‘Ben and Kate’ episode 2 review: Is it still TV’s best new comedy?

There has been quite a bit that has changed since we first named “Ben and Kate” the best new comedy of the season; “Go On” has struggled, “The New Normal” has improved, and both shows have even been granted been granted a full season.

The good news for “Ben and Kate”? It’s still a little bit insane, and with that, it is still thoroughly entertaining. While the scenes to include young Maddie are oftentimes a little forced, and some of the stories therefore obvious (such as Ben being able to tell his niece “no”), they do not take that much away from the humor of the show as a whole. After all, she was still a part of one of the best scenes of the night: when Ben was introduced by the incredibly-awesome Tommy (quite possibly the best part of this show) at his tennis lessons class.

The real story of this episode revolved largely around our siblings trying to hide where they loved in order to get Maddie into the right school, and it helped to learn more about the people in the process. Even though Ben may be a terrible brother at times, he is also a good father figure … except when it comes to saying “no.” We also learned that Kate is far crazier than she seemed, as she attempted to stage an entire fake party so that the school board would really think that the lived at a house actually owned by Tommy’s parents. (As for why they didn’t question all of the photos of African-American people on the walls, you guess is as good as ours.)

Really with “Ben and Kate,” what makes the show interesting is that it is not so much a case of what the show is doing right or wrong; it’s just that the show is funny. It’s a silly, almost old-school sitcom with the exception being the lack of a laugh track. We don’t even mind if every episode is about Ben causing problems that Kate has to get him out of; we’ll still laugh at it.

What did you think about episode 2?