Grrl TV

Original Air Date: October 3, 2008

Let’s just get it over with — the premiere episode of The Ex List is good and funny, and that’s coming from someone who’s not into relationship TV shows at all. My primary gripe is that I grew bored about halfway in, but at least there was enough humor to keep me from falling asleep (which has been known to happen when I’m watching TV, I might add).

After learning from what seems to be a genuine psychic that she has only one year to find the man she’s already dated who’s destined to be her mate, 33-year-old flower shop owner Bella Bloom heeds the advice to pay attention to the signs she encounters. The caveat is that signs are rampant, which is why the obvious ones are those that count the most.

The first big sign comes when Bella grabs a newspaper to wipe up the poop a bird leaves on her shoulder. Inside the paper is an ad about her 2001 boyfriend Johnny Diamont (well-cast guest star Eric Balfour), an ultra sensitive type who drove Bella away with his sentimental yearnings to get matching tattoos and drink each other’s blood. Bella’s reply: I’d rather drink margaritas and see a movie. No pre-family Angelina wannabe here.

After the bird poop incident, Bella decides to go check out “Johnny Tearducts” — aka Crybaby, as her friends and sister Daphne call him, among other things — singing at a local dive, only to find he’s done a total 180. Now he’s a hard rocker with a signature tune all about Bella and how she broke up with him: “Bitch Left Me on My Birthday.” I sense some festering anger issues…

…Until, that is, Johnny sees Bella from across the room, walks over, gives her a long lingering kiss, and then walks away without a word while she tries to make sense of how good that felt. This is the scene where we know if The Ex List fails, it won’t be because of Elizabeth Reaser’s performance. She’s excellent in the lead role.

Of course, now that Johnny looks hot and seems too tough to care about her, Bella wants him even more. She returns to the local dive — unaware that it’s his birthday, the same day she dumped him in 2001, when she was also unaware it was his birthday — and tries to convince him that she’s changed and is no longer the self-involved 26-year-old who thinks the world revolves around her.

Long story short, Johnny shows up later that night at her shop, they have sex, and while the afterglow is still shining brightly, he says, “I missed you so much my angel. My heart is so full now” … and breaks down sobbing. Uh-oh! Johnny Tearducts is back!

Explaining the details to her two longtime male buddies Augie and Cyrus the next day, Bella claims she’s not ambivalent about Johnny just because he had a near emotional breakdown over his strong feelings for her. In fact, she loves that he touches her face. When she asks them if they know how many face-touching guys are left these days, Augie replies he doesn’t but hopes the number is comparable to the number of hand-washing guys. Tell me about it.

This is around the point where I got bored as Bella laments she can’t break up with Johnny and hurt him again. She soon decides to try anyway when her friend Vivian, Augie’s girlfriend, suggests acting needy and demanding like she did with the last guy who dumped her. The plan doesn’t work, though, because Johnny puts Bella first, an unexpected result that causes Bella to genuinely believe she can deal with Johnny as a boyfriend.

It’s not to be, however, because Johnny has big plans for Bella, such as his brand-new song he performs when she and her pals attend his next gig. The tune has the memorable refrain “revenge, you’ll be single forever, you’ll die alone.” Yep — all that time, Johnny was stringing Bella along so he could get back at her for dumping him seven years ago. The good part is she knows she deserves the comeuppance, so she just moves forward to the next guy on her list. Bella is clearly resilient like that, which I appreciate.

The supporting players on the show are good, too, as is the subplot about Augie’s dislike of Vivian’s Brazilian-waxed bikini area; he feels like a pervert being turned on by a woman who looks like a ten-year-old “down there.” Nonetheless, I feel like the secondary cast and characters are all pretty generic and interchangeable; none stand out in my mind now that I’m not watching the episode.

I do have a special fondness for Anne Bedian as the straight-talking psychic Marina, though. If only she were a regular and not just a guest star because she definitely gives the pilot episode a needed dose of sarcastic sourness to make the sugary stuff less cloying.

All in all, I’ll gladly watch The Ex List again next week, but it’s nowhere near the upper regions of my Must-See TV list.

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