The end is so close we can almost taste it

I've got to tell you something: I'm half-asleep when I write these Mixology reactions. At first I was embarrassed to realize that I couldn't get through 500 words without nodding off, but I've come to embrace it as something beneficial -- maybe almost paramount -- to not only getting these things done, but doing so in a way where I can turn off my brain and just let 'er rip. I mean come on -- this is Mixology we're talking about, a show so bad most of us would rather get jaundice than watch for an extended period of time. To think or write about it fully sober, whatever definition you want to use there, would just be too goddamn difficult.

And so it's with that same -- ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh yawning -- dream-land-bound energy that I come to tonight's reflection on the penultimate chapter, "Tom & Liv". Making things kind of hard for me this go-around: I didn't hate it! This was, for my little money, the best episode of Mixology yet. That's a low-bar compliment, obviously, sort of like describing to you my least-hated Brett Ratner movie. But for the sake of journalistic integrity I feel like I owe it to you to tell the truth.

Why did this episode (sort of) work? The answer's pretty easy: because the show acknowledged, or at least winked at, the fact that Bruce is not some sexual seer, some beacon for those uninitiated Neil Strauss readers among us to look up to and emulate. No, he's a deluded pig! Bruce spends the bulk of the episode trying to shore up his "backup," the woman he'll take home in the (likely) event things don't work out with Jessica. A woman with an eyepatch seems like a safe bet, but turns him down. Shortly thereafter he's rejected by a woman who looks like Daniel Day-Lewis, along with a Burning Man enthusiast (or so we imagine from Bruce's description of her). None of these women pick up what Bruce is dropping! It's glorious!

Even if he bangs it out with Jessica next week, this brief glimmer of truth about Bruce is enough to fuel me toward that point. It's going to be a miserable finale, probably, filled with all kinds of moments almost cherry-picked to make me redact what I wrote here. But who knows! Maybe something not terrible wiill happen, too.

Image: ABC