Timspotting returns! I don’t intend for this to be a regular thing, just something that crops up when happenings occur in the world of Tim Allen and his associated brands (Richard Karn, Buzz Lightyear, etc.). Well, there’s no bigger Timtality than the finale of Last Man Standing, his second sitcom and the photo negative of Home Improvement. I say photo negative because on HI he was a father to three boys; on LMS he was father to three girls. Therefore, he is the last man in a world of Title IX and Megan Rapinoe on the covers of magazines, a man trapped in a world he never made. There is no relation I can tell to the 1996 Walter Hill film of same name starring Bruces Willis and Dern. Perhaps the show would be better if it were a Prohibition era Western based on Yojimbo. (Yotimbo?) But such speculation is beyond the purview of this column. What is not is the aforementioned finale to Tim Allen’s difficult sophomore effort, which encompasses two episodes airing opposite my precious (?) Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. Yes, I subjected SVU to the DVR recording so I could watch this shit live. Never say I don’t do anything for you, people.
I’m going to admit something that will no doubt disgust many of you: I fell off Last Man Standing several years ago. In fact, most of my experience with the show was a couple of days when I drank box wine and plowed through a few seasons on NetFlix. A lot has occurred since I last tuned in, including a network change from ABC to FOX and the replacement of the middle daughter with some sort of blonde Godzilla. But look, this isn’t rocket science. The show’s still pretty much the same. Tim Allen is an old man who hates everything and the women in his life do stupid shit that he has to correct. It’s a premise as old as time. What is the story of Adam & Eve if not a woman fucking up and a man (God) setting her straight? The only difference that threw me in for a loop is that apparently the Baxters now have a live-in Asian slave. It’s like they want an Atlantic article written about them or something.
THESE BOOTS WERE MADE FOR GRUNTIN’ AND THAT’S JUST WHAT THEY’LL DO
Anyway, the first half of the two part finale centers the slave, Jen, because she wants to go camping with her friends. But since she’s a woman, she doesn’t know how to properly camp. She’s also not white, so there’s that. Contrary to expectations, it’s not Tim Allen’s Mike Baxter that teaches this silly 32 year old playing a teenager I guess how to thrive in the outdoors, it’s mom Nancy Travis and the blonde Godzilla. This frees up Tim for a plot with his oldest daughter, Kristin, who has become a workaholic at their shared workplace, Outdoor Man. It seems like half the cast works there, from them to Hector Elizondo to Jonathan Adams’ Chuck (the black neighbor) to Jay Leno. If Last Man Standing went a couple more seasons Outdoor Man would consume Colorado, then the entire Rocky Mountains region, then eventually the world. Humankind’s imprint on the universe would be a giant camo baseball cap that said “Don’t Talk To Me While I’m Pouring Whiskey Into My Coffee”. The Outdoor Man plot resolves itself so quickly it’s almost unfair to call it a plot; basically Tim tells his daughter to have a good work/home balance. Oh, well, fair enough. He demonstrates this by explaining his home office doesn’t have photos of his wife and kids “because I don’t like you people”. It’s a clear delineation between Home Improvement and Last Man Standing that Tim has changed from neglectful of his family to downright contemptuous toward it. I like to think the show ends right before he blows up his entire life by sexting a 19 year old Outdoor Man cashier.
Back at the homestead, Nancy Travis and Blonde Godzilla put the Asian slave through her paces with a backyard simulation of camping. Jen doesn’t know how to do anything and would die a quick death if she went out into the real woods. That’s it, that’s the bit. I like this because it establishes a clear hierarchy on the show: Tim Allen > White Women > Untrustworthy Asiatic Harlot. (Very glad I missed out on the inevitable “Tim blames Jen for coronavirus” episode that definitely happened.) While from the outset it may appear as though Tim is on one level and everybody else is a level below him, there are intricacies only a mindful viewer can comprehend. When the Tim is occupied, white women become the last man standing. If they’re gone and it’s just Jen and the children, she becomes last man standing. The title refers not to a specific man but to a mindset. That’s interesting writing. It suggests there could be a revival miniseries a la Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Last Ronin, in which some member of the family—one you would not expect—is the Last Man Standing. Like one of the shitty kids. Or Jay Leno. I’d watch it.
The actress is 32 years old. Jesus Christ. Let her be an adult!!
