Whether or not you found the show to your liking, there is no denying that the story behind Cougar Town’s survival for six seasons is remarkable. Debuting on ABC, Cougar Town managed moderate success and fought off immediate dismissal due to its cringe-inducing name. After three seasons, ABC decided to retire the show, but it found a second life on TBS as an original series. Now, after another three seasons on TBS, Cougar Town concluded its six-year run this week. Who would have imagined the show that flaunted a poster with Courteney Cox standing in provocative pose, wearing a shirt that said, “40 is the new 20,” would have outlived its horrid name and produced over 100 episodes?
The name Cougar Town was a failed attempt at banking on the “cougar” hype at the end of the last decade, but the name, in fact, backfired on the show’s success in a big way. Cougar Town was never about an older woman chasing young meat to me; it was a catalog (from a dominantly female perspective, at first) about a group of friends and the difficulties they faced while aging. But the name doused the show, which was actually funny and smart, with a pungent odor that turned off the optimal demographic for a series like this. In a way, how can I blame people for rejecting Cougar Town based on a title that was lambasted by media critics? It’s almost a miracle that any show, despite the quality, endured 100 episodes (which is more of a rarity in the television world than most would think) under such an immodest name.
As a fan of Courteney Cox from her unrecognized work in Friends and her underrated performances in the Scream trilogy and Dirt, I booked Cougar Town into my schedule back in 2009, and the show captured my heart in a way most people were spellbound by Seinfeld and Friends back when they originally premiered in the ‘90s. And after the writers started to weed out the “cougar” device in the first eight episodes, critics followed and actually grew to love the first half of the series.
I recently dusted of my Cougar Town DVDs, and season one in particular is something to cherish. The show had a unique humor in the first season that was laugh-out-loud funny, eccentric and satirical. Rewatching a few of the more memorable episodes from the earlier seasons made me recall quotes that were iconic among fans in their day, dialogue that I incorporated into my vernacular without even being aware I was doing it. (I call it television osmosis.) But what really made the first season so wonderful was the development of the characters and major storylines over the season’s arc, while it intelligently studied gender roles.
The second season was about as equally great as its predecessor, with just a little less of the first season’s intense verve and narrative growth expertise. Since the first year, each season has gotten a tad worse than the one before it. The third season built a grander arc over its 15 episodes, probed the changes in their strong characters, and most importantly, maintained clever plots from episode-to-episode, but never quite lived up to seasons one and two. It was the move to TBS when my interest in the series began to explicitly shrink. TBS was a literally lifesaver of the show’s fate, and allowed a Cougar Town presence to last longer than maybe it was meant to. Most of Cougar Town’s problems on TBS can be connected back to the deteriorating amount of substantial story left to tell.
The move to TBS has also come at a large cost for Cougar Town’s characters. Most of the roles have been watered-down from three-dimensional voices to simpler one-dimensional personalities. When I rewatched season one over the weekend, I saw completely different version of Jules than the person we have most recently seen in season six. Cox received a Golden Globe nomination for her work in season one; her acting was Emmy-worthy, and her earlier work should have finally rectified her record as being the only “Friend” to not have an Emmy nomination. She was irresistibly charming and awkward, high-strung and soothing, fun and complicated, but most of that was worn down during seasons four, five, and six. The writers decreased her intelligence for laughs, in addition to using her hillbilly background as hammering character development. Jules Cobb began the show as someone layered and complex, but she left as someone less sophisticated.
All of the actors used to excel in their roles, and they all have suffered since the writing became less about intriguing characters and more about getting through the day. Well, all of the characters, except for one. Christa Miller was the non-Courteney Cox most valuable player from season one, and has only grown more comfortable in Ellie’s skin over the years. The writing of Ellie is the one of the few aspects of the show has improved over time. Season six has even revealed Ellie’s heart in bigger ways than we have seen before. Miller is responsible for most of the post-ABC success, drilling us with Ellie’s vitriolic cynicism and selfish behavior. Miller’s outstanding effort and comedic timing will be sorely missed.
