'The Ex List': Snooze-a-rama
Let's see how The Ex List does in its second time out. I liked the first episode but not everybody did. I agree that the formula of look-up-a-new-Ex-and-sleep-with-him could get old pretty quickly, so hopefully the writers have more up their sleeves.
We join the Fantastic Four as they set up the kiddie pool and discuss Tommy, the ex whose cat Bella found. Turns out Tommy was her prom date from high school. Elliott the Romantic Anvil stops by to pick up Rufus and Bella is less than friendly.
The Foursome is then off to their Annual Watch Crazy People Exert Themselves While We Eat and Drink Brunch, where they watch a local marathon and drink beer and eat brunch. Now that is my kind of annual event. The Chicago Marathon is coming up, maybe that's what I'll do on Sunday! As they discuss googling their exes, a runner in the race tosses his water cup on Bella. When he stops to apologize, it turns out to be Jake Turner, an ex from her grad school days. This ushers us into Flashback Land...
Jake and Bella are breaking up and Bella is dressed so spot-on for 1996 that I almost wet my pants. I think I had that plaid skirt. I hope she has on Doc Martens with it. I also dig the "Little Miss Can't Be Wrong" playing in the background. Turns out Jake turned into a total slob once he got Bella to date him. Isn't that always the way? As she puts on her mini backpack, she yells about 3 weeks of courting and then 4 months of just having sex and watching TV.
Useless trip to the psychic. Seriously.
Flower Shop. Daphne tells Bella she's staying with her until the wedding, which gibes with the psychic's comments about a redheaded roommate. Jake shows up and says he tried to find her at the restaurant but she was gone by the time he got back there. So he googled her. Hahah.
Apartment. Bella is going biking with Jake, thinking he's trying to impress her by his Active Lifestyle. Vivan helps Augie google his exes. Turns out one of Augie's exes, Tonya, is now more like the Thing that Ate Tonya. Yikes.
Mountain biking. Jake has turned from Couch Potato to Studmuffin and invites Bella to a beach party later that day. That's it.
The 3 Mouseketeers set up rules for their Google Your Ex Drinking Game. The rules are: get points for finding an ex in a news article, lose points if it involves criminal activity; if they have a "family page" you have to drink, if they have a hot myspace photo you can make someone else drink; you lose points for them HAVING a Myspace page unless they are a musician; wedding and birth announcements equal a drink; if they have a blog you do a shot; if your ex is something awesome you can make everyone do a shot. NICE! I love this game!
Beach party. Jake organizes a game of Ultimate Frisbee and Bella, in her pretty yellow sundress, gets her ass whupped and ruins her dress. I have to say, Jake the Athlete is a lot less interesting than Johnny the Crying Musician from last week. Maybe it's because the actor playing Jake is so milquetoast. By the way, he was good on Brothers & Sisters, but he was terrible on Moonlight and I'm not so impressed with him here.
Google Your Ex Drinking Game. Vivian has a Nascar driver ex and laments that she hasn't gotten to drink yet. Augie is depressed that an ex dated a pro hockey player and an engineer for NASA. Yowch. Marty and Daphne have run out of exes because they've been dating 13 years. Awww. Augie finds an ex who was Miss Kentucky but who now has an eBay store that sells porceline dolls. Snerk.
Pier. Jake and Bella have some boring, bland interaction. C'mon show, let's do better than this! He convinces her to go sea-kayaking the next day. Back at her house, she is bothered by the cat and so she puts him in the bathroom, where the cat promptly escapes out the window! The Bloom Sisters go off into the night to search for him. Calling for the cat, Bella wakes a blonde female neighbor and Elliott stumbles out of said neighbor's house without a shirt. Whoops. Bella skedaddles.
Beach the next morning. Bella tries to engage Jake in conversation and he doesn't say much. That's it. That's the scene. The editing and pacing of the show tonight is really bad.
Flower shop. Daphne thinks Jake needs to take Bella out for an actual date. Cut to a rock-climbing date where she brings up going out on an actual date and he says how about tonight? He's meeting coworkers at a bar and invites her along. Back at home, Bella has flowers from Tommy thanking her for taking care of Moo the Cat. Awww. Elliott brings Rufus by and she is even less-than-friendlier than before.
Coworkers date. Elisabeth Reaser looks really great in a cute blue dress! She tries to get Jake to talk more about himself when suddenly the coworkers arrive and they start Trivia Olympics. One of the coworkers is Jake's boss, an excitable blonde who his obsessed with trivia. I can relate. When they're finally done Bella wants to know what the deal is, why the constant activity and no smoochies?
Cut to them doing it on her apartment floor. Daphne can't get in to the apartment because of the Floor Sex, so she goes to hang out with Cyrus next door. He is googling The Big Ex and it turns out she wrote a book called "Stop Dating Losers." BWAH! That's awesome! Daphne cheers and does a shot. I heart Daphne.
Post-coitus at Bella's. Jake confesses to her that she's the first girl he's slept with since his ex. Way to go, Mood Killer Guy. I don't know why Bella's so weirded out, though. There has to be SOME person who is the first after the Ex. This opens the floodgates of Jake blathering on about his ex.
The next day Bella tells Augie Jake would not shut up about his ex all night long. Cyrus marches in with a copy of his ex's book, announcing the tagline of "Before you find The One, you have to stop dating The Zero." Awww, poor Augie.
