Joe at Mel's Office; Let's Meet the Neighbor!

by Amy K. Bredemeyer

This show is starting to get bad, and that makes me pretty sad. While it's doing a better job at giving screentime to the non-eponymous characters, the plotlines are suffering. Mel's assistant is starting to become the saving grace of this show, for crying out loud!

Melissa & Joey "Play Ball" (S01E27): [Short theme song this time. boo!]
Mel & Joe: An intern in Mel's office was injured and now the softball team may not win the championship. [this is a typical "Mel problem," haha!] Joe played baseball in college so Mel tries to recruit him. It works until someone actually comes to see Joe in the office to prove that he's an employee, but of course he isn't there. So, Joe is brought in to do random things, like reorganize the supply closet. [that would be his forte!] The random guy shows up and meets Joe, and Joe is fearful that he'll have to stay at the office constantly so it's not found out that he's a fake employee. Joe bans personal calls and facebook... and he is trying to do even more to increase the efficiency at the office. Next thing you know, they're having birthday cake in a closet to avoid Joe's wrath. At the championship softball game, Mel is glad that she made it through a week with Joe in the office, as Joe has taken over in several areas, including doing the team lineup. However, Mel's team ends up disqualified because Joe isn't a real employee. [blah. overall, junk story.]
Lennox & Ryder: Holly wants Ryder to turn in one of her short stories to Lennox for publication on the school blog. But it seems like Holly's story sucks, so Lennox won't publish it. Lennox gives Holly some notes, but she doesn't take them well. Holly breaks up with Ryder, and she even asks him to return gifts she gave him. Holly and Ryder make up in the end, but when it doesn't look like Mel will let Holly be a summer intern, they're back apart, or at least estranged. [WHY DOES RYDER STILL PUT UP WITH HOLLY?!?!? that is all.]

Melissa & Joey "A House Divided" (S01E28): [full theme, yay!]
Mel & Joe: Joe wants Mel to do something about the neighbor's constantly-squawking bird. But Mel has never met the neighbor formally, so Joe ends up introducing himself to the guy and brings up the bird right away.

ABCFamily.com

[figures that someone on city council would never have met her neighbor! ugh!] This leads to an argument about the property line. Joe hires a surveyor to figure out the real property line, and it looks like the house is already crossing it. [this should be interesting...] They have to keep things cool for six more weeks before the land can no longer be contested. Funny enough, Joe invited the neighbor to come over for a beer, and before long he's staying for dinner. [this can't be good...] He's also brought the bird, and later his snake. [why???] Mel hires a lawyer to deal with the property line dispute... But soon there's a fire in her garage (looks like Ryder went a little overboard with catching his model cars on fire for the video) and the neighbor put it out, which puts them back on good terms. [so... are we going to see more of the neighbor now? Because otherwise, not much actually happened here. It certainly wasn't humorous.]
Lennox & Ryder: Ryder is working on a video for a class project on stopping people from texting while driving. Lennox doesn't want to be in the video, but agrees. Her counterpart is a football player who likes her. Ryder ends up firing the football player and Joe has to fill in on the video. At the end of the episode, the film is shown, and the writing and acting are very fake. [could've been better... found it pretty boring. But maybe that's because I already don't support distracted driving...]