Cops on the Rocks Plot Summary:
Mike (Billy Gardell) and Carl (Reno Wilson) are at odds, and stop being partners. Peggy (Rondi Reed) refuses to go on a book promotional radio spot with Molly (Melissa McCarthy).
I was a little sad when CBS announced this would be the final season for Mike & Molly.
Over the past year, thanks to syndication, I’ve become a fan of the series. It’s got a wicked sense of humor, a good heart, some smart dialogue and storytelling, and the chemistry between every cast member is absolutely electric.
Sadly, tonight’s Season Six premiere, ‘Cops on the Rocks’ lacks of the all of this.
Nothing about the episode felt fresh. The story felt like Sitcom 101 — everyone is mad at each at the beginning of the episode, but everything gets resolved happily by the end. It also retreads a storyline the series has done to death — Mike and Carl are mad at each other. This happens at least once a season, and to start out the gates with a retread was pretty weak.
Listen, Mike & Molly hasn’t been a groundbreaking sitcom, but they’ve always been smart about their plots. The writers have found ways to take classic sitcom storylines and make them fresh and funny. Tonight felt like the writers had nothing left in the tank, and we just trudging towards the inevitable end of this series.
It sounds weird to make that criticism, but tonight it felt like everyone on the series had run out of gas, or was completely disheartened by the news that the series was finishing up. Maybe this wasn’t the case, but the spark and fire that makes this series so good was completely extinguished. Everyone ran the playbook with passable effort. Sure, there were a few chuckles here and there, but they were all very few and far between.
Melissa McCarthy has been particularly excellent in the series — as she’s able to employ a healthy mix of physical comedy with a healthy amount of sass and sarcasm. Obviously she’s destined for bigger things in Hollywood, but for five seasons she’s been simply hilarious as former teacher/aspiring writer Molly Flynn. Tonight, however, she was given very little to work with, and it showed. It seemed as though she was trying way too hard to make the proverbial chicken salad out chicken shit.
Overall, not a great start to the final hurrah of for a sitcom that deserved a more fitting way to go.
