8 Reasons to Watch ‘Bless This Mess’

I’ll be the first to tell you that I am not a huge fan of sitcoms. Typically, they go for laughs over substance, and for me, that is a big no-no. I want to care about the characters and where the story is headed.

Instead, these kinds of shows often give us fluff and throw-away plots that are forgotten minutes after the credits roll. Fortunately, there occasionally comes a sitcom that flips the script, giving us more to chew on. Bless This Mess just so happens to be one of those shows.

Bless This Mess premiered on Tuesday, April 16, 2019 and introduced us to the newlywed couple, Mike and Rio. While the previews looked amusing enough, I wasn’t sold on the tired “fish out of water” trope. Still, I tuned in figuring I didn’t have much to lose since the season was only going to be 6 episodes. 

Oddly enough, I was immediately hooked. This wasn’t at all what I was expecting.

Sure, the laughs are there, but this show is so much more than that.

I figured Mike (Dax Shepard) was going to the bumbling idiot of a husband who always got on his wife’s nerves — just for the sake of a chuckle — and Rio (Lake Bell) was going to be the mischievous housewife who always had some hairbrained scheme up her sleeve. I mean seriously, this whole show could have easily been a paint-by-numbers project.

What I got instead is a power couple. A couple that gets it wrong half of the time, but a couple who gets it wrong together. To add to that, they don’t stay in the wrong, they work out their problems in unison.

How refreshing!

The world we currently live in often tells us that women and men are constantly out to get each other. Mike and Rio’s open communication smashes that idea to bits, showing us that true love really can overcome anything. 

Folks, this is just the tip of the iceberg here. Sure, Mike and Rio are great, but they alone don’t make the show. I’m here to tell you that there are at least 8 reasons to start watching Bless This Mess  — right now. So without further ado, let me tell you exactly what these reasons are.

1.  Cast

Let’s face it, any show can be made or broken by the choices made in the cast. This especially proves true in sitcoms. While dramas rely heavily on romantic chemistry, sitcoms need comedic chemistry so that the jokes don’t fall flat.

Infalliable timing is everything!

Mike and Rio’s jokes play well off each other, from their playful banter to their pesky spats, their interactions ring true in nearly every circumstance. It seems as though they really are a couple that has been together for the last couple of years. Never purposely hard on each other for the sake of laughs, these two feel like a loving pair who truly want what is best for each other.

The lovably awkward Rudy (Ed Begley Jr) and the slightly dim-witted Jacob (JT Neal) gives us just enough ‘WTF was he thinking moments’ to be funny, but not too over the top.

Add in Pam Grier as the “tell it like it is” character, along with the troubled twosome of the Bowmans (Lennon Parham and David Koechner), and you get a group of living, breathing characters that all serve a purpose.

Each person has multiple dimensions that add to the plot rather than just popping in for this week’s throwaway one-liner.  

This truly is a cast you look forward to seeing once a week — if only to just see what they have been up to.

2. Culture

Everything these days is about big town living. 

We want to go out and see the newest Broadway show or visit The Strip in Las Vagas. Rarely does anyone speak about slowing down and going back to live on the farm.

Why is that, you ask? It’s because farm life is a forgotten culture. 

The slower pace, the friendly neighbors, and even the willingness to always help out has all but been forgotten by most of us. 

If we want to say hello to a sick friend, we send a text message. If we need a gallon of milk, we head to the nearest convenient store. 

We quickly forget that the entire world isn’t like this. There are still small towns like Bucksnort that live differently than the computer infected drones that we have become.

Of course, Mike, Rio, and the gang whip out their cell phones on occasion, but the keyword is occasion. Technology isn’t their constant companion and go-to for advice. 

They still know how to communicate face-to-face instead of hiding behind emojis.

And don’t forget about all the hard work. 

We sit behind computers all day, crunching numbers and complaining about how taxing it all is. Meanwhile, these men and women work by the sweat of their brow, growing callouses all over their hands to make nearly half of what we earn in a year. 

Okay, that may be a stretch, but you see what I’m getting at.

Bless This Mess goes out of its way to show us how the other half lives — and for once that doesn’t mean the independently wealthy.

3. Humor

Okay, this seems pretty straight forward. If a show wants to call itself a sitcom there must be at least a handful of chuckles every week, along with some giggles to fill in the gaps.

Bless This Mess gives us laughs in spades.

The thing I appreciate most about the humor in this series is that it comes in layers. 

Most sitcoms focus on one kind of humor, be it family situations, office politics, or even just plain sex. With a wide variety of characters, Bless This Mess doesn’t have to pin itself down to being just one thing. 

Relationship jokes, awkward moments, and a small dose of slapstick all fit into their proper places without feeling forced in the slightest. The laughs play to each character to boot.

