HomeTelevisionTV Recap: The Goldbergs, 'Smother's Day'

TV Recap: The Goldbergs, ‘Smother’s Day’

The Goldbergs

With Mother’s Day just around the corner, The Goldbergs took the opportunity to revel in such an occasion, placing Barry (Troy Gentile) and Erica (Hayley Orrantia) at the beck and call of mom Beverly (Wendi McLendon-Covey) after she begins to start trading in all the “good for whenever” coupons her older children made her over the years. Barry and Erica have no choice to accept the cash-in, but after providing such services as snuggles and toe nail painting (during which Erica hilariously gags as if she’s about to throw up), the two call it quits, but Mama Goldberg ain’t having it. She proceeds to take all of Barry and Erica’s treasures away, including a dancing Coke can with sunglasses and headphones. Remember those?

The two plan to win back their mother’s love, with Big Tasty on the mic and Erica providing back up on the keyboard. Still, no dice. Lainey (A.J. Michalka) tells her boyfriend and her best friend that they need to go above and beyond, and they do, but in disastrous fashion, as they make a mess of the kitchen. Despite creating chaos, this touches Mama Goldberg’s heart, and all is fixed emotionally and physically.

Meanwhile, Adam (Sean Giambrone) has already take care of mom with a sweet gift, so he’s off to pester Murray (Jeff Garlin) about enrolling in Space Camp, a new obsession of the youngest Goldberg. Adam even creates a 80’s style home video with clay and a Millennium Falcon that instantly brought me back to my own childhood, as it seems like something I would do. Anyway, Murray doesn’t budge, so Adam goes to Pop-Pop (Judd Hirsch) to find out if Murray had any dreams when he was a kid. Truth is, he did, and it was being a ventriloquist. He even had a dummy based on his image, called Moiry. Adam uses this to his advantage, but when father and son have a full out argument about the crushing of dreams, Murray lays into Adam about how he’s a better father than Murray’s father was, and it’s a deeply impacting scene, and well performed by Garlin. Murray, as a father, isn’t perfect, but as we know from his relationship with his father, his dad was only a blip on the radar with a lot of the big stuff, and Adam is treated far better than that. Giambrone’s reaction to his father’s defending of himself sells it as well, and to see the show hit harder than normal was something I really applaud.

Despite that moment, “Smother’s Day” had a lot of laughs (Adam having an “accident” during the gyrosphere in the mall pulled a good couple laughs, plus an Adam facial gesture with on hand Moiry slayed me) and provided moments that I didn’t expect. On that note, The Goldbergs third season is finishing quite strong. Good stuff!

Rating: 9.5/10

The Goldbergs cash in their coupons every Wednesday night at 8:30 pm on ABC

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Logan J. Fowler is a senior writer and video game editor on Pop-Break.com. He contributes his thoughts every week for Trailer Tuesday and ABC’s The Goldbergs.” Logan’s “kid at heart” nature has led to his discussion about pop culture that many geeks love to talk about, including superheroes, Super Mario Bros., Pixar, and Muppets, among other things. In addition, one of his first pieces for the site, “Top Ten Comic Book Movies,” was picked as a “Freshly Pressed” piece by WordPress and remains one of the site’s most well-read articles. Many of Logan’s friends have said that he moonlights as Spider-Man but this is so not true. Wait, are those police sirens I’m hearing?! Gotta go! -thwipp-
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