In last night’s episode of The Goldbergs, titled “Big Orange,” we get our first clips episode but it is categorized with one element, and that is that it features Barry (Troy Gentile) and his adventures in his orange Philadelphia Flyers shirt, which he calls Big Orange. These featured have a payoff, of course, because “Big Orange” is a story centered around the most worn piece of wardrobe in Barry’s life. While he loves it to death, the women in his life feel he needs to stop with the habit of wearing it everywhere and move on. Mama Goldberg (Wendi McLendon-Covey) and Barry’s girlfriend Lainey (A.J. Michalka) take measures to have Barry dispose of his favorite shirt, but he doesn’t budge. Beverly therefore creates a plan to finally destroy the shirt, leaving Barry no choice but to leave it behind. Lainey agrees, but once Barry finds the ripped apart beloved Big Orange in the dryer, he is destined to find who was behind the shirt murder.
Meanwhile, Adam (Sean Giambrone) is growing up and getting bigger, so his dad (Jeff Garlin) decides to get rid of his tree house because he can’t fit in it anymore. Adam begs his dad to leave it up, requesting Erica (Hayley Orrantia) to join his side because of all the mock mysteries they used to film in the the tree house together. The youngest Goldberg wants one last mystery, and he gets it when Barry wants to figure out who wrecked his shirt. The three of them ban together to figure it out, although Erica points a finger at mom. Barry vouches for her, knowing she never messes up laundry. Adam also thinks it is too simple. Lainey eventually comes forth saying she was in on it with Beverly, but Adam has selective hearing because he wants to keep pushing the mystery forward because of all the positive memories he has. Adam accuses the JTP of being behind the scenes of dismantling Barry’s favorite shirt, but then drops how Lainey and mom were the actual ones who did it.
Barry breaks up with his girlfriend and mom (although Beverly fights him on that, because, you know, you can’t divorce your mom) because he’s absolutely furious that they would do something like this to him. They try to fix things, but the damage is done. The two girls in Barry’s life decide to throw a loving funeral for Barry’s t-shirt. It’s a very nice moment, and a solid conclusion to Barry’s most dominating piece of clothing.
Adam gets closure too, as Erica and him decide to build a new tree house, making new memories. With that being said, this episode wasn’t full of laughs like previous entries in the show, but it had a really good story about growing up and moving on from things you can’t really keep anymore. It also paid tribute to the late owner of the Flyers, Ed Snider, which was a very nice touch as well. While not really big on laughs, “Big Orange” was big on emotion. And there’s nothing wrong with that.
Rating: 8/10
The Goldbergs air every Wedensday 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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