As Cougar Town got older, it felt as if the writers were stretching for fresh ideas in the show’s narrative, especially when they spent the entirety of episodes with characters meandering in pointless, overlong, self-referencing gimmicks and throwaway storylines. Season four didn’t have this problem as much as the later part of season five and the early episodes of season six. In fact, season six began with probably the biggest drought the series has ever had. The premiere, “American Dream Plan B,” and the episode where Laurie gave birth, “Full Grown Boy,” were at a lower quality in comparison to the ABC premiering episodes, but were pleasant enough to be enjoyable, and contained milestone moments that longtime fans would appreciate. But, then once the boiling action of the season premiere began to simmer instead of steam, season six took a nosedive in quality.
“To Find a Friend” was the worst episode of the entire series, as the A plot was a ridiculous charade with Ellie and Jules more-or-less prostituting themselves to save Grayson’s bar, and the B plot was Travis and Laurie hallucinating from the exhaustion of being new parents. This, along with other episodes like “The Wild One, Forever,” “Even the Losers,” and “This One’s For Me” reflected the writers using the crumbs from when the series was thriving to serve as full-blown episodes. Often Cougar Town’s sixth season tried to fill the void of storyline material with industry-references, but when more places of void space gradually began to appear each week, the scripts became trivial, callow and tacky. Another area in its decayed narrative evolution from season one to season six was the complete lack of build-up to new plot advancements. A character may say a line of expository dialogue, and in the next scene something happens that completely alters the characters or the story in a big way. Using this quick-fix method casually made me, as a viewer, feel cheated.
Cougar Town pushed my patience more than once this year (and during its time on TBS), where I felt as if I was tuning in out of loyalty, not because I thoroughly enjoyed the new episodes from critical eye or a fan’s standpoint. But, near the middle of the season, it is almost as if the Cougar Town team saw the ticking clock, and decided to give more of themselves in their final hours. There was a notable quality bump with episodes like “Two Men Talking,” “Yer So Bad,” and “Climb That Hill.” These three episodes were throwbacks to the level of quality Cougar Town used to deliver 22 to 24 times per year. They revolved around engaging central plots, with interesting character moves for everyone we know and love from the cul-de-sac crew. In the days of anticipation leading up to the finale, my only hope was for show creators Bill Laurence and Kevin Biegel to continue the mini-stride, have an appropriate ending, and send fans off with warm feelings of the show, the characters, and the laughs.
The finale, “Mary Jane’s Last Dance,” is not a perfect episode, but the best ending to Cougar Town we could have received at this point in time. All of the actors were on-point; it especially was nice to see Cox return to top form for Cougar Town’s sendoff. “Mary Jane’s Last Dance” compressed highlights from the last six years as a package of memories for fans, such as “Jellybean,” penny can, pretend gun fights, the breaking of Jules’ “Big” wineglass, Jules and Ellie’s communication through their kitchen windows, Ellie’s “Changed Approved” catchphrase, and Jules wanting to live in Travis’s blood. If you have watched from day one, you will feel at home during this final outing.
“Mary Jane’s Last Dance,” adheres and betrays much of what I spent describing in this piece thus far. It completely buys into the lack of narrative build-up of bigger shifts in the story, but uses that as a deceptive technique to extract our emotional investment that we, the audience, have in the show and characters. Cox directed the finale herself, explaining the extra dose of heart the episode contains. Though you can see the series’ last twist coming halfway through and some moments are unavoidably cheesy, it’s the inspection of our emotional connections to the characters that makes the finale so gratifying. It makes fans look inside Cougar Town like we have not before. There is a time to say goodbye to, and “Mary Jane’s Last Dance” felt like suitable moment to clink our wine glasses together one last time, and salute the Cougar Town for the happiness it has brought over the years.
COUGAR TOWN EPISODES SEASON SIX RANKED
Mary Jane’s Last Dance – A
Two Men Talking – B+
Yer So Bad – B
Climb That Hill – B
Waiting for Tonight – B
The Wrong Thing to Do – B
A Two Story Town – B
American Dream Plan B – B-
Full Grown Boy – B-
This One’s For Me – C+
Even the Losers – C
The Wild One, Forever – C
To Find a Friend – D-
Season Six Grade: B-
Series Grade: B+