Men of a Certain Age, "Go with the Flow": Black-eyed Joe

A quick review of tonight's "Men of a Certain Age" coming up just as soon as I see if they have a fitting room...

"Stop analyzing and obsessing. Just let yourself enjoy something." -Terry

I really wish I wasn't at press tour so I had time/energy for a longer review of "Go with the Flow," which was one of the early episodes I watched on a screener, and which is the one where I decided I was in with "Men of a Certain Age" for the long haul.

On the one hand, it's an atypical episode for the young series. Where previous installments focused evenly on the three guys, this is almost entirely Joe's episode, with Terry and Owen providing a running commentary (and getting occasional brief spotlight moments like Owen's wife calling him her big sexy bear). And the style is more overtly comic than before (though never at the expense of the show's level of reality), with both the date and the cyber-sex incident leading to some explosive bits of physical comedy: Joe throwing the money at Manfro, and especially Joe running away from Dory when the "I just want to look at you" advice backfired. My laptop nearly tumbled off my lap when he threw Dory off of him, sprang up from the couch and crashed into the lamp. It's not a shock to know that Ray Romano can do physical comedy, as he did plenty of that on "Raymond," but to see a moment like that pulled off in a more subdued, realistic setting, without feeling like it doesn't belong is impressive.

(Also impressive? Sarah Clarke as Dory. I really only know her as Nina Myers from "24," so she was a revelation as this intriguing, fun, sexy potential girlfriend for Joe. I want to see much more of her as the season goes along.)

And yet even with the slapstick, and the shaggy dog nature of the whole story, "Go with the Flow" never lost sight of those small, gap-filling moments this series does so well. Joe panics with Dory and potentially ruins everything, but then they have an honest conversation about it, and for once Joe's neuroses don't scare someone else away. It was another great, vulnerable, oddly charming moment from Romano.

Even the payoff to the cyber-sex subplot, while funny, felt small and real. This one was just a pleasure to watch, start to finish.

What did everybody else think?