“Too much sugar!”
By Matt Fowler
Warning: Full spoilers for the episode below.
Well, those viewers who’ve been put off by some of the over-sexualized aspects of this new Muppets series will have a freakin’ field day with tonight’s episode, “Too Hot to Handler.” Which not only focused on Fozzie’s relationship with Becky becoming more serious and committed, but it placed Scooter in Chelsea Handler’s aggressively sexual crosshairs. And – basically – kept him there. Because it looks like he and Handler and going to continue to date. With Handler even being so enamored with Scooter than she’s willing to “cold shower” it for a while, slow down, and maybe use some of her (junior) high school moves. Because this was definitely “too much sugar” for Scooter.
I’m not sure why dating is such a huge part of the 2015 Muppets world. I guess it just goes back to my main complaint about the series being nothing more than every other modern sitcom, just with Muppets in place of where normal human actors would be. Because unless the show is specifically about a family, most TV comedies are about relationships and sex. And so goes The Muppets.
There actually were some funny bits in here, specifically involving some of the peripheral workforce. Bobo wondering why the “Number 2” pencil is the best. People not listening to Kermit’s speeches because they wrongfully assumed he was talking to the camera for the documentary. Oh, and everyone – even Big Mean Carl and Beaker – chiming in with historical facts when Kermit was trying to catch Becky in a lie. Those were all decent, offbeat moments that help alleviate some of the human/Muppet kissy ickiness.
Because we watched Handler kiss Scooter! Like, she went on in for the kill and they made out for a few seconds. This…isn’t ideal. I mean, leaving everything to our damnable imaginations is no picnic either, but don’t actually show us humans and Muppets getting it on. C’mon now.
And while discovering that Denise has a credit score of 210 may have been funny (especially since we’re all, like, born with 250 as Kermit put it), this now marks the second time Kermit’s become enormously overprotective of Fozzie and wound up pissing Fozzie off. The last time it was because he didn’t want to tell Fozzie that his sketch sucked. So a lot of the beats here were familiar.
“Too Hot to Handler” was kind of all about what’s become most people’s major complaint about this new Muppets series. That being the barrage of implied human/Muppet intercourse. It also didn’t help that this particular Kermit/Fozzie storyline was already used up back in Episode 2.
