Go On – Season 1 Episode 17 – Recap and Review – Ring and a Miss via Rickey.org
Recap and review of Go On – Season 1 Episode 17 – Ring and a Miss:
Go On has long been building the story of how Ryan (Matthew Perry) would handle his first real post-Janie relationship. Simone (Piper Perabo) has been one of the most welcome additions to the show, but her time on the series was never going to be permanent, and part of why “Ring and a Miss” is so effective is because we know this. We might not want it to be so, but there’s an inevitability about Ryan and Simone’s relationship, crumbling under the weight of Ryan’s lack of preparedness for what a real relationship entails. The episode is helped immensely by the narrowed focus on the Ryan/Simone relationship, and a solid B-plot centered on Mr. K (Brett Gelman) teaching Anne (Julie White) how to bond with her kids. The episode is free of the cluttering excesses of a C or a D-story, and it flows much better as a result of that streamlining.
Credit: NBC
After a thoroughly winning opening sequence, in which Ryan and Simone pretend to be a feuding Italian couple while out at dinner, resulting in the Italian wait staff taking their fake bickering seriously, the episode settles into the main plot. Ryan wants to take things to the next level, but Simone refuses to move forward with Ryan until he removes his wedding ring. Ryan is hesitant to make the leap, calling the group for a shadow meeting to help him make a decision. Ultimately, he decides to take off the ring, tossing it into a grove in a show of commitment. But he can’t stick to it. He immediately crumbles and goes searching for the ring in the weeds. And that looks to be it for the relationship, with Simone solemnly taking a cab and leaving for San Francisco, leaving Ryan a postcard of the view from the building atop which they first kissed. Ryan can do little else but watch her leave, while Steven (John Cho) tries to ease his friend’s pain with a music cue taken straight out of “Say Anything.”
However, after a brief time indulging the club scene with Steven and their friend Hughie (Bradley Whitford), Ryan comes to the realization that he’s made a terrible mistake, and resolves to travel to San Francisco to win Simone back. The group, save for Lauren (Laura Benanti) and Steven, are in favor of the move. This is one of the funnier scenes of the episode, as Steven believes that Lauren was making a racial joke by hitting her gong (“Did you just ‘Long Duck Dong’ me?”), and Owen (Tyler James Williams) grouses about the lack of racial sensitivity in the 1980s. In a typical act of Ryan putting the cart before the horse, he tells Carrie (Allison Miller) to sell all his old furniture and replace it with furniture Simone would like. He sets out to San Francisco to get her back, only to discover her shacking up with her ex, Marco. Simone tells Ryan that she’s still crazy about him, but she needs to know that he’s really here for her, and not out of his desperation to fill the Janie-shaped hole in his life. Ryan can’t give her the answer she wants, and it ends once and for all.
As Ryan sulks in his baseball glove-shaped chair, Lauren and Steven arrive to comfort him, and Ryan admits that he doesn’t really want to get back out into the dating scene, he simply wants to find someone perfect right away, so that he won’t have to be lonely again. It’s a poignant admission, and not out of character, given what we know about Ryan. His struggle to move on from Janie has always been a gradual process, but this represents his first real stumbling block, as we learn that he hasn’t really made as much progress in getting over his loss as the past few episodes would seem to suggest. And, really, that’s how grief works.
Credit: NBC
The B-plot provides a nice contrast to Ryan’s inner turmoil, as Anne hires Mr. K to babysit her kids, and he quickly catches on as a Mary Poppins figure in the kids’ lives. There are some pretty good gags here, as the kids are shaped into mini-Von Trapps, singing and dancing in outfits made from drapes while Mr. K struts about in a longcoat made from the same pattern. Anne discovers just how out of touch she is when it becomes apparent that her kids prefer Mr. K to her, resulting in Anne confessing that she was never good with kids, that was always her late partner’s department. He tells her she needs to get back into touch with her inner child, and this piece of advice unlocks the relatable parent in her. It’s a simple yet effective development. It’s even capped off with one of the best gags of the episode, as Mr. K flies off on his umbrella, a la Mary Poppins, only for it to be revealed that it’s all a delusion from Mr. K having fallen off the roof.
“Ring and a Miss” hits all the right notes, building character without sacrificing narrative momentum or comedic value. It’s one of the better episodes of the season, as we get closer to the season finale.