Rock climbing. Jake still won't shut up about his ex and when Bella tries to call him on it he gets all prickly and they have a fight. Man, this week is sure not grabbing me. Hmm.
Flower shop. After a pointless convo with Daphne, Jake shows up to apologize. He buys her a bouquet of beautiful orange-yellow roses and asks for another chance. Cut to them at Trivia Olympics, where the Crazy-Eyed Blonde from last week turns out to be Celeste. Jake tells her she is cut out of his life and walks off. Bella cannot believe Celeste is his boss and can see that Jake is not over her yet. She tells him to go through the getting-over-her process and they agree to be just friends.
Wine with Daphne. Bella says she'll find the right guy eventually. Just then there is a knock on the door! It's Elliot (of course) dropping off Rufus because he has an emergency at the clinic where he works. They have a nice moment.
That night, Bella crosses Jake off her list just as her dog and her cat cuddle up together on her bed. It's a very cute shot! And that's the end.
Okay, guys. The first week got me. It was cute and I laughed out loud a few times. This week... not so much. The Annual Watch Crazy People Exert Themselves While We Eat and Drink Brunch and the Googling Your Ex Drinking Game were both brilliant, but the rest was pretty bad. I hope The Ex List kicks it back up next week.
Favorite Quote (and the only time I LOL'd)
Cyrus: Hey, what's the name of the girl I went out with sophomore year? The one that looked like that chick that sang that crappy song about being on the floor?
Bella: Dude, that chick so did not look like Natalie Imbruglia. She was a poor-man's Phoebe Cates at best.
OMG Andrea. You read my mind. I completely agreed with everything you wrote. There are hilarious scenes with the Eat & Drink and the Drinking game but the rest is a snooze-fest. Who would believe some one as hot as Eric Winter could be so dull? Step it up next time the Ex-list, I still have hope in you!
I LITERALLY fell asleep during this episode and didn't wake up until the 10pm news started! I was not crazy about Episode #1 (I especially did not like the stuck merkin nonsense) and Episode #2 obviously knocked me out. So this one is off my Friday viewing list. Sorry, CBS.
What are you talking about? I thought it was an AWESOME episode!! I can't wait until next week
Who picks these shows? The premise was so stupid when I heard it and the television was on and I peeped, it was horrible.
This show shoulda been good, but just isnt! why is she so desperate? she lives at the beach, have friends & a job, whats the problem? also, her jaw makes me nervous its so wide, & her middle torso also seems too wide! I do not find her adorable, which I think is what the writers want..sorry, just dont! her sisters kinda cute..her friends just too sit=comey..knew I wouldnt like it, didnt care for her on Greys or that other where she played an EMT? nope, too silly for adults, nothing for kids to like, & old people dont even care! IMO
& who did that cat belong to? Im already confused by ALL the exes..was she like a slut?
JMO
Quick question on the timeline. Isn't Bella 33? If so, wouldn't she still be in college in '96? I think this week was better than last week. The pacing is less frantic. Also, they tuned down the bikini shots and cr*** gang action.
However, her life seems more like a 26-year-old than a 3x-year-old. Also, how has Bella had so many boyfriends? She's cute, but her BFF and sister are way more attractive. It's also pretty clear within the first 5 min that her ex-boyfriends are still losers. So, why does she pursue them so energetically, despite the psychic, after the first re-meeting?
Perhaps the person Bella needs to 'love' is herself?
So much random hating for the worst possible reasons. First, it's not that bizarre that she might have 80 to 100 ex's. Especially given that she lives in the L.A. Area. Divide it over 16 years and it's actually rather tame for anyone with the quirks, bad luck and overall nitpicking of said character. And just for the record, it's never been implied that she's only looking for guys she has slept with. It was "anyone" she had some kind of physical relationship with. Hence the reason she was talking about the boy she kissed in the second grade or something like that. Second, 90% of all guys as attractive as Eric Winter are as dull as a butter knife. 55% of those losers have the intellectual capability equal to that of a head of lettuce. I apologize if that bit of fact is shocking or upsetting to you. Third, Elisabeth Reaser "IS" that friggin' adorable. Her Jawline and Middle Torso? Who said typed that. Honestly !!!! Last, I like this show. It's got potential. Sadly it's on CBS and given it's ratings is already as good as dead. So all you haters won't suffer much longer. I am going to enjoy it while I can.
I think the reason people are giving this show such a hard time in terms of its concept is that nobody can believe that a woman can have so many "relationships" with men without sex being involved in some way. There was nothing mentioned in either episode so far that the main character was any kind of mattress-back, just that she had dated many, many guys. Most were probably just one-offs that didn't go well for one reason or other, so she never called them back and moved on to the next one. This is dating in the 21st century, folks (which some call "Wal-Mart Dating," in that if you don't find something you like the first time through, there's always dozens more to choose from), so I'm not at all perturbed nor surprised by Bella's lifestyle.
Having said that, the show could have been tons better, but there is a lot of lazy writing and acting going on, which makes the show less than enjoyable. I'd be interested in seeing if CBS lets the show continue for the first half of the season, just to see if things get into a groove. There's tons of potential, but I'm afraid the viewership won't be enough to keep it on for long. Besides, too many of the viewers that The Ex List is aiming for are, themselves, out on dates and such when this is on, so putting it on CBS was dumb to begin with. We shall see, I guess.
Missed a prepositional phrase...that should have read "on CBS on Friday nights." Oy.