‘Fresh off the Boat’ Episode Review: “Huangsgiving”

Fresh Off the Boat, Season 2, Episode 8: “Huangsgiving”
Original airdate November 17, 2015.

Microsynopsis: Jessica’s mother announces that Thanksgiving dinner will be at the Huangs’ house this year, over the protestations of Jessica’s sister Connie. Louis and Jessica feel pressured to outdo Thanksgivings past with their special Huangsgiving, but Jessica believes Connie’s supposed marriage problems with Steve are a staged effort to steal the attention. Susan Park, C.S. Lee, and Rex Lee return as Connie, Steve, and Jessica’s college boyfriend Oscar.

Good: Jessica and Connie are an interesting combination, and the subtitles gag is as cute as it was in their first episode together. It’s also kind of cute to see the grandmas hanging out together. Evan and Emery are in charge of the table decorations and are about as adorable as you expect by now.

Bad: This episode is all over the place and very little of it is very interesting. Oscar’s a huge distraction, Eddie and his cousin are good for two jokes (one about changing musical tastes and one about sexy women on the Internet) but mostly just take up space, and I’m a big fan of Honey, but she and her husband show up for dinner just to serve the plot, and it’s boring. The main conflict, Jessica’s and Louis’s efforts to salvage a doomed feast, is just kind of a yawn.

FOB moment: Grandma hears the live game hens and brandishes a knife in anticipation of slaughtering them.

Soundtrack flashback: “Scenario” by A Tribe Called Quest (1992), the part where Busta Rhymes sings, “Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh!” Probably the highlight of this episode for me.

Final grade, this episode: It’s like the writers don’t expect anyone to watch the Thanksgiving episode and don’t want us to miss anything good, because if you skipped this one, you certainly didn’t. It doesn’t suck, but it’s boring, which is almost as bad. C minus.