The conclusion for the storyline surrounding the brothers’ beef over Marta, “Beef Consommé” feels fairly conclusive in general. Apparently it was meant to serve as a potential series finale, fulfilling the initial 13-episode order of the series, in case Fox didn’t order any more. The climax comes at a hearing for George Sr. when Gob and Michael finally duke it out over Marta. It’s a pretty niftily handled scene, sticking to the show’s reality/documentary style and having the cameras remain outside the courtroom as per the judge’s order, and then having the fisticuffs spill out of the door and outside the courthouse entirely. And this is compounded by the running joke that Buster desperately wants someone to have the decency to fulfill a dream of his and punch him in the face.
This is also one of the better Tobias episodes, throwing into disarray his passion for being a real actor and his psychological condition as a never-nude when he is required to do a nude scene for a role. But he doesn’t learn about this until after he has delivered perhaps the best opening to a sex talk ever to George Michael, stopping himself before finishing the thought “When a man needs to prove to a woman that he’s actually…” The Tobias character is one of the most absurd character when it comes to gags, but here he also shows he can be the tiniest bit sympathetic on occasion, sheepishly removing his cutoffs with the Lindsay’s help.
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