Critic’s Rating: 4.5 / 5.0
4.5
I hate that Georgie and Mandy will ultimately break up (even if it may not be forever).
Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage Season 1 Episode 16 made it especially clear what went wrong — and it goes back to the beginning of the relationship.
The episode was relatable and funny, but some jokes aren’t so funny when you think about the future.
Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage Season 1 Episode 16 Allows A Serious Disagreement To Interfere With The Relationship
The basic premise of the episode was more serious than most recent stories.
After a trip to the pediatrician, Georgie was eager to have another baby, and Mandy wasn’t.
This story takes place in the 1990s, but it’s extremely relevant now that there’s a battle over reproductive rights and related issues in the United States.
Mandy’s concern that she wouldn’t be able to pursue her career, the fact that her life had taken a sharp, unexpected turn when she had the first accidental pregnancy.
Additionally, the difficulty Georgie had accepting that she wasn’t ready to have more kids right now are all incredibly relatable in today’s society.
Of course, this is an issue many married couples face, especially if one partner changes their mind about having more kids, throwing the original agreement out of whack.
Georgie and Mandy didn’t handle it well.
They went around in circles arguing about it.
Mandy banished Georgie from her bed, followed by Georgie going to his mother’s and not telling Mandy right away that he planned to stay the night.
This isn’t the type of behavior that suggests having a second child is a good idea.
It also points to bigger problems within the relationship, in addition to this serious disagreement.
For one thing, the pair doesn’t handle conflict well.
Sadly, neither one of them has had role models who show them a better way.
Both the McAllisters and the Coopers argue until one partner gives up, leading to an unhealthy relationship pattern, and Georgie and Mandy did the same thing.
The Final Conversation On Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage Season 1 Episode 16 Was As Heartbreaking As It Was Funny
The big problem with this relationship isn’t any of the things that it has seemed to be.
In every episode, Georgie and Mandy argue because of outside pressures.
Mandy’s mother hates Georgie and has financial problems, and Mandy takes on jobs that either frustrate her or are ridiculous in some other way and don’t help anything.
But these aren’t the problem.
Mandy and Georgie won’t split for the sake of drama.
When they do split up, it’ll be for a good reason: They don’t have enough in common and have never found a way to connect beyond having a baby together.
One joke during Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage Season 1 Episode 16 demonstrated that beautifully.
After learning they had different desires — Georgie wanted to stay in Texas while Mandy wanted to live in Miami or another faraway city — Georgie and Mandy made a joke that wasn’t really a joke.
They decided that the solution to their problems was that they should spend more time not talking to each other.
Obviously, this was played for laughs, and is as realistic as on All In The Family when Gloria and Mike decided they would never die so that they wouldn’t ever have to worry about what would happen to their son if they did.
Still, this is the biggest problem in their relationship: they don’t talk, they don’t deal with major disagreements, and they don’t really know who they each were before they got married.
Could Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage Lay Off The Connor Sucks Jokes, Please?
If there was one flaw in Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage Season 1 Episode 16, it was the constant jokes about how weird Connor is and how having him didn’t work out.
That’s not cool. It wasn’t cool when I called the show out on it near the beginning of Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage Season 1, and it’s not any better now.
The comedy’s treatment of Connor is ridiculously uneven.
We get a strong, Connor-centered episode like Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage Season 1 Episode 15, followed by one where he’s the punchline of jokes that suggest his quirkiness makes him inferior.
This episode lays it on especially thick.
It seemed like every two minutes, there was a joke about how having Connor was a mistake or how he was impossible to relate to.
“Baby Fight” almost made up for it by having a sweet scene between Mandy and Connor.
That Connor remembered every time that Mandy bullied him when they were kids was both funny and heartbreaking.
I’ve been the kid whose siblings did things that hurt, only for everyone else to forget it ever happened after we got older, so I could relate strongly to that.
Mandy’s heartfelt apology at the end of the scene was great, even though I’m not entirely sure where it came from.
I loved the sentiment, especially so close to Siblings Day, and it felt like it came from a deep, authentic place, but it also didn’t seem fully connected to what had come before.
The Scenes With Mary In Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage Season 1 Episode 16 Felt Like An Extension Of Young Sheldon (And That’s A Good Thing)
It’s not necessarily bad for Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage to remind us that it came from Young Sheldon.
Too often, it feels like a completely different show that is disconnected from the franchise it came from.
Georgie visiting Mary and their discussion of Sheldon and Missy were welcome additions to the show —and judging from the previews, it looks like we’ll have more of that on the next episode.
I’m not sure why we always need Pastor Jeff when Mary shows up, though. He seems to be more of a major character here than he ever was on Young Sheldon!
What did you think of Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage Season 1 Episode 16?
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Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage airs on CBS on Thursdays at 8/7c and streams on Paramount+ on Fridays.
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