17 June 2021
Workin’ Moms S5 is safe and reliable – and we can’t wait for Season 6
It’s a telling point when you Google Season 5 of Workin’ Moms and the first page is filled with clickbait about Season 6.
There are 10 short episodes in Season 5 (an easy one-night or one-afternoon binge, you’ll barely