‘Night Court’ Recap: ‘Form Fetish’

Written by John Edward Betancourt

NIGHT COURT -- "Form Fetish" Episode 202 -- Pictured: (l-r) Melissa Rauch as Abby Stone, John Gemberling as Bryant, John Larroquette as Dan Fielding, Jackie Hoffman as Linda -- (Photo by: Nicole Weingart/NBC)

Caution: This article contains spoilers for Episode 202 of ‘Night Court’. To revisit the Season Two Premiere, click here.
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One thing that we can all agree upon, is that times are tough… financially. After all, rent is out of control, the housing market is pure madness, and people are struggling check to check because wages are stagnant, and corporations could care less about taking care of employees financially, it’s all about the shareholders, and well… that is prompting people to really tighten their belts and get creative with their finances. So, they can put food on the table and keep the lights on, and of course... pay the rent that is indeed too damn high, and well... times are so tough, it does leave one to wonder, when the struggle bus will make a stop in places that it normally does not. Such as say, in public services.

After all, bites this big impact all, and at some point, lack of tax revenue has to create windfalls and shortcomings and it just so happens, that the next episode of Night Court on NBC explored what that might look like. For ‘Form Fetish’ saw the Night Court battling a new budget, one that was razor thin and one that was causing all kinds of harm to the usual flow of the evening. To the point where Dan was concerned about Flobert’s health since he was still the clerk and dealing with knee issues in a job that required some continuous physical labor and oh… the lights were also going out in the courtroom. Which prompted Abby to meet with the city’s accounting clerk, Linda, to get more money and well… that outright backfired.

Because Linda was a stickler for paperwork and if it wasn’t right or respected, she made people pay. So, things got worse and that prompted Dan to step in and bring Linda’s weird son, Bryant, into the fold as the new clerk. Which uh… which went as badly as one might expect and well, that prompted Dan and Abby to team up to get the funding they needed. By not only offering respect to the paperwork and Linda, but by healing her relationship with her estranged and very strange boy. Giving rise to a happy ending for the court since it got what it needed, and well… this little imagining of what might happen if tough times and belt tightening came to the public sector was likely quite accurate. Since courtrooms and other such public services are indeed on tight budgets, and further cuts would be disastrous.

But while it was nice to play ‘what if?’ here, make no mistake about it… it was handled in quite the hilarious manner. Courtesy of two key elements. Starting of course, with Linda and her son, Bryant. Because they were the right mix of awkwardly weird to make this plotline work, with Bryant leading the way because his unique brand of quirky was out of this world and brought about some major laughs. Not to mention, Olivia and Gurgs’ plot thread in this story also gave rise to some funny moments. Because their decision to sell a medically retired soft drink they found in the depths of the courthouse, made for some incredible hilarity. Thanks to the fact that it transformed Olivia into the soft drink version of Tony Montana and opened our eyes to the fact that Flobert will do some messed up stuff to get ahead.

In the end however, this was just… a delightful episode through and through. One that quite frankly, leaned more into the classic vibe of the show. Because old school Night Court indulged in this type of zany and quirky, and it was welcome to see here, and it was also nice that the show still found a way to offer up a smidge of commentary beneath the big laughs and wild moments. Because financial struggles are very real right now, and that’s something folks can relate to and sympathize with, and all of that serves to remind us of the brilliance of this series. For it really is that wonderfully smart comedy that knows how to balance its humor and its intelligence, and it will be interesting to see what other whip smart storytelling awaits us as season two rolls along. Until next time.  

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