From a joke standpoint this show is pretty dire, a lot of predictable softball setup/punchline material. I won’t be quoting a whole lot of dialogue because I believe it belongs in its natural habitat of occurring in between lifeless bursts of canned laughter, yet this exchange aptly encapsulates the kind of awful garbage you’ll come to expect from LMS: “But I got this on shale.” “Good one.” “When you asked me to help you said no geology puns.” “All right, we’re quarry.” They’re not even trying. It’s bad jokes that try to justify themselves through self-awareness. Yes, yes, it’s difficult to write good jokes, but that’s not an excuse to trot out this shit.
The secondary plotline concerns whether or not Hector Elizondo is going to go to Heaven, as apparently in the time since I last checked in on Last Man Standing Kyle—the doofus married to Mandy the middle daughter who is played by Blonde Godzilla—became a minister. Sure, whatever. Why not! I always thought the one thing this patently right-wing show needed was a paean to the Christian God. This doesn’t really come to anything besides a syrupy revelation that Hector Elizondo in effect saved this dumbass by giving him a job at his shitty pro shop because I guess otherwise Kyle would be tying off in a stash house or something. Kyle demurs on the “how to get into heaven” question, deeming Hector Elizondo deserving of a more complex answer, which I think is a copout. Take a fucking stand, Last Man Standing, and tell viewers the process by which they can be bestowed eternal life!
Why does Mandy–the largest of the Last Man Standings–not simply eat the other Last Man Standings?
“Keep On Truckin’” is substantially more interesting than the previous half hour, in no small part due to the fact that it was intended as a finale as opposed to just another episode. Incidentally, I dislike it when networks smash together two unrelated episodes and market them as an hourlong event. You don’t fool me, assholes. Because this is a reskinned Home Improvement, the equivalent to the hot rod Tim was always in the process of restoring in that show is a truck, and wouldn’t you know it, it gets stolen right as he’s completed work on it. But you see, it’s a metaphor. The truck is the show and the show is the truck. Last Man Standing won’t let you forget it, because it thinks its viewers are real dum dums.
The episode contains a number of meta winks and nods to longtime fans, such as an opening discussion between the characters about the weirdness of Mandy dating Kyle after Kyle dated her older sister. Tim Allen hates his family to the extent that he walks off set during this conversation. “He can escape conversations in a single bound” muses Nancy Travis. CUT TO TITLE CARD. Before Tim loses the truck, he gets into a dispute with Jay Leno over the ownership of the truck’s original bill of sale. More meta: when Tim does his Leno impression, Nancy Travis thinks it’s “Buzz Lightyear with a cold”. Fun fact: Tim Allen voiced Buzz Lightyear until Disney cancelled him for being “too real” and greenlit that bullshit Chris Evans movie. Do you get it? Do you get it? How about now? You fucking get it now, you moron?
Denim and checkered. Fight night! The greatest gladiator match in the history of the world. Talk Show Host vs. Sitcom Dad. .. Late Night vs. Prime Time. Leno of Garage vs. the Tool Man of Detroit!
Now, for me at least, Tim Allen squaring off against Jay Leno is my Batman v. Superman. Like Batman v. Superman, it doesn’t disappoint. (YEAH I SAID IT) Tim anticipates Jay wants the bill of sale because Tim wants it, prompting Jay to fire off this brilliant zinger: “Are we in a church basement because I thought I just heard somebody yell ‘bingo!’”. Previously Tim said “remember: your chin makes a pretty big target.” After a tete-a-tete reminiscent of two prizefighters going at each other, Jay delivers his equivalent of Lex Luthor’s master plan. He’s gonna give it to Tim for free, secure in the knowledge they’ll both know the truck was only completed due to Leno. Leno believes it bestows upon him “best friend” status and I think it’s brilliant writing by Allen, who penned this script on his lonesome. To Jay, as his character “Joe” and in real life, he can only comprehend social bonds through automobiles. A friendship can be forged with a bill of sale (“a bond for life”). I’ll bet if you saw through Jay Leno’s eyes you’d see the world of Pixar’s Cars and all the horrors that entails. “Mikey boy” and “Joey boy” become their best friend names, akin to the Man of Steel and the Dark Knight. I think if not for the truck theft, this show would’ve become a harrowing depiction of frayed late in life male friendship, the toxicity of masculinity that requires men to only express feelings through modes of conveyance, ultimately ending in a murder-suicide. Alas, Tim Allen knew this would be too good for the FOX network and held it back, knowing Tim devotees would light up Twitter with demands of the More Power Cut of “Keep on Truckin’”. Look, it can’t be any more toxic and short-sighted as that Snyder bullshit, right?
