hats off

After a strain of two-story episodes, it was refreshing to watch an episode of The King of Queens that only had one storyline. In hindsight, it makes sense that a one-story plot would be more engaging, since the full episode can go into more detail about the main story. But last week's B story was a great addition to the episode, so apparently the writers are versatile.

The one-story aspect was just one of the unusual techniques used in this episode. I can't recall another King of Queens episode with an uncomfortable secret that the audience knows will eventually be discovered, though it's a common device in sitcoms. By definition that made the episode uncomfortable to watch, but not a bad kind of uncomfortable. Another unusual choice the writers made was to set up the plot with Doug in a confessional, which led me to believe that the rest of the episode would be set in the time period before Doug's confession. So this episode was actually quite disconcerting, but I appreciate that the writers decided to stir things up.

 

 

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