There are often scenes where each character in the situation reacts differently to the same scenario giving us a dozen laughs for a dozen different reasons. Constance makes a quip, Rudy does something awkward, and Rio says something naively bookish. Each joke is appropriate to the moment without taking away from the character the writers have built upon.

4. Generation Span

Often when it comes to primetime shows, they cater to a specific audience or demographic. This can include everything from twenty-somethings to sexual orientation, gender, or nationality. Nearly every show attempts to catch the eye of the certain niche they are looking for and rarely reaches out to anyone far from their narrow scope.

Bless This Mess takes a different approach by including people from different age groups throughout the cast. This way no one feels alienated by a majority of the cast taking up too much screen time with age-related themes.

Sitcoms like Friends are mostly relatable to those nearing their thirties or shortly thereafter. With a cast that spans generations, anyone can tune in and feel at home. Add in the factor that Bless This Mess includes moral lessons with each episode, it is adherent and just plain easier to learn from your peer group rather than someone with a ten year age gap. 

Jacob (being the youngest), all the way to Rudy (the visibly oldest), can speak specifically to their generation without coming off as either a know-it-all or an old geezer that doesn’t understand the current times. Even side characters like Clara (Lisa Lenke) factor into the diverse selection of age groups and their mindset by including a different set of morals and outlook on life in general.

5. Relationships

At its core, Bless This Mess is about relationships. Essentially the show is just one giant commentary on what it means to be in a relationship and how best to maneuver within that said relationship. 

The beauty is that the writers don’t focus on just one stage of a relationship, but they go all out examining every stage.

Jacob is newer to the dating scene with his first high school sweetheart and all the strange excitement that brings. Following that is, of course, Mike and Rio who have only been married a short time. Their love is still fairly fresh, and they are figuring the ins and outs of marriage along the way.

After that, we have the Bowmans. These two are still obviously in love, but their lack of communication has caused their marriage to stall. Teetering on the edge of divorce, the tales they tell often lend themselves towards the cautionary tale, rather than flat-out relationship advice.

Occasionally, Beau throws in a tad bit of wisdom that makes more sense than anything else on the show.  

That leaves us with Rudy and Constance, who are at the rebuilding stage. Life’s complications have torn these two down in one way or another, and they seek solace in the arms of each other.

By including all of these couples in different stages of their relationship, we ultimately get the whole picture painted for us. To top it off, each person within these relationships gets their time in the sun — allowing them to lend their advice to the others and the audience as well.

6. Bucksnort

Bucksnort is, in fact, a living breathing entity. The town is just as much a character as any other paid actor on the show.

Bucksnort has its own history, traditions, and legends just like any other town, but the thing that makes it come alive is the people. 

Everywhere Mike and Rio travel around town they run into someone they know. Constance runs the local store, and Rudy even lives in their barn.

Every episode, a familiar face pops in to either say hello or demean Mike and Rio in some way. Seeing a wide array of these familiar faces gives us instant recognition of where they are at, and what is going on.

This gives the show a real small-town feel that doesn’t disappear when the credits roll. It has viewers believing that Bucksnort goes on without us watching. That is a fairly large feat for a sitcom.

7. Life Lessons

Since the days of Leave it to Beaver and The Brady Bunch, television shows have been giving us morals to live by. 

While it is a tad less common these days, we still get shows that try to teach us small morsels of truth wrapped up in a throwback fashion. The problem is that they’ll often spell it out directly to the audience. 

The writers of Bless This Mess take their audience more seriously, believing they can read between the lines and learn their own moral message through the antics of everyone on the show. Never do they flat-out slap you in the face with their version of The Ten Commandments — nor do they give the viewers guidelines of exactly how they should behave.

Several episodes give varying views on the same topic, helping us to put situations in the right perspective and letting us conclude where we belong when placed in similar circumstances.

I don’t always agree with the lessons being taught, but at least the idea is brought to the table in an open-minded way where healthy discussion can be the outcome. I believe that is the writers’ goal, to create open-communication with everyone in every situation.

8. Piglets

Okay, if all these reasons aren’t enough for you to be convinced that this show is worth checking out, I saved the big guns for last — piglets!

You don’t have to be an animal lover or a farmer to understand how darn cute a piglet can be. They make calendars filled with just piglets, and they fly off the shelf for crying out loud!

If these little buggers weren’t cute enough just standing around being piglets, add in some slapstick humor of Mike and Rio tripping over themselves trying to catch one. There is no way it won’t be able to bring a smile to your face. 

While these little oinkers don’t show up on every episode, they appear enough to be added to the “special guest” category. Seriously, if they did, I can nearly guarantee ratings would soar.

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Are you loving Bless This Mess? Have you been waiting for a reason to watch? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below! 

Bless This Mess airs Tuesdays at 8:30/7:30c on ABC.

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Lisa Linke on ABC’s ‘Bless This Mess’ [Exclusive Interview]