ArchiveOfOurOwn slash fic numbers intensifying
“I had that truck 10 years. That’s longer than I’ve done improvement on this home.” No, it’s clever, because words in that sentence have an ulterior meaning. So does Tim grumbling “stupid, stupid network” when Chuck informs him the truck’s GPS is no longer on “the network”. “Maybe there’s another network you could find it on” suggests Nancy Travis. “It’s not the way it works, honey.” “Actually I’ve heard of that happening before.” “I’m not holding my breath.” I feel like when Arrested Development did this same basic joke concept it was better written and presented in a funnier manner. But maybe I’m wrong, maybe this is all the same shit, and it all comes down to preferences. Comedy is the big tube and the different shows are Duff, Duff Lite and Duff Dry. My god. I’m like the bald guy in Beyond the Black Rainbow! Everything besides Tim Allen is just spit in the wind!
Can’t do ego death yet, gotta finish this article. Another thing I apparently missed out on: Ryan (Kristin’s husband and the liberal punching bag) and Kyle are podcasters. Not only that, they’re comic book podcasters. You know how in, like, 2004, you were excited to see Gambit’s real name on a computer screen in the second X-Men movie, but now you wish none of it ever happened, that Pandora’s Box never opened? That’s how I feel at large about comic books penetrating the culture. Should’ve left it with Bob, TV. The show comes up with an array of fake sounding fake comic book properties such as Toxic Titans and Fire Falcon. In the second episode they (Ry-Ry and Ky-Ky and the Sci-Fi Guy-Guys…fuck OFF) put out an emergency pod about Tim’s truck. I don’t think the show understands that podcasts can’t be live; those are called streams. Of course, no one writing for Last Man Standing knows what podcasts are, just as it’ll always be Burma, not Myanmar, to them. They’re fucking fossils is what I’m getting at here. If Tim hadn’t been on a podcast I know exists because I listened to it, I’d say he thinks podcasts are those things the youth are killing themselves eating.
I’m kinda pissed their audio setup is better than my podcast’s…
The truck has been chopped into pieces and left for dead. What is left is the customary truck memorial. Everyone is there, except for the children, for the budget has been slashed to garbage on this show. In the first half hour, two of the (three) kids are represented by terribly canned sound effects from inside a tent, because hiring child actresses costs too much. Unseen characters like Norm’s wife or Maris Crane were done with more panache than this. I’m actually surprised they got back Kaitlyn Dever, the one bright spot in this eternal darkness of a sitcom. Since she started on Last Man Standing, Dever has blossomed into a fine young actress in films such as Booksmart and shows such as Unbelievable. As such, she’s “blown this pop stand” for quite some time and in this finale appears via Zoom. Not since Vincent D’Onofrio Skyping into Sinister have I laughed so hard at a character appearing via screen. Yes, yes, I read she had to be filmed apart due to COVID restrictions, but still. Her performance in this episode is reminiscent of Krusty’s “I heartily endorse this event or product”. “Those were some of the best times of my life” she says, betraying the ennui one must feel when doing a cameo for a Tim Allen sitcom amidst filming an adaptation of a problematic musical where you’re still playing a fucking high schooler.
Disappointed by the lack of “woo”ing from the “audience”.
Leave it to Tim to make the 11th hour the height of Timness. I was feeling kinda deflated by this hour of television; sure, it sucked, but it wasn’t up to the insane pedigree I know Last Man Standing can easily achieve. My prayers were answered in the form of Tim’s final Outdoor Man vlog. These have been used in the past as a means by which he could package his complaints about millennial culture into something approaching a stand-up bit, but in this case it’s equal parts sendoff to his beloved show and bizarre political screed. First he thanks the viewers for watching “all 194” of these vlogs. He surmises everyone who isn’t watching is probably out making something, and that “for too many people the only thing they know how to make is an excuse.” “I’ve been thinking a lot about makers and takers.” Yeah, cool, we’re back in the 2012 Republican primary again. Takers took his truck, and that made him sad, so he did what he always does when sad, which is “eat some pork and remember Ronald Reagan”. He then quotes Reagan when he conceded in 1976. He calls his “show, er, truck” a “classic from a simpler, happier time”. “What kind of punks steal other people’s stuff? Make something yourself, men. My mother was right. She always quoted this famous comedian, I can’t remember his name, who said ‘Men are pigs’. [grunt] Baxter out.”
