Cougar Town Season Finale: "Don't Fade On Me" & "Have Love Will Travel"

Wrapping up its first season on TBS and fourth season overall, "Don't Tread On Me" unites all the things that we think make Cougar Town a great show - especially since its move to TBS.  At its heart, Cougar Town is a show about friends.  In many ways, with Courteney Cox at the helm, it's the grown-up version of the Friends we know and love so much.

Let's talk about networks for a moment.  ABC canceled the show after its third season, giving TBS the chance to pick it up.  We're glad TBS did so (good work, Ted!).  But aside from the show continuing on, the move to TBS allowed for greater freedom for the writers and actors to, simply put, be funny.  The humor opened up significantly after the move, and we're glad for it.

In this finale, Jules and the Cul de Sac Crew (including Tom) plan to travel to the Bahamas for a little end-of-season getaway.  The early parts of the finale include some hilarious throwbacks to the rest of the season, including a great scene in which Jules and Ellie teach their receptive new neighbor Anne (played by Shirley Jones) their "reinterpretations" of sayings that don't quite make sense.

In the meantime, Jules' father Chick arrives to take care of the house.  But after hearing about a man who died of cancer because he never went to the doctor, Jules begins to worry about her father.  She and Grayson arrange to take him to the doc before they depart, but the plan fails in a hilarious and slightly sacreligious episode involving a Clint Eastwood film festival, Werther's Originals, and hundreds of elderly Floridians.  As in the previous seasons, it's in the midst of all this that Jules' sacred cup, Big Lou, bites the dust.

In a moving yet still-humorous interlude, we find out that Chick has Alzheimer's (Old Timer's, according to Jules and Ellie).  Here, Chick recounts a dream he once had:  to meet and dance the night away with 60's bombshell and Hitchcock star Tippi Hedren.  Because of all this, Jules & co. (well, except Tom, who ends up in the Bahamas anyway) head to Los Angeles instead of the Bahamas, where after a long and tumultuous search, they find Hedren and fulfill Chick's dream.  Meanwhile, after a similarly agonizing (in a good way) buildup, Laurie and Travis finally get their first kiss.  Game on, kids.  This is good television.

Most important, though, is the episode's conclusion, which places us among the Cul de Sac crew on the beach in the firelight, laughing and talking with the ease of old friends.  It's poignant, really.  Despite the shows often-ridiculous humor, moments like these show us just how deeply compatible the members of Cougar Town's case - like the members of the Friends cast before them - really are.  This is love, people.  And it's great to see it come to life before our eyes.