Season Finale: Cougar Town-"Something Good Coming"

Trav and Jules share a cup of Joe on a Hawaiian mountain on "Cougar Town"
Credit: ABC

I know I've been bad about writing about Cougar Town since it returned from hiatus, but I've had a lot going on outside of the blog. I decided to not write about the show until after the finale with more general thoughts. My thoughts on the terrific season finale of Cougar Town are after the jump.

 There isn't another show out there that makes me laugh out loud as much as Cougar Town does. This show puts me in my happy place every time I watch it. It's a joy to have these characters on my TV. I can't say that this is the best comedy on TV right now, but it's one that gives me more enjoyment then most of the other shows that I watched from week-to-week this season. 

The finale was a perfect example of exactly what this show does so well. It was hysterical and it didn't let the character material get lost in the stunt of the episode. Vacation episodes can either be one of the best episodes a show does, or one of the worst. After Modern Family mastered this type of episode last year, I was worried that Cougar Town was trying to ride on the former's coattails, but I should have known better. This show delivered an episode that I'll remember as one of my favorite vacation episodes. 

The major reason why it was as awesome as it was is that the episode was hysterical. All of the humor involving Andy and Bobby (especially with the door knocking), the 80's shades, or the new big wine glass was very funny. There were also great moments involving Greyson's ukulele (as a musician, I was a little sad when Ellie broke it, but then again, it was $5). Ellie shooing away tourists was very funny as well.

The main reason for going to Hawaii (besides ABC paying for a finale in Hawaii) was bringing Travis back. The show has gone to the extreme with Travis's feelings after being turned down by Kirsten, but it's not an extreme that I don't like. The character has never had to deal with anything like this before (or  at least, not while I was watching the show) and him going to an extreme emotional place is understandable. I thought the way they've been handling the arc was strong, and they took it to the next level in this episode. The material between Jules and Travis were very strong. I loved every second of their conversations together. But the best material in the plotline went to Travis and Laurie. Busy Phillips and Dan Byrd work so well together, and that's what made the material land very well. Having Laurie bring Travis back was a well executed idea.

The plotline involving Greyson and Jules arguing about a baby was something that I saw coming since I saw Greyson and Stan in the babysitting episode. I feel like this is something that the writers shouldn't run around. There was a lot of that in the first chuck of the episode, but when the episode actually focused on it, it became a good plotline. Josh Hopkins nailed Greyson's reaction to Jules wanting to run around it and Courtney Cox nailed the scene at the end of the episode.

Some other thoughts:

• Abed was in the background of the scene outside of the coffee shop (calling back to Abed telling Jeff about being an extra on Cougar Town). The Cougar Town/Community lovefest continues!
• Poor Tom, always relegated to the background.
• Boy, the visuals in the episode were good. This episode was gorgeously shot. That's why I picked the above picture, because of the scenery behind it. 
• Apparently, Sam Lloyd made an appearance as his Scrubs character. I've never watched Scrubs, so this went over my head as a reference, but the character was funny.
• Baby with a six-pack, teehee, very funny!
• I think the powers that be really wanted me to love the episode because my Penny Can showed up right before I sat down to watch the episode.

This episode was a gorgeous season finale to a very strong season of Cougar Town. I'm very glad that I added this show to my schedule back in September, because it's grown to be one of my favorite comedies right now.