The “should I slur?” look of contemplation.
Okay, so previous in the season Last Man Standing established Tim Taylor exists within the universe, but now it suggests Tim Allen exists too? How many fucking guys who look like that are out there? Clearly there are ramifications that Tim Allen sought not to deal with in the finale that requires a closer look, perhaps in another Timspotting column. But again, I just want to praise the final moments over the credits because it takes a solid ending—Tim and Nancy Travis enjoying their house brimming with life and family—and contorts it into some confused meta message about ABC fucking up the show, maybe? And Ronald Reagan is involved? Last Man Standing has been dinged, possibly unfairly, in the past for being a political right-skewing show, but you wouldn’t know that from these two episodes…until the end. Not since The Sopranos cut to black has a finale inspired such widespread confusion. I mean, it would if people actually watched this shit.
When it comes to Tim Allen achievements, Last Man Standing is definitely one of them. It lasted 10 fewer episodes than Home Improvement and never created a footprint in pop culture equivalent to the Home Improvement Super Nintendo game. I’ll probably revisit it in the near future if only to plug the gaps of Tim knowledge the breadth of the series represents. I recall reading around Season 2 that Tim Allen sought to make it a modern day All in the Family in which issues would be broached and healthy debate encouraged. While I can’t say it’s succeeded at that, at least it didn’t devolve into the Tim Allen equivalent of Archie Bunker’s Place. But who knows? Maybe that’s his next project, because apparently he was “too good” to collaborate with fellow comedian Jay Johnston on January 6th. Mike Baxter’s Place: Nancy Travis dies, he takes in a kid, maybe the bar can be car-themed. I’m sure I’ve had cocktails with the same basic composition as motor oil before. Listen, Tim, if you need more ideas, drop me a line.
Timspotting 2: He’s Dead, That’s The Way It Is
Timspotting returns! I don’t intend for this to be a regular thing, just something that crops up when happenings occur in the world of Tim Allen and his associated brands (Richard Karn, Buzz Lightyear, etc.). Well, there’s no bigger Timtality than the finale of Last Man Standing, his second sitcom and the photo negative of Home Improvement. I say photo negative because on HI he was a father to three boys; on LMS he was father to three girls. Therefore, he is the last man in a world of Title IX and Megan Rapinoe on the covers of magazines, a man trapped in a world he never made. There is no relation I can tell to the 1996 Walter Hill film of same name starring Bruces Willis and Dern. Perhaps the show would be better if it were a Prohibition era Western based on Yojimbo. (Yotimbo?) But such speculation is beyond the purview of this column. What is not is the aforementioned finale to Tim Allen’s difficult sophomore effort, which encompasses two episodes airing opposite my precious (?) Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. Yes, I subjected SVU to the DVR recording so I could watch this shit live. Never say I don’t do anything for you, people.
I’m going to admit something that will no doubt disgust many of you: I fell off Last Man Standing several years ago. In fact, most of my experience with the show was a couple of days when I drank box wine and plowed through a few seasons on NetFlix. A lot has occurred since I last tuned in, including a network change from ABC to FOX and the replacement of the middle daughter with some sort of blonde Godzilla. But look, this isn’t rocket science. The show’s still pretty much the same. Tim Allen is an old man who hates everything and the women in his life do stupid shit that he has to correct. It’s a premise as old as time. What is the story of Adam & Eve if not a woman fucking up and a man (God) setting her straight? The only difference that threw me in for a loop is that apparently the Baxters now have a live-in Asian slave. It’s like they want an Atlantic article written about them or something.
