‘The New Normal’ review: All about Nana

What has become interesting about “The New Normal” over the past few episodes is that it has done a very good job showing us different sides to seemingly-established characters, and this is not something that you see from comedies so early in this run.

Really, what made this episode of the show (which was recently granted a full season along with “Go On” and “Revolution”) so entertaining is that it painted Nana in a new light. Was Ellen Barkin’s character still a crotchety racist? Sure, but at least she was a crotchety racist who let her hair down enough to actually hook up with someone inside of a hotel room. It was a little bit awkward to watch based on the way in which she behaved leading up to it, but her “morning after” scene with Bryan over her having a “seizure” was absolutely hysterical. For the first time, we saw the character actually hold some power over someone’s mother on the show, and this came at a time when he was already feeling hurt by David’s mom being in town. These two did have a heated confrontation later, and it was actually really well done as Bryan realized that he had just as many issues in his own mother / son relationship as David did.

In going back to Nana, her story ended up going from funny to rather sad pretty soon as she realized that she didn’t have to live her life afraid of being with men … only to then realize that the man she was with in the hotel room was using her for the cheap hook-up. This caused her to lash out and be really mean again, but this time, it felt far more believable than what we saw from the show previously.

Ultimately, we have to say that we are liking “The New Normal” more every week. We’re not only liking the characters more every week, but we’re also loving the humor.

What did you think about this episode?