Finally, a decent episode.

I began the thread "I'm done with this cr*p.

I gave it another shot last Tuesday. While not as good or wholesome as other shows (the little girl talking about sex practices if she was in college), it wasn't as implicitly graphic as in other episodes.

The characters softened this episode. They actually made sense. Not everything was an offshoot or centralized to Kenny and his coming out, although it still had an effect.

The father wasn't a doofus with Kenny, as he has been in past episodes. The scene of actual affection for Kenny was tender and a semblance to real life. The father offered actual advice and an understanding of the situation greater than he had before, when they all deferred to Kenny. His talking of how they've only had six weeks to deal with Kenny's gayness was accurate.

In short, the father offered wisdom that Kenny has lacked, but that the showrunners have deferred to with authority. Kenny must come out to Granma because she's Catholic and evil is one scenario emblematic of that.

The repellant aspects of Mom (pushing a teen girl to have sex with Kenny, for example)were not in evidence. Indeed, there was sensitivity to her fantasizing of Kenny getting married to a woman.

The other kids had their own plot devices that seemed to coalesce to a whole, instead of say, the little girl just being a jerk to a priest. That is, they were in keeping with kids being kids. Jimmy wanting to talk to a girl and the girl being Halloween-like ghoulish.

There was no bringing Kenny into environments ripe for adults hitting on him, no porno talk, and so on.

It was less strident.

It's still not something I look forward to esp, coming off of Fresh off the Boat, which is so much funnier and just better.

Still, it was an improvement to a B-.

Criticisms still remain. Every episode seems to have a coming out of sorts or a public announcement of sorts. In this one, it had Kenny stopping the play wedding, but it happening wasn't as contrived, such as Jimmy revealing he has anorexia when he clearly doesn't or revealing that he didn't want to be on the wrestling team. It wasn't as contrived just to create conflict.

And there is still no compelling explanation why the parents are getting divorced. That said, even though I think it is silly, it was nice to see the father do something that wasn't contingent upon Kenny, as he was when he was talking to the female cop.

Even his talking to Jimmy in the living room at home about his mustache was seemingly more real than in the past. The show was less broad and focused on the characters more than before.

There was far greater nuance to all of the characters, except maybe the girl, but she was a bit more nuanced in the past so, I excuse it.

They dialed back the anti-Catholicism, the didacticism of the pro-gay stuff, and focused on kid stuff.

Sure, it was all a device to have the Mom involved in Kenny's life, but it was more natural than before.

I think they need to get rid of the divorce thing. It's foolish.

In any case, leaps and bounds better than the past episodes.