There's a danger when you make a show like Togetherness, one which breeds itself on breeziness and stride. For all the laid-back and natural charm it can create, often there can be a dangerous drifting or lull which occurs, which creates an occasionally meandering tonality for the endeavor.

While it would be unfair to consider the latest episode, "Kick the Can," as victim of this, it would not be unjust to note it gets close. Thanks to some reassured character development, this could have been little more than a filler episode for show creators Jay & Mark Duplass and Steve Zissis. Where the character trend on the same ground as its last, superior episodes, and don't make enough original claims to justify its existence. Despite its muddling opening, "Kick the Can" does eventually come into its own thanks to some returning stars and Duplass' nuanced touch.

After last week's disastrous night out for Brett (Mark Duplass) and Michelle (Melanie Lynskey) and a unseen, but equally brutal, therapy session, the couple decides the best thing for their relationship is to ramp up a nice game of kickball in the park, with friends and beer, of course. When a group of nagging 20-something hipsters won't leave the field open for both parties, the gang decides to crash their celebrations and challenge them to their own game. Literally, as the two teams challenge themselves to a competitive match of kick the can. In between hiding, attacking and drinking beer, the couple find themselves with earnest and sometimes less-than efforts to assess their marriage. Meanwhile, Alex's (Zissis) confused relationships for Michelle's sister Tina (Amanda Peet) come to a full head.

Much like this week's episode of Girls, "Sit-In," this episode finds the characters primarily trapped — by their own making — into one primary location where they have to assess their broken or breaking relationship with their partners. What makes this kinda ironic is that, in some ways, the counterbalance of the 40-something protagonists of this
series butting heads with the young hipsters can, if one wanted to, be taken as both a parody of their sister show and also an assessment of their programming battle. There's not enough interactions with them to justify these claims, of course, but it does make some awful particular jabs at this new-age demographic which suggest there's some winks-and-nods lad thick by the filmmakers.

Of course, this is not what's important here. What is important is how we're supposed to witness the steps of transformation these characters take towards their inevitable outcomes at the end of the season. Tina and Alex's relationship, or lack thereof, has gained some obvious tension this week, while Michelle's growing fixation on single parent David Garcia (John Ortiz) certainly hosts some more traction from this week's cliffhanger. While it seems pretty apparent how these subplots will fold, it continues to demonstrate the care and commitment the Duplass brothers hold for graceful character development and thoughtful introspection on various human relationships.

Besides these, however, "Kick the Can" feels a tad slight, especially compared to last week's sledgehammer of an episode. With three episodes to go this season, this feels the most like the filmmakers at odds to come with contentious or engaging content, which of course is worrisome. It's more than likely some of the bigger events are saved up for the episodes to come, but if this is as far as the Duplass want to go with Togetherness, that's a tad disappointing.

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