THESE BOOTS WERE MADE FOR GRUNTIN’ AND THAT’S JUST WHAT THEY’LL DO
Anyway, the first half of the two part finale centers the slave, Jen, because she wants to go camping with her friends. But since she’s a woman, she doesn’t know how to properly camp. She’s also not white, so there’s that. Contrary to expectations, it’s not Tim Allen’s Mike Baxter that teaches this silly 32 year old playing a teenager I guess how to thrive in the outdoors, it’s mom Nancy Travis and the blonde Godzilla. This frees up Tim for a plot with his oldest daughter, Kristin, who has become a workaholic at their shared workplace, Outdoor Man. It seems like half the cast works there, from them to Hector Elizondo to Jonathan Adams’ Chuck (the black neighbor) to Jay Leno. If Last Man Standing went a couple more seasons Outdoor Man would consume Colorado, then the entire Rocky Mountains region, then eventually the world. Humankind’s imprint on the universe would be a giant camo baseball cap that said “Don’t Talk To Me While I’m Pouring Whiskey Into My Coffee”. The Outdoor Man plot resolves itself so quickly it’s almost unfair to call it a plot; basically Tim tells his daughter to have a good work/home balance. Oh, well, fair enough. He demonstrates this by explaining his home office doesn’t have photos of his wife and kids “because I don’t like you people”. It’s a clear delineation between Home Improvement and Last Man Standing that Tim has changed from neglectful of his family to downright contemptuous toward it. I like to think the show ends right before he blows up his entire life by sexting a 19 year old Outdoor Man cashier.
Back at the homestead, Nancy Travis and Blonde Godzilla put the Asian slave through her paces with a backyard simulation of camping. Jen doesn’t know how to do anything and would die a quick death if she went out into the real woods. That’s it, that’s the bit. I like this because it establishes a clear hierarchy on the show: Tim Allen > White Women > Untrustworthy Asiatic Harlot. (Very glad I missed out on the inevitable “Tim blames Jen for coronavirus” episode that definitely happened.) While from the outset it may appear as though Tim is on one level and everybody else is a level below him, there are intricacies only a mindful viewer can comprehend. When the Tim is occupied, white women become the last man standing. If they’re gone and it’s just Jen and the children, she becomes last man standing. The title refers not to a specific man but to a mindset. That’s interesting writing. It suggests there could be a revival miniseries a la Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Last Ronin, in which some member of the family—one you would not expect—is the Last Man Standing. Like one of the shitty kids. Or Jay Leno. I’d watch it.
The actress is 32 years old. Jesus Christ. Let her be an adult!!
From a joke standpoint this show is pretty dire, a lot of predictable softball setup/punchline material. I won’t be quoting a whole lot of dialogue because I believe it belongs in its natural habitat of occurring in between lifeless bursts of canned laughter, yet this exchange aptly encapsulates the kind of awful garbage you’ll come to expect from LMS: “But I got this on shale.” “Good one.” “When you asked me to help you said no geology puns.” “All right, we’re quarry.” They’re not even trying. It’s bad jokes that try to justify themselves through self-awareness. Yes, yes, it’s difficult to write good jokes, but that’s not an excuse to trot out this shit.
The secondary plotline concerns whether or not Hector Elizondo is going to go to Heaven, as apparently in the time since I last checked in on Last Man Standing Kyle—the doofus married to Mandy the middle daughter who is played by Blonde Godzilla—became a minister. Sure, whatever. Why not! I always thought the one thing this patently right-wing show needed was a paean to the Christian God. This doesn’t really come to anything besides a syrupy revelation that Hector Elizondo in effect saved this dumbass by giving him a job at his shitty pro shop because I guess otherwise Kyle would be tying off in a stash house or something. Kyle demurs on the “how to get into heaven” question, deeming Hector Elizondo deserving of a more complex answer, which I think is a copout. Take a fucking stand, Last Man Standing, and tell viewers the process by which they can be bestowed eternal life!
Why does Mandy–the largest of the Last Man Standings–not simply eat the other Last Man Standings?
“Keep On Truckin’” is substantially more interesting than the previous half hour, in no small part due to the fact that it was intended as a finale as opposed to just another episode. Incidentally, I dislike it when networks smash together two unrelated episodes and market them as an hourlong event. You don’t fool me, assholes. Because this is a reskinned Home Improvement, the equivalent to the hot rod Tim was always in the process of restoring in that show is a truck, and wouldn’t you know it, it gets stolen right as he’s completed work on it. But you see, it’s a metaphor. The truck is the show and the show is the truck. Last Man Standing won’t let you forget it, because it thinks its viewers are real dum dums.
