – who knows what defects they might find, or tests they might want to run?).

As humans, we’re always concerned with the future or the past: and the more consumed we are by what happened or what might happen, the less we’re able to live in the moment and deal with the changes in front of us. Whether we want to admit it or not, we all have some semblance of a “plan”; goals we want to achieve, experiences we want to have, a future that we’re determined to build toward. But life gives not one shit about those plans – and when everything turns upside down, the Cul de Sac family is there to be an anchor – be it Alzheimer’s, pregnancy, or physical and emotional trauma from break dancing without proper stretching before.

In a way, “We Stand a Chance” is Cougar Town reflecting on itself, a realization that with age comes uncertainty – but with a strong, hilarious group of people to lean on, at least we never have to face the future alone. And if that’s the last sight we get of the Cul de Sac crew, sitting in the local wine bar and celebrating Laurie’s big news, it’s a great one, ending one of the show’s strongest TBS-era episodes with heartwarming resolutions. Chick is still alive, Laurie and Travis are happy, and we get a beautiful moment of Jules reflecting on the day she found out she was pregnant with her father – what more could we ask for? After a frustrating, largely incidental fifth season (especially the first half), “We Stand a Chance” is funny, low-key, and emotionally rewarding – exactly how I’d like to remember Cougar Town when it was at its best.

— Randy

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