#doc lopez

The last episode itself is quite…it’s going to be something many people will love or hate.  On the one hand, if you love musicals, you’ll probably enjoy the ending as it’s very much done in a way that many musical typically end. Both Josh and Melissa realize that they do love each other.  After ending it with the people they are with (who completely understand, of course) they find each other, admit their mistakes, and declare their love.  Of course, in doing so, they happen to disrupt the mayoral elections that seem to be going for Mildred.  But suddenly, everyone realizes that they don’t want to hide who they are anymore. Emma tells everyone she’s Carson’s mother.  The Reverend comes out as Gay and professes to love the Mayor.  Betsy believes she might be a Socialist.  The only thing that was surprising is that the young girl who had the child out of wedlock turned out to be Mildred’s daughter.  With all the change going on, Mildred reveals she hates everyone in town.  This causes her to loose the election, but Melissa tells Mildred that even she can change to be a better person.  Everyone sings a song and Melissa and Josh start to cross the bridge.  The show fades to black before we find out if they’ve crossed.  

Of course, if you’re a person who was here because of how this was making fun of musicals.  Well…you probably won’t find the episode too interesting. Personally, there’s a number of musicals I like; but I’m more of a fan of modern musicals.  So, the episode for me was fine, but I missed the humor from the first few episodes.  

Ok, backing up a bit. Most of the episode seems to be part of the norm.  We have Mildred using the recent events to scare the townsfolk into think their town is going downhill.  At which point, Mildred declares she’s running for Mayor.

Meanwhile, Josh and Emma seem to be getting closer.  That is until he mentions that Emma is both like a sister and a parent to her brother. Long story short, Emma is the mother of the young boy; but pretended to be his sister as she knows how people will treat him.  Unfortunately, the brother hears Emma tell Josh the truth and runs away.  Josh runs after him, but is punched by Danny (who believes that Josh has stolen Melissa from him).  On the ground, Josh finds his heart (it’s a heart with his name on it.) It was part of the whole new age group thing in the first episode.  Melissa had a hold of it until she threw it away when he was crossing ladies over the bridge.  And that’s where his story ends this episode.  

But the part that confuses me is Melissa’s.  So here’s the thing; we have a moment where Melissa and Doc Lopez are dancing; but are stopped when a new character called The Duchess arrives.  Apparently, she’s engaged to Doc Lopez.  And this is where it gets strange (er).  The Duchess is  clearly based on The Baroness from The Sound of Music; but is also the representation of the rival love interest in so many musicals that eventually bows out so that the heroine gets the man.  

Now, we’ve had several references to The Sound of Music by this point.  However, the show has remained the same in that the main characters are stuck in a musical set in the early 1900’s.  But The Duchess is clearly from the 1930’s and even has her own car.  What bother’s me about this is that we are five episodes into a six episode season. Before now, there has been no indication that different types of musical timelines overlap and then suddenly they do.  If there had been hints of this since the beginning (like if we saw objects that was anachronistic in the town), this might have been interesting. Instead, It feels like they were running out of ideas and so they suddenly put this in.