Quick Thoughts: HAPPY ENDINGS, "Meat the Parrots"

I'll admit that this week's Happy Endings amped up the silliness, but it won me over with a racist and homophobic parrot, and as always I found myself laughing my butt off which is all I ask of this show. This time around the show broke the gang into two sets of trios, and it was hard for me to decide which one I enjoyed the most.

At first, I thought that the Dave, Penny and Jane story about Dave and Penny's parents dating had the most promise because it was the only one rooted in a somewhat realistic situation, and I really do think that Dave and Penny work well together so I was hoping that they would address what happened during last week's episode, but they didn't which was probably the right call. Now, this one started out strong, but it quickly ran out of steam when Megan Mullally took over. While she's great as Penny's mom, and is a natural fit on the show, she got way too much attention and her hippie ways got annoying fast. She even rubbed off on Penny because her "big sister" shtick started to get on my nerves too. That being said, watching Dave throw a temper tantrum actually worked for me, but I think that's because I think that Zachary Knighton's underrated.

Speaking of underrated, Elisha Cuthbert can no longer be labeled as the weakest link (poor Zachary) because she's really come into her own over the last couple of episodes. Yes, the writers are relying too heavily on her ditzy routine, but the bit about her always eating makes her so damn lovable (and the sippy-cup was pure gold). Her plot about being lonely in her store, which led her to getting the aforementioned bigoted bird, which in turn led to the suspicions that a local Chinese restaurant was renting out tush was by far the craziest of the night, but it was also the funniest. Brad and Max always work well together, and Alex was a natural fit as the third wheel, so everything they did felt fresher than what Penny, Dave and Jane gave us.

Lines of the Night:

• Penny: "I always wanted a sibling, but the closest I got to a kid sister was a My Buddy doll."
  Max: "Why didn't you just get a Kid Sister doll?"
  Penny: "I did, but we weren't that close."
• Alex: "Fine. If you're not going to play with me, I'll play with myself."
  Max: "I'd like to see how this shakes out because it's so weird."
• Jane: "Dave, I'm sure it's not easy hearing that your dad has a new girlfriend, and that Penny got rotary dialed on your bumper pool table..."
  Penny: "Big time."
• Brad: "OK, I think 'a ryan' is 'Aryan' and '420' is 'April 20,' which is Hitler's birthday."
  Alex: "How do you know that?"
  Brad: "Uh doy. It's my birthday too. Me, Hitler, Carmen Elektra. Tauruses yo!"
• Tyler the Parrot: "White is right."
  Brad: "Say one more thing Tyler. It's over homie."
  Max: "OK, it's just a bird."
  Tyler the Parrot: "Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve."
  Max: "And that tears it for me!"
• "Big Dave does love yabos."
• "So Dave's new mom is Penny's old mom?"
• "Told you she'd be chesty. She's got them thhaangs!"
• Alex: "Told you. Something is going down."
  Max: "Just like on The Wire."
  Brad: "We should go undercover."
  Max: "Just like on The Wire."
  Brad: "Is there any way to get you to stop saying that?"
  Max: "Yeah, but saying 'just like on Blue Bloods' doesn't have the same pop."
  Brad: "True that."
• Waitress: "My I take your order?"
  Max: "You tell us where the whores are at!"
  Brad: "I'm sorry. I think he means, 'can we have some eggrolls?'"
  Alex: "The weird ones that you have sex with!"
• "Stop baby bro-ing me. You're not Johnny Drama."
• "So you're just helping Chinese immigrants gain a better life through education? OK, well this may be a bad time to tell you guys that I've never actually seen The Wire."
• Tyler the Parrot: "All Italians are Mafia. All Italians are Mafia."
  Brad: "Bird, you trippin'."
  Max: "Straight trippin' bird."

More than likely, "Meat the Parrots" will end up being a throw-away episode that really won't be able to keep up with this show's all-time best thanks to an over-reliance on Mullally, but it was crazy and funny enough to keep me happy.