"Perfect Couples" – Episode 4, “Perfect Jealousy”

"Perfect Couples" – Episode 4, “Perfect Jealousy”

Television Review

By our guest blogger, Matthew Schimkowitz

We’re back to square-one with "Perfect Couples." The strides the show took last week seem to have washed back out to sea, with another cliché story about the rules of marriage and when it’s OK to look. Everyone’s jealousy takes over in this episode and it leads to an anti-climactic finale, where Dave gets drunk and apologizes to Julia.

The cold opening to “Perfect Jealousy” asks the primary question of Thursday’s episode – namely when does flirting become cheating. As we watch the cast nervously talk to the opposite sex, there’s never a sense that this will go anywhere. A fact the rest of the episode confirms.

While walking his dog, Dave strikes up a conversation with a certain young, attractive and friendly dog owner. He remains faithful, but Julia gets jealous when Dave’s new friend calls the house. The couples argue about who’s jealous and who isn’t, with Dave contending that he doesn’t get jealous, but then loses his cool when he stumbles upon a few “likes” on Julia’s Facebook wall.

Meanwhile on B-plot Island, Rex is having trouble at work – apparently, his recession proof exotic car dealership wasn’t so recession proof. However, ashamed of his inability to properly bring home the bacon, he chooses to keep it a secret from Leigh.

Once again, we toy with the ideas of honesty, deception and trust. These are the fundamentals for marriage, but the show seems afraid to do anything truly risky with them.

It isn’t, however, afraid to shove all of its jokes into flashbacks. I’ve discussed this in the past, but this show doesn’t use the format in an interesting way, with these forgettable forays into the past rarely equating to laughs. Opposing these impulses is the cast whose chemistry works wonderfully, more often than not.

And that’s the main problem with these flashbacks--they usually feature a character alone, when the show works best when the cast gets the chance to bounce off each other. We see their problems reflect off each other, making the show worth watching. But when we spend most of the plot, pausing it and looking backward, “Perfect Couples” becomes a taxing endeavor.

“Perfect Jealousy” is a painfully mediocre episode of an indecisive show. There are spots of excellence in Perfect Couples, but the show’s producers need to have the guts to focus on them.

Grade: C