Bless This Mess Review: The Letter of the Law (Season 2 Episode 11)

Mike and Rio always want the best for everyone, be that for each other or the entire neighborhood. Although their intentions are typically in the right place, on Bless This Mess Season 2 Episode 11, “The Letter of the Law,” helping quickly becomes a hindrance.

I can’t count how many times I have tried to lend somebody a hand, and it comes back to not only bite me in the arse but also in my friends as well. I see a problem and jump into action without fully surveying the situation and all the ramifications my “brilliant” solution can have.

Mike and Rio follow suit in their separate comical situations — learning in the long run that some things are left better to work themselves out on their own.

At the beginning of the episode, Mike and Rio get an already opened wedding invitation from Deb, their mail carrier. Rio is slightly miffed by the unlawful entry into her privacy and suggests she isn’t fond of her mail being tampered with. Deb, being the local mail person she has always been, pays it no mind mentioning there is a bank statement for them too.

To our amusement, this additional piece of mail is open as well. 

While living with my parents, I have run into this situation many times. Of course, my mother always had an excuse — although my junk mail never seemed to be “mistakenly” opened. 

For me, it was always just a petty annoyance, but for other people, something like this can start a war.

Rio goes for the latter by approaching Constance about the situation. Constance is busy with personal problems and pretty much tells Rio to let it go. 

While this would have angered me in of itself, I probably would take this advice seeing that although it is a big deal to me, it isn’t to other people. Rio’s best solution here would be to take a poll of the townspeople and see who this bothers and who it doesn’t bother.

Instead, Rio takes the next run-in with Deb as an opportunity to no longer mix words and spell everything out for her. Again, Rio does this to help herself and others. She sees it as constructive criticism.

This time the helpful piece of advice doesn’t fall on deaf ears. Deb hears it loud and clear, causing her to act accordingly. Yep, she quits.

While most people wouldn’t go this far in the situation, there is a chance something this off-kilter could happen in real life. The results aren’t always what we anticipate.

We can work out nearly every outcome in our head beforehand, but the truth is, we never know how the other person is going to act because we aren’t them.

Rio takes this a little more lightheartedly than she should, assuming that Deb will come to her senses in a few days when the bills start piling up. Little does Rio realize, the mail stops for no one.

In another comical turn of events, the responsibility of mail delivery falls into Rio’s lap. Sure this probably would never happen, but realize we are watching a sitcom after all. 

As much as Rio tries to deny the job, she eventually decides this is her chance to prove that she can do the job — and do it correctly. That means no peeking, pondering, or even losing someone else’s mail. 

And she does it! She does it quite well to the dismay of all her neighbors. Aside from the dog encounter, it seems like Rio may have missed her calling as a mail carrier. 

She returns to Constance’s store to accept her praise from Deb. On the contrary, this is where all of Rio’s good attentions fall to pieces. 

Every good deed Rio feels she did along the way ends up being a catastrophe in the long run. Refusing the drinks and chocolates proves to be the most disastrous of the outcomes, sending her friend into a near diabetic coma.

While it isn’t Rio’s responsibility to keep her neighbor’s dietary needs in check, she took the place of the person who typically watched over this scenario. Her well-intended meddling got in the way of the natural order of things — causing a crisis instead of tranquility.

Truth be told, there was no way for Rio to see this ahead of time. She looked at the surface but got bit in the arse from what was hiding underneath. 

Similarly, Mike steps into Rudy’s situation trying to help him reconcile with Constance.

Without Constance in his life, Rudy has fallen back into his shell, cowering in sorrow instead of living his best life. Mike sees his friend in pain and knows all too well the hurt he is feeling. 

Instead of standing on the sidelines, Mike also jumps into action, giving Rudy some less than savory advice about the matters of the heart.

Looking anywhere for salvation, Rudy takes the advice whole-heartedly praying it works. At first, it seems to go swimmingly. Constance sees Rudy spreading his swagger all about town while hanging with his boys, Mike and Jacob. 

Rudy seems genuinely happy as he tosses a football around and then laces up some rollerskates later on. His pasted-on smile gives nothing away about his broken heart. 

Constance and the townspeople see all this galavanting, and Rudy soon becomes the talk of the small community. With a touch of burden in her voice, Constance denies it is affecting her in any positive way, but it seems to me she protests a bit too much.

Mike refuses to see the further pain he is causing the two by interfering in the situation. He only knows that he wants to fix things and as quickly as possible.

Rudy: Hey Connie, I’m the caboose!

Like Rio, Mike’s heart is in the right place. He sees a hurt and wants to do anything he can to mend it.

He doesn’t realize that under the surface Constance and Rudy are two different people holding to two different standards. 

Constance doesn’t want the severance between them but feels it is a necessity. Her heart cries out for Rudy, but her moral code throws up warning signs.

Our hearts are the things that get us in the most trouble. We are often told to listen to our hearts, but unfortunately, the heart doesn’t always tell the truth. 

When we only follow our hearts and the sensations it gives us, we tend to believe any lie thrown our way. We want to believe that love is the healer of all wrongs, but plain and simple, it is not.

Constance knows her hurting heart is lying to her. She knows underneath the pain, her conscious is right. She can’t be an upholder of the law while being conjoined with someone who so blatantly disobeyed it. 

Mike’s good intentions glaze over all these underlying facts, and he only focuses on the visible.

The episode goes a long way in showing that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Mike and Rio plan for a quick fix to things they believe are unnecessary situations. They think their easy solutions are the failsafe needed to make everything alright. 

Sadly, there isn’t always a solution. 

With Mike and Rio attempting to apply their “bandaids” to situations that don’t necessarily involve them, they are only covering up the infection without treating it.

If only they could expose the root cause of the wound, they could save their friends and themselves from a lot of heartaches. 

This is a lesson I feel a lot of us need to learn. Some situations just need to play out the way they are. No meddling, no advice, just let it be and see what happens next. Not all questions have answers.

What did you think of this episode of Bless This Mess? Did Constance make the right choice? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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

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