Go On – Season 1 Episode 13 – Recap and Review – Gooooaaaallll Doll! via Rickey.org
Recap and review of Go On – Season 1 Episode 13 – Gooooaaaallll Doll!
Go On is hardly a serialized comedy in the mold of a How I Met Your Mother or even a more loosely connected sitcom like Modern Family. Yet the show has gradually made strides toward carrying over elements from one episode into the next. In this case, we return to the theme of whether or not Ryan (Matthew Perry) is ready to get back out into the dating scene. “Gooooaaaallll Doll!” is an unspectacular half-hour, as far as comedy goes, but it’s a relative success in building the rapport between Ryan and some of the more underdeveloped characters of the series, particularly his assistant Carrie (Allison Miller). We know that they share a vaguely sarcastic relationship that borders on sibling familiarity, but there’s always that sense, as there tends to be between any two attractive people, that the show could easily take their friendship in a different direction. While I much prefer Ryan and Carrie as a close friends, I find it somewhat exhilarating that the show isn’t simply going to the most obvious well by pairing Ryan with Lauren (Laura Benanti), which many fans have been expecting since the pilot. We might get to that point in the future, but I can certainly appreciate that, barring Ryan’s misguided attempt to kiss her a few weeks back, they haven’t even hinted at that pairing. Quite the opposite, in fact, as the series has gone to great lengths to develop Ryan through his relationships – not only to those in his group, but those in his workplace as well.
Credit: NBC
Ryan has decided to get back out into the dating scene, intending to get his first date out of the way by going out with a friend of Carrie’s. Turns out, the friend is gorgeous. Hannah (Nazanin Boniadi) is a velvet-voiced British beauty, and it stands to reason that he’d be rendered feckless by his nerves. It also stands to reason that he would blow it, this being Ryan and all. Carrie offers to be his date for a formal occasion, now that Hannah is off on a date with snowboarder and multi-time Olympic medalist Shaun White. However, in a fit of bravado, Ryan crashes the date and sweeps Hannah off her feet (strangely, with the consent of Shaun White, who had earlier been a guest on Ryan’s radio show), and takes her to the event without canceling on Carrie, who shows up to the formal all dressed up. Carrie is crestfallen, and Ryan has to put the pieces back together.
Credit: NBC
This is one of the stronger storylines in recent weeks, likely because Ryan and Carrie have such a believable friendship. At the start of the episode, they’re lazing around, watching trashy reality shows together, and it doesn’t feel at all unusual that Ryan would be doing this with her. This kind of easy familiarity adds to the genuine warmth of Ryan’s apology for having ditched her for Hannah, with Ryan explaining just how much Carrie means to him. However, this also complicates Carrie’s later admission that she once had feelings for Ryan, and while Carrie tries to save face by saying that Ryan’s way too old for her anyway, it’s clear that both parties have been shaken by the admission. This development creates interesting storyline possibilities for the future, as the tension in their attraction could remain subtext, or it could become more overt, creating the first real pairing worth shipping since the series premiered. As it stands now, this dynamic is enjoyable simply for how honest and real their friendship feels, with Ryan making it up to Carrie by watching the same sordid reality shows with her as the episode comes to a close.
Credit: NBC
Meanwhile, the B-plot of the episode followed arguably the show’s least developed character, Yolanda (Suzy Nakamura), who gets a job in the hospital where Sonia (Sarah Baker) works. This generates some pretty decent comedy, as Sonia tries to get Yolanda to adopt more of an edge to her personality. It’s a disastrously-failed attempt at a reinvention, culminating in Yolanda getting into trouble with her supervisor, who schedules her for a drug test under the suspicion that something is seriously wrong with her. In one of the episode’s better moments, she chases after the supervisor, insisting that she’s never done drugs, although she accidentally breathed in pot smoke at a Dave Matthews concert – but that she spent fifteen minutes blowing her nose afterwards. A straitlaced character’s aversion to all things drug-related can be easy comedy, but it works when deployed as well as it is here. Moreover, I know I’m beginning to sound like a broken record, but I really do love that the show is building that important rapport between the characters of the group, independent of their association with Ryan. It bears repeating only because the show is still in the process of striking that proper balance between how much of the show should be about Ryan, and how much should be about the other members of the group. They’re still working out the kinks, but even a relatively understated subplot, such as this, goes a long way in creating that sense of community within the show.
Credit: NBC
“Gooooaaaallll Doll!” isn’t the exemplar of a perfect episode of Go On, but it does have a lot of things that give me confidence in the show’s progress. As the cast gets more comfortable and settles into their roles, the rapport between the characters feels more genuine. Nearly all good comedy is based on character, so it wouldn’t surprise me to see, as the series moves forward, a funnier sitcom emerge, as the writing and performance of the characters gets more assured, more textured, and more nuanced.
