OK Bloomer

For season 2 of Blossom, focus groups worked tirelessly through the night to figure out what the missing ingredient to the show was. What extra character could help fill in the missing pieces of this coming-of-age sitcom about the struggles of female adolescence? Someone who could add color to the confusing mental and physical changes that teenagers face, as they leave the warmth of childhood and become adults. The answer? A 71 year old, pathological lying, male jazz musician who (somehow) still scores nightly with the ladies and brags about his sexual conquests. Plus: We discuss the Woodstock 99 documentary, why Adam Duritz is the real-life Buzz Richman, and get confused about what Tony! Toni! Toné!'s hit song was.

Both Anthony and Blossom stress about being uncontrollably shaken, as Anthony prepares for an earthquake, and Blossom anticipates going to second base with her boyfriend. A bunch of "Scrubs alternate reality" nonsense goes down, but this episode really finds it's stride in the 2nd half. We have our first ever two-time pit member, and "Stone Cold" Joey Lawrence raises some hell!

Season 1 comes to an end with a whimper, not a bang, as Blossom's older, popular boyfriend, (who we are hearing about for the first time) comes home and shatters her heart.  

With a show that is capable of hitting amazing heights, it's really too bad that Season 1 ended with this uninspired, by-the-numbers script. We theorize that all parties involved didn't think Blossom was coming back for a second season, so the writers spent this 'final' episode delivering inside jokes that don't land with the general viewers. How does Blossom's broken heart relate to Adam Duritz from Counting Crows? (Spoiler: it doesn't, but we find a way) Also, warn the edge of your seat - Because Nick spends the first 18 mins. of the show meal prepping!  Hold onto your hats - this is Blossom Episode 13!

An Irish lass shows up at the Russo house claiming that Nick impregnated her, which lands the podcast hosts on the opposite sides of a heated debate over the ethical and moral obligations of one night stands.  

Plus, Joey looks at pornography. 

It's Blossom, Episode 12, so clap your hands and keep your knees together, cause this sh*t just got real, for real.

Get ready to tack pictures on your wall and connect them with a series of red string, because this episode starts with a flashback that comes out of a dream sequence, then returns to the flashback, but not the dream sequence... Maybe we're all still in it, who knows... WAKE UP BLOSSOM!

Anyways, Blossom tells a story from before the series started of when she attended an all-girls school full of zombies, run by a dominatrix and how she snuck her way into public school and tricked Joey into studying. It's the first episode written 100% solo by show creator Don Reo, with a rare window into his creative mind. Also... We discuss Woodstock '99.

Blossom co-creator Don Reo writes his first full episode this week!  So we get an unfiltered vision of how he thought this show should look and sound, and many questions we've had about character development and repeating jokes are answered. Blossom starts to emerge as a feminist icon as she attempts to take the lead and ask out a boy. Nick is back to being a caring and understanding father. Anthony tries to keep a friend sober and Joey racks up a $700 phone bill by repeatedly calling a sex line, and then hides under the bed. We've all been there, Joey, we've all been there.

The term "They can't all be winners" has never rang truer than Episode 9 of Blossom. A new duo of writers team up and deliver a script so lazy... Yet so completely convoluted that it takes this cast of, usually inspired and talented actors, and one by one, drags them down until it feels like they are lampooning their own characters. I'm talking a show full of 'Debbie Downer camera zooms into Nick Russo's face as he shakes his head in disbelief' Where did this come from? This isn't the Blossom quality we've come to expect. Seriously. You would think an episode where Nick kicks Anthony out of the house would have some weight to it - but you would be wrong. Up is down and left is right and the other actors sleepwalk through their nonsensical side stories, all knowing this episode is a lost cause. Except for Joey Lawrence! He somehow makes chicken salad out of chicken sh*t and steals the show. Thank goodness the series goes back to being great next week, but for now, allow us to deliver 'Tough Love' some of our own. Also -whomever wrote the original episode descriptions at iTunes? THIS IS HOW IT'S DONE!

Blossom is worried her social life will be forever destroyed after she gets tricked into going to the homecoming dance with a school geek and looks for a way out without hurting his feelings. As we've come to expect, the writers do an excellent job adding layers and depth to a simple sitcom plot. What we didn't expect, was Alf damning Blossom to burn in hell.

It's time to dip into the darkness as Blossom watches old home movies and concludes that a family vacation to the cabin is what will fix the broken home her mother caused when she bailed on the Russo family. It's only after Blossom gets the ball rolling does she realize that her father remembers these family trips much differently. Also, Joey wears an 8-ball jacket.

No one wants to see Blossom and Six at odds, but the inevitable happens when Six befriends the new student at school and becomes dizzy with newfound popularity, leaving Blossom in her rearview mirror. Plus, the Russo kids avoid giving Nick his final divorce papers but nothing ever plays out like you expect it to on Blossom. Who will break the news to Dad? Can the gals friendship be put back together? How did they land a guest appearance by a Golden Girl? Did the janitor at Disney+ add his own laugh track at one point? Or did Sal and Curt begin the unravelling of some bizarre code buried deep in old Blossom episodes? Why did the audience pop so loudly at a sad drug abuse joke? If your answer to one or all of these questions is "because 1991" you are correct.