The episode contains a number of meta winks and nods to longtime fans, such as an opening discussion between the characters about the weirdness of Mandy dating Kyle after Kyle dated her older sister. Tim Allen hates his family to the extent that he walks off set during this conversation. “He can escape conversations in a single bound” muses Nancy Travis. CUT TO TITLE CARD. Before Tim loses the truck, he gets into a dispute with Jay Leno over the ownership of the truck’s original bill of sale. More meta: when Tim does his Leno impression, Nancy Travis thinks it’s “Buzz Lightyear with a cold”. Fun fact: Tim Allen voiced Buzz Lightyear until Disney cancelled him for being “too real” and greenlit that bullshit Chris Evans movie. Do you get it? Do you get it? How about now? You fucking get it now, you moron?
Denim and checkered. Fight night! The greatest gladiator match in the history of the world. Talk Show Host vs. Sitcom Dad. .. Late Night vs. Prime Time. Leno of Garage vs. the Tool Man of Detroit!
Now, for me at least, Tim Allen squaring off against Jay Leno is my Batman v. Superman. Like Batman v. Superman, it doesn’t disappoint. (YEAH I SAID IT) Tim anticipates Jay wants the bill of sale because Tim wants it, prompting Jay to fire off this brilliant zinger: “Are we in a church basement because I thought I just heard somebody yell ‘bingo!’”. Previously Tim said “remember: your chin makes a pretty big target.” After a tete-a-tete reminiscent of two prizefighters going at each other, Jay delivers his equivalent of Lex Luthor’s master plan. He’s gonna give it to Tim for free, secure in the knowledge they’ll both know the truck was only completed due to Leno. Leno believes it bestows upon him “best friend” status and I think it’s brilliant writing by Allen, who penned this script on his lonesome. To Jay, as his character “Joe” and in real life, he can only comprehend social bonds through automobiles. A friendship can be forged with a bill of sale (“a bond for life”). I’ll bet if you saw through Jay Leno’s eyes you’d see the world of Pixar’s Cars and all the horrors that entails. “Mikey boy” and “Joey boy” become their best friend names, akin to the Man of Steel and the Dark Knight. I think if not for the truck theft, this show would’ve become a harrowing depiction of frayed late in life male friendship, the toxicity of masculinity that requires men to only express feelings through modes of conveyance, ultimately ending in a murder-suicide. Alas, Tim Allen knew this would be too good for the FOX network and held it back, knowing Tim devotees would light up Twitter with demands of the More Power Cut of “Keep on Truckin’”. Look, it can’t be any more toxic and short-sighted as that Snyder bullshit, right?
ArchiveOfOurOwn slash fic numbers intensifying
“I had that truck 10 years. That’s longer than I’ve done improvement on this home.” No, it’s clever, because words in that sentence have an ulterior meaning. So does Tim grumbling “stupid, stupid network” when Chuck informs him the truck’s GPS is no longer on “the network”. “Maybe there’s another network you could find it on” suggests Nancy Travis. “It’s not the way it works, honey.” “Actually I’ve heard of that happening before.” “I’m not holding my breath.” I feel like when Arrested Development did this same basic joke concept it was better written and presented in a funnier manner. But maybe I’m wrong, maybe this is all the same shit, and it all comes down to preferences. Comedy is the big tube and the different shows are Duff, Duff Lite and Duff Dry. My god. I’m like the bald guy in Beyond the Black Rainbow! Everything besides Tim Allen is just spit in the wind!
Can’t do ego death yet, gotta finish this article. Another thing I apparently missed out on: Ryan (Kristin’s husband and the liberal punching bag) and Kyle are podcasters. Not only that, they’re comic book podcasters. You know how in, like, 2004, you were excited to see Gambit’s real name on a computer screen in the second X-Men movie, but now you wish none of it ever happened, that Pandora’s Box never opened? That’s how I feel at large about comic books penetrating the culture. Should’ve left it with Bob, TV. The show comes up with an array of fake sounding fake comic book properties such as Toxic Titans and Fire Falcon. In the second episode they (Ry-Ry and Ky-Ky and the Sci-Fi Guy-Guys…fuck OFF) put out an emergency pod about Tim’s truck. I don’t think the show understands that podcasts can’t be live; those are called streams. Of course, no one writing for Last Man Standing knows what podcasts are, just as it’ll always be Burma, not Myanmar, to them. They’re fucking fossils is what I’m getting at here. If Tim hadn’t been on a podcast I know exists because I listened to it, I’d say he thinks podcasts are those things the youth are killing themselves eating.
