Isn’t it always the way? You spend episode after episode kicking lumps out of a show and then all of a sudden it just randomly throws out arguably the best installment in bloody ages. Of course, “best installment in bloody ages” is something of a relative term when you have an action/comedy series that sometimes forgets to be either funny or exciting. However, be that as it may, thanks to some unfathomable sitcom alchemy or the grace of the TV streaming gods, FUBAR somehow manages to deliver actual, genuine laughs, gives everyone something to do (yes, even Hamsteak) and even has a fun action sequence in there or two.
While I’m simultaneously checking my Nostrodamus just to make sure FUBAR having a banger isn’t one of the portents to the end of the world, I suppose I’d better do my unpaid job and clue you in to how FUBAR actually got me to laugh out loud.
Stuck at the bottom of a body of water in a malfunctioning sub, Luke, Emma and the Great Dane struggle to figure out how to get back to the surface in time to warn the latest power plant that’s been targeted by Greta, however issues with the oxygen supply cause them to hallucinate. However, while they trip the light fantastic, Aldon, Carter and Chips race to Penny Possum’s Pizza in order to save Tally from being shot up by the Swedish mafia after she snuck out to celebrate her Granddaughter’s birthday. However, during the chaos, Chips manages to save Tally’s life meaning that he manages to get even more leeway with the family despite his past as a deranged, villainous henchman.
After shaking out the cobwebs and avoiding a watery tomb, Luke and Emma discover that Greta’s out-maneuvered once again and has taken out the second of four plants which brings the world closer to armageddon. However, the group finds that she’s continuing to be one step ahead of them when she enlist a cadre of goons to surround the house to keep them contained. But in the inevitable shootout that follows when the gang entise the surviving members of the Swedish mafia to come and get them, everyone piles into the family car and tears ass to take up new digs at CIA headquarters. It’s here, now free of the confines of the safe house, that the group split. Emma, made all the more suspicious of her father’s reluctance to kill Greta during a vital moment, not thinks that he may, very well be compromised while Barry finally manages to come out from under accusations of treason caused by his relationship with Tina. But while Luke seems to be bonding with Chips, Emma seems to be bonding with Roo and Carter and Donnie go wandering off on a little side adventure of their own during, Greta manages to take out yet another plant which means she only has one left to go.
Hey, trust me, I’m as surprised as you are that FUBAR has delivered an actual full rounded episode completely out of the blue. Literally everything I’ve been asking for and everything I’ve been complaining about for the past five episodes are addressed within this episode and even if some aspects work better than others, the end result somehow succeeds with the show possibly being the most appealing it’s ever been. One example is the fact that even though FUBAR is designed to be a wacky show, it’s wackiness is used just to be wacky for wacky’s sake and rarely is employed as a,tool to enhance the story. However, right out of the gate, episode six delves into one of the show’s past (underdeveloped) jokes and pays it off beautifully. While hallucinating thanks to their submarine’s oxygen supply getting screwed up Luke envisions Emma as the little girl he’s always seen her as and Emma sees her father as one of Dr. Pfeffer’s puppet effigies and the sight of a little, fuzzy Schwarzenegger waving his arms and engaging in a genuine heart to heart with his daughter may actually be the season’s best scene. Elsewhere, the whole Hamsteak gag finally pays off with the sight of Aldon firing dual pistols at the tracksuited chests of the advancing Swedish mafia with the little pig strapped to his chest in a papoose. Further more, the ensuing fight scene actually has more imagination going for it than the usual static gunfights that regularly occurs, with Chips slashing throats with pizza cutters and Aldon finding a novel use for a test your strength machine to fracture a goons skull.
However, while all this takes place in the first third of the episode, it manages to keep the momentum going not by flinging more action at us, but actually focusing on all the characters as people, rather than wisecraking chess pieces to be moved around.
Carter’s mounting anxiety that he’s a feeble screw up reaches maximum levels after his online comic debacle when he manages to knock himself out during the pizza place shootout and then loses Hamsteak when asked to babysit him later. This sees him embark on a weird little side mission with Donnie of all people to track him down only to wander into the midst of a drug deal and even though this admittedly has nothing to do with anything and is placed really strangely within the season (shouldn’t we be ramping up for the finale?), I’m just happy they’re actually being used beyond Donnie’s bout of full frontal nudity.
Also entering the narrative fray is Tally – but not because she’s nearly killed at her Granddaughter’s birthday party. No, in her best (and so far, only) standout moment in the season, she confronts double agent Tina about her horrible treatment of Barry and explains just how tragic the handler’s past has truly been. However, when Tina pulls the usual callous, cold spy stuff in response, Tally retaliates by socking her clean on the jaw and you can help but wonder where this version of Tally has been for the entirety of the last five episodes. Finally, it seems that after diligently sticking to his guns (no, not about the whole Garfield/Clancy thing), Chips has not only managed to lower Luke’s defences around him by saving Tally, but somehow it looks like he’s managed to crack Emma’s icy demeanor too as his particular/peculiar brand of off the wall charm finally penetrates. But while all this happens while the third plant falls off screen, I’d actually much rather be watching all this kooky family stuff than sit through yet another random-ass action sequence that goes light on stakes considering we already knew that it would come down to the last plant.
There is the lingering bitterness that this is the speed that FUBAR should have been moving at all along, I’m certainly not going to look a gift horse in the mouth when everything suddenly comes together as well as it does – especially considering that there’s no guarantee it’ll ever happen again either. However, for one moment at least, FUBAR takes its puppet effigies, pig babysitting and pizza parlours and produces a FUBAR that isn’t fucked up in the least.
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