The Mick Review: The Balloon (Season 1 Episode 4)

The Mick Season 1 Episode 4, “The Balloon,” gives us the Pemberton’s take on a child’s birthday party, and it’s probably one of the most screwed up ones you’ve ever seen (on TV. Who knows what your home life is like).

Poor Ben is really starting to feel the sting of being abandoned by his parents and he has “veered off the food pyramid” in response. His doctor clues Mickey into the fact that she missed his birthday, so the family decides to throw him a huge bash.

This episode makes great use of the youngest son, Ben. He’s the focal point of the episode without having too much to do.

In Ben, we get a really modern take on a young boy. Here we have a kid who is obsessed not only with mini ponies but also with the Iraq War. His room has both a doll house and a race car bed. Gender norms do not define his interests.

He also is not as caught up in the materialistic ways of his older siblings, happily eschewing all of the “rides and games and whatnots” that Chip and Sabrina got him in favor of Sully – The Mick Jagger of clowns – procured by Mickey and Jimmy.

Sully’s shenanigans allow the gang to get caught up in what The Mick does best – take typical family sitcom tropes and turn them dark as hell.

Have we seen sitcom family members try to top each other to make a birthday party great before?  Absolutely!  Have we seen a clown seemingly OD in a bathtub at said birthday party? No.

And then — to have the birthday boy swallow what the family thinks is a balloon full of heroin – that takes things to a whole new level.

Sabrina wants to call 911 but Mickey wants Ben to pass the balloon at home so that they don’t have to worry about the police or child protective services interfering.

When Jimmy fails to locate some ipecac, (they probably shouldn’t have used it all to trick Sabrina into thinking she was pregnant last week) Mickey decides she has to bite the bullet and take the kid to the ER, because keeping him alive is more important than keeping herself out of trouble.

Ultimately, Ben pukes with excitement just before Sully wakes from his stupor and announces that he’s not a drug addict.  He’s diabetic.  The needle was full of insulin, the balloon was full of sugar pills, and the spoon was for his cake addiction.

Sabrina ultimately gives Mickey credit for a job well done, despite hating everything about her.  However, she doesn’t mention any specific reasons for hating her aunt, which seems odd given that Mickey just tried to sleep with her boyfriend on Episode 3.

In fact, it seems weird that Sabrina’s fiancé would neither be at a large family party nor have his absence noted so soon after their engagement.

This show never seems to acknowledge anything that happened in the episodes prior. Mickey left Alba with a violent loan shark on Episode 2, only for her to reappear with no mention of it and no lingering animosity when Episode 3 began.

On the same episode, The Captain was essentially abandoned at the Pemberton home while the kids’ grandmother was carted off to the hospital, but that also hasn’t been mentioned.

If not for Ben’s doctor mentioning that he recently burned off his taste buds, it would seem as if the show is given a soft reset at the start of each episode.  It’ll be interesting to see if any dangling plotlines get revisited in the future.

Stray Observations:

• This episode had some pretty fun sight gags including Mickey using Ben to unlock her car door after he swallowed his keys, Sully folding up his cake before taking it home, and Mickey pulling scarves out of unconscious Sully’s mouth.
• The best part about no one knowing Ben’s age is definitely Alba’s lyrics to her and Mickey’s birthday rap – “And we wish we knew the age of your birth day!”
• Jimmy seems pretty dedicated to these kids for someone who is just their aunt’s “guy.”

What did you think of this episode of The Mick? Did it blow your mind out of your butt?

Did anyone else start gagging when Mickey was trying to help Ben pull the trigger? How did Alba, who claims to have nursed Ben, forget the kid’s birthday AND his age? Have you managed to drink Goldschlager without puking?

Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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The Mick airs Tuesdays at 8:30/7:30c on FOX.

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