Corner Gas

The main story in this episode is Lacey's desire to fit in with the rest of the community, which, this week, she tries to do by offering a "Free" Pilates class. The town is suspicious of her use of the quotation marks around the word free, and I have to admit, I found that part of the story line absolutely hilarious, because that's one of my personal pet peeves. Reading things on-line, in message boards, and having to get through someone's use/over-use of "quotes" around random words -- well, it's annoying. And I've even started to notice it in newspaper headlines! Extremely annoying! Lacey does eveything she can to encourage people to attend her class, and eventually finds out that she's competing with Wanda, who teaches a similar class.



The sub-stories were: Brent and Hank having the same shirt, and the fashion faux-pas that occur when both wear it at the same time. The shirt itself is truly ugly, and that just makes the whole thing funny. Let's face it, two guys wearing the same shirt - well, that's mildly amusing. Two guys ~caring~ that they're wearing the same shirt - that's funnier. The fact that it's a loud plaid shirt that most people wouldn't be caught dead in - well, that's even funnier. And the twist at the end of the episode with regard to the European-ness (or not) of the shirt, really makes this plotline stand out.



The second sub-story was Oscar deciding to build his own coffin, after attending the funeral of a friend, and declaring, loudly enough for friends and family of the deceased to hear, that the coffin was cheap, shoddy workmanship. Emma takes Oscar's new project in stride, pointing out to him that he still hasn't finished building a bookcase that he started. We all know that Oscar will find new and inventive ways to mess up the building of a coffin, and he doesn't disappoint. This storyline was, in my opinion, the least of the three - it was sort of amusing, but the other two were funnier.



Overall, this episode, for a first season episode where we're still getting to know the characters, is a good one.