It’s been the event Raising Hope fans have been waiting for since Jimmy (Lucas Neff) and Sabrina (Shannon Woodward) met at the beginning of season one. That’s right, the hilarious couple got hitched in the Jan. 29 episode titled “Modern Wedding”, which was followed up by “Yo Zappa Do Part 1,” all part of an hour-long comedic event.
The wedding episode was done pretty well. I have to hand it to the show’s writers, they didn’t have a long drawn out engagement period full of drama on whether they would or wouldn’t get married. Nope, instead they cut right to the chase and thanks to heroics of Jimmy’s parents and Lucy’s dad (By the way, she’s alive again) the wedding was saved, despite several mishaps.
The format of the wedding episode was filmed in a nod to ABC’s Modern Family, it was pretty well done and the opening title sequence was quite funny. Other than the opening sequence though, the personal interviews didn’t really generate much for laughs and at times I thought it felt too forced.
As I mentioned above, Lucy (Bijou Phillips) was brought back to life and she woke up from her child-like state (apparently, she’s had the mind of an eight year-old since her latest ‘death’ experience) long enough to try to ruin the wedding. Burt (Garret Dillahunt) and Lucy’s dad manage to stop her at the church. Thankfully Burt calls out the show for continually bringing back a character that everyone believed to be dead.
Somehow Virginia (Martha Plimpton) and Burt manage to hide all the mishaps from Jimmy. It’s quite fitting since a running theme in the show is Jimmy finding out a secret from his past and trying to uncover what really happened. Now, it’s not just Jimmy, secrets are being hidden from Sabrina as well. I wonder how long it takes for them to find out what really was holding up the priest.
The second half-hour of the show had just about every main character join Sabrina and Jimmy on their honeymoon to Las Vegas. Barney (Gregg Binkley) helped the gang make the trip so that Hope can see her favorite show, Yo Dappa Do be filmed in studio. Trevor (Tamden Garcia), Barney’s somewhat of an ex-step son stars in the show, but he backed out on letting Barney and the Chances staying at his house, forcing everyone to crash at the honeymooner’s apartment.
The episode ended with Hope getting a line in the show, leaving the Chances wondering if she’s destined to stardom as a somewhat sarcastic “to be continued” popped on the screen.
Overall, it was a pretty good hour on the show. It will be interesting to see how Jimmy and Sabrina being married changes the show and how far they go with Hope being a TV star. Frank (Todd Giebenhain) was definitely the star of the night, with some great one-liners in the wedding episode and when you see what he does when put in charge at Howdy’s, you’ll have a new game to try out the next time you head to the supermarket. However, the wedding episode could have been better. As whacky as Maw-Maw (Cloris Leachman) is most of the time, a wedding could have been her place to shine and really do something crazy.
