'Togetherness' season 1, episode 7 review: 'Party Time'

As Togetherness presents its penultimate episode of the season, "Party Time," it's clear the natural, relaxed vibe so prominent in not just this freshman series but all the directorial works of Jay and Mark Duplass is still alive and well. That said, however, the pettiness of the drama within Togetherness has gone into some dead-zone space between engaging and tiresome.

A weird middle-ground space to be sure, it's not as though Togetherness has become bad, or even mediocre by any stretch of the imagination. It's just that the charm of seeing middle-aged couple deal with their problems and self-reflections in breezy, reflexive manners grows a bit repetitive after a while. So it's hard to see exactly where the Duplass brothers can take their show after this, especially considering they already got a second season from HBO.

As seen by the last string of episodes, Brett (Mark Duplass) and Michelle (Melanie Lynskey)'s marriage is on the rocks, while Alex (Steve Zissis) and Tina (Amanda Peet) are no longer on speaking terms at the beginning of "Party Time." The latter is on account of their fight in last week's "Ghost in Chains." As this is, indeed, the last episode before Togetherness's eight-episode season comes to a close next week, these characters aren't going to put their problems aside for the moment. No, no, the drama comes in fiery as the last quarter of this episode arrive, and it's not hard to imagine some of the consequences of "Party Time" drive home some hard-hitting emotions next week.

With the Duplass brothers back in the directors' chairs after they let Nicole Holofcener call the shots last week, the filmmaking brothers' continue to incorporate their mix of comedy and drama in due fashion. The former comes largely from Brett's extreme reaction to a mushroom-laced tea at Linda's (Mary Steenburgen) home, and while some likely may call these scenes forced, they truthfully bring back some of the levity Togetherness lost since "Houston, We Have a Problem". The drama, of course, comes from everything else.

Tina has something of an existential crisis this week, with her blow-up house at Michelle's party goes awry. Michelle, of course, has to balance her feelings for David (John Ortiz) while she confronts her husband's mid-life crisis. Then poor ole' Alex has to be the middle-man to everyone else's concerns, even though he tries to confess to having self-doubts about himself and his acting career at the moment. It's a cluster of pathos most definitely, and of course none of them really get a resolution for the sake of the season finale.

Well...actually Tina has some closure, when she actually begins to talk to Alex once again and she confesses her mixed emotions to him in the episode's best moment by far. Always someone pushed to the sidelines, used for another character's benefit or simply the comedy relief of the bunch, "Party Time" is truly Peet's time to shine. And it's well-earned, as she's been pushed to the sidelines in her acting career for the past decade or so. She's truly a vibrant force of subtle and not-too-subtle emotions, and she excels in this episode in both regards.

Where exactly Togetherness leaves viewers next week will not be too shocking, one has to imagine. Shocks and surprises, however, were never the number one priority of the Duplass brothers & Zissis' show. It's always been about the honest emotions on screen, those middle-aged couples either hide from their significant other or deal with them on a daily basis. In that regard, Togetherness doesn't have too much to worry about, but it wouldn't hurt to shake things up a little.

Image courtesy of INFphoto.com

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