Spoilers Below

 

IN TOO DEEP

Jumpin’ jellybeans, things are sure hopping down in old P-Town. Officer Herbie is getting himself into a lot of trouble with the Rainbow gang, and I reckon a showdown is a-comin’. How’s this Dukes of Hazzard-esque intro working for ya?

Anyway, in episode 11 “In Too Deep“, Rainbow and Herbie (or “Flurbie”) continued to talk by the pool, further establishing their friendship. Rainbow recalled his younger days being pals with a little puppet named Herbie, not making the connection between him and “Flurbie.”

Elsewhere, after talking with Herbie’s worried wife, Sanchez decided to disguise himself as a waiter at the restaurant in which Rainbow & Flurbie would be dining, in order to keep an eye on his partner. When they arrived, Sanchez tipped off his identity to Herbie (by pointing to himself and saying, “Sanchez”) quite needlessly, considering his only disguise was wearing a waiter’s uniform. He did it again when Herbie confronted him in the kitchen. (I loved Herbie’s line: “What in Kermit’s name are you doing?!”)

Things escalated when, after finding some jelly beans on him, Sanchez accused Herbie of being “in too deep.” Also, Roxy called Rainbow a loser and stormed out on dinner. When Herbie returned to the table, one of Jake’s gunmen approached them and opened fire. Herbie managed to dive on top of Rainbow and shoot the goon.

 

I’ll give episode 11 an

 

 

 Herbie’s Consequences

In episode 12, Rainbow asks Flurbie to interrogate/torture one of Jake’s men. Flurbie is hesitant at first, but when the henchman recognized him as Officer Herbie, the undercover cop began throwing down fisticuffs. Later he vomited up what looked like Fruity Pebbles.

Rainbow began looking over surveillance tapes, and brought in someone to lip-read Flurbie’s conversation with Sanchez, which outed him as the puppet equivalent of Serpico. An enraged Rainbow decided to play along with Flurbie’s idea to stage a fake truce with Jake, and Herbie radioed in the location to Sanchez. Just having woken up from a booze bender, Sanchez rushed to help his partner – especially after he realized Herbie’s wife, Abigail, had been kidnapped along with their son, Herbie Jr.

It’s still not a show that’ll knock your socks off, but as the plot thickens, so does my attention span for it. As always, the production value was high, and in the first episode the jokes were plentiful. I liked the repeat gag of Herbie thinking his cover was blown with Rainbow, as well as the aforementioned kitchen “in too deep” scene. The second episode was slightly less funny, and acted more to advance the plot than to have a lot of jokes & comical dialogue. However, the string that tied the two episodes together was Sanchez, who was hilarious in both installments. Maybe it’s the actor who plays him, maybe it’s the fact that the actor looks like one of my best friends, or maybe it’s because Sanchez just gets all the funny lines. Whatever the case, he is the reason the show really works. Sure, watching a crime drama spoof with puppets and silliness has to work as well – and it does – but every show needs a stand-out character. I hate to be an anti-puppite (I don’t know what you call a puppet racist) but I’m gonna take the human on this one.

With only three episodes to go I give episode 12 a