I’m kinda pissed their audio setup is better than my podcast’s…
The truck has been chopped into pieces and left for dead. What is left is the customary truck memorial. Everyone is there, except for the children, for the budget has been slashed to garbage on this show. In the first half hour, two of the (three) kids are represented by terribly canned sound effects from inside a tent, because hiring child actresses costs too much. Unseen characters like Norm’s wife or Maris Crane were done with more panache than this. I’m actually surprised they got back Kaitlyn Dever, the one bright spot in this eternal darkness of a sitcom. Since she started on Last Man Standing, Dever has blossomed into a fine young actress in films such as Booksmart and shows such as Unbelievable. As such, she’s “blown this pop stand” for quite some time and in this finale appears via Zoom. Not since Vincent D’Onofrio Skyping into Sinister have I laughed so hard at a character appearing via screen. Yes, yes, I read she had to be filmed apart due to COVID restrictions, but still. Her performance in this episode is reminiscent of Krusty’s “I heartily endorse this event or product”. “Those were some of the best times of my life” she says, betraying the ennui one must feel when doing a cameo for a Tim Allen sitcom amidst filming an adaptation of a problematic musical where you’re still playing a fucking high schooler.
Disappointed by the lack of “woo”ing from the “audience”.
Leave it to Tim to make the 11th hour the height of Timness. I was feeling kinda deflated by this hour of television; sure, it sucked, but it wasn’t up to the insane pedigree I know Last Man Standing can easily achieve. My prayers were answered in the form of Tim’s final Outdoor Man vlog. These have been used in the past as a means by which he could package his complaints about millennial culture into something approaching a stand-up bit, but in this case it’s equal parts sendoff to his beloved show and bizarre political screed. First he thanks the viewers for watching “all 194” of these vlogs. He surmises everyone who isn’t watching is probably out making something, and that “for too many people the only thing they know how to make is an excuse.” “I’ve been thinking a lot about makers and takers.” Yeah, cool, we’re back in the 2012 Republican primary again. Takers took his truck, and that made him sad, so he did what he always does when sad, which is “eat some pork and remember Ronald Reagan”. He then quotes Reagan when he conceded in 1976. He calls his “show, er, truck” a “classic from a simpler, happier time”. “What kind of punks steal other people’s stuff? Make something yourself, men. My mother was right. She always quoted this famous comedian, I can’t remember his name, who said ‘Men are pigs’. [grunt] Baxter out.”
The “should I slur?” look of contemplation.
Okay, so previous in the season Last Man Standing established Tim Taylor exists within the universe, but now it suggests Tim Allen exists too? How many fucking guys who look like that are out there? Clearly there are ramifications that Tim Allen sought not to deal with in the finale that requires a closer look, perhaps in another Timspotting column. But again, I just want to praise the final moments over the credits because it takes a solid ending—Tim and Nancy Travis enjoying their house brimming with life and family—and contorts it into some confused meta message about ABC fucking up the show, maybe? And Ronald Reagan is involved? Last Man Standing has been dinged, possibly unfairly, in the past for being a political right-skewing show, but you wouldn’t know that from these two episodes…until the end. Not since The Sopranos cut to black has a finale inspired such widespread confusion. I mean, it would if people actually watched this shit.
When it comes to Tim Allen achievements, Last Man Standing is definitely one of them. It lasted 10 fewer episodes than Home Improvement and never created a footprint in pop culture equivalent to the Home Improvement Super Nintendo game. I’ll probably revisit it in the near future if only to plug the gaps of Tim knowledge the breadth of the series represents. I recall reading around Season 2 that Tim Allen sought to make it a modern day All in the Family in which issues would be broached and healthy debate encouraged. While I can’t say it’s succeeded at that, at least it didn’t devolve into the Tim Allen equivalent of Archie Bunker’s Place. But who knows? Maybe that’s his next project, because apparently he was “too good” to collaborate with fellow comedian Jay Johnston on January 6th. Mike Baxter’s Place: Nancy Travis dies, he takes in a kid, maybe the bar can be car-themed. I’m sure I’ve had cocktails with the same basic composition as motor oil before. Listen, Tim, if you need more ideas, drop me a line.
Ronnie Gardocki
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