New Show Recap: The New Normal, 1.13, “The Goldie Rush”

This week we tackle family planning, bullying, and Matt Bomer. Well, mostly Matt Bomer. My fingers are crossed that he becomes a recurring character. 

After an interviewer from Ladies Home Journal pushes Bryan a bit about David’s and his plans for children, Bryan reflects on an ex of his, Monty (played by Matt Bomer), who didn’t want kids at all and how happy he is to be with someone who wants a family. Until it hits him that he and David have never really talked about how many kids they want overall. Of course, this isn’t actually a problem, because Bryan and David do the, “Lets both say how many kids we want at the exact same time” thing and they both want three kids. Perfect!

When they go to discuss this with Gary, their fertility coordinator, they find Gary very distressed over the fact that he doesn’t have a family of his own. Bryan and David are startled and sympathetic to be confronted with a sobbing man saying that he’s going to die alone. Since they recently ran into Monty and found out that he has changed his tune about kids and settling down, David thinks they should fix Monty up with Gary. This doesn’t seem like the conclusion I would jump to, but I don’t live in a sitcom world where all secondary characters have to be connected somehow.

The dinner with Monty and Gary seems to be going well, except that Monty seems more entranced by Goldie than Gary despite Gary’s desperate attempts to grab attention. To the point where he begins caressing Goldie’s belly, which prompts her to say,”You are very good looking. Yes, I know that you’re gay, but this is a very confusing moment for me.” I get you, Goldie. Monty and Goldie hit it off and Monty ends up asking Goldie to be his surrogate. You can basically hear the record scratch noise when Bryan and David hear this. They confront Monty later to tell him that they’re planning on having Goldie be their surrogate. Monty points out that Goldie doesn’t seem to be in on this plan, so maybe Bryan and David should speak to her about it.

And when they do, Bryan and David discover that Goldie’s plans shockingly don’t involve spending the next six years popping out their kids. She’s going to set up a booth at the Farmer’s Market selling children’s clothing. She doesn’t give them a hard no, but she says that she can’t commit to it right now.

Bryan and David go to apologize to Monty and find Gary at his house. Apparently, they met again after the first dinner and really hit it off. They’re planning to spend the day with Gary’s niece to get some experience with parenting and both of them are grateful to Bryan and David for introducing them. Bryan and David seem a bit bewildered, but for now it all seems very nice and neat.

Meanwhile Shania is having trouble with some mean girls at school. Nana’s suggestion of wearing a power suit and speaking authoritatively doesn’t work, so Rocky suggests Shania throw some shade at these girls to establish dominance. It works! So Shania brings the girls over, continues to push the message that she’s in charge now, and then hands out feminist literature by Germaine Greer and Dolly Parton. She explains that there won’t be any leaders and that they’ll all start supporting each other as people. The other girls seem a bit weirded out by it, but willing to go for it, because that’s exactly how elementary school relationships work.

While this is going on, Rocky and Nana are still hanging out and Rocky’s helping Nana get ready to get her real estate license. She’s also discovering the joy of Googling Jon Hamm and “moose knuckle.” Because I’m sure that fits perfectly into her job description as Bryan’s assistant.

At the end of the episode, Goldie opens her stand at the Farmer’s Market and I’m wondering what amphetamines are safe to take during pregnancy because she’s got a LOT of clothing set up, including very complicated knitted hats which obviously took a lot of time. Bryan talks about plans and how they change and evolve, but mostly what I’m thinking of is how can I get to a place where I can live in this world where it’s apparently against the rules for anyone to be unhappy or unfulfilled. Ever. At all. I mean, I joke about “Glee” being Rachel Berry fan fiction at this point, but I’m pretty sure this show is giving it a run for its money.