In 2001, nation star Reba McEntire dominated the airwaves together with her eponymous sitcom, Reba. Within the collection, McEntire stars as a single mother who — nicely, you know the way the track goes. The present solely ran for six seasons however developed a cult following in syndication, and it continues to encourage memes. When Reba was added to Netflix earlier this 12 months, it stayed within the high 10 for weeks. And now, McEntire and Melissa Peterman, who starred in Reba because the bubbly Barbra Jean, will attempt to recreate that magic within the new NBC sitcom Completely happy’s Place, premiering October 18.
In Completely happy’s Place, McEntire performs Bobbie, a Tennessee girl who inherits a neighborhood bar from her late father, Completely happy. Simply as she will get it up and working, she’s confronted with Completely happy’s greatest secret: He cheated on Bobbie’s mom and had a daughter with one other girl. After his demise, he left the bar to each Bobbie and her half-sister Isabella (Belissa Escobedo), a 20-something who’s basically a strolling Gen Z stereotype. Peterman performs Gabby, a bartender at Completely happy’s Place, and like her forebear Barbra Jean, she’s determined to be Bobbie’s finest buddy.
Predictably, Bobbie and Isabella have totally different concepts about tips on how to run Completely happy’s Place, and thus the collection’s central battle. Bobbie’s extra old-school, Isabella’s making an attempt to shake up the joint together with her newfangled concepts. In a single scene, Bobbie’s completely happy for a bartender to repair a damaged air conditioner at no cost, whereas Isabella fiercely argues that he needs to be compensated for that labor, although the bar is barely breaking even. Nevertheless you are feeling about enjoying the Boomer-Gen Z divide for laughs, it tends to work right here, even when the jokes are largely of the the sort that comprise your uncle’s “youngsters as of late” rants on the Thanksgiving dinner desk.
The titular bar in Completely happy’s Place is primarily a backdrop for these sophisticated household dynamics, in the identical approach that MacLaren’s Pub was the setting for the love story in How I Met Your Mom. It’s not likely a present concerning the internal workings of a neighborhood bar, however the bar does provide loads of alternatives for comedic reduction, buoyed by the ensemble forged. There’s the neurotic accountant Steve (Pablo Castelblanco), who balances the bar’s books; McEntire’s real-life boyfriend Rex Linn seems as Emmett, the crotchety, largely silent chef at Completely happy’s Place who fries up hen wings and chops veggies whereas he affords Bobbie morsels of recommendation to navigate her new actuality. Altogether, the forged and its characters type of resemble a redneck Cheers, punctuated with loads of southern twang.
The precise story apart, it’s clear that this collection is a religious continuation of the Reba universe, if not actually. The interaction between Peterman and McEntire is as slapstick as ever, and Bobbie is rather like Reba — a troublesome, sassy gal who’s at all times satisfied that she’s proper. In Reba, McEntire’s character was not all that totally different from Bobbie — a lady determining tips on how to play the playing cards she’s been dealt. The place Reba nurtured her kids and her rocky relationship together with her ex-husband, Bobbie is working to discover a technique to maintain her father’s legacy alive and are available to phrases with the truth that she has a sister she by no means knew about.
For anybody who beloved Reba, this dynamic is instantly acquainted — and comforting. As we close to a hotly contested presidential election that will decide the way forward for our democracy, that is the type of cozy, goofy tv I wish to watch. It is likely to be slightly tacky, however generally that’s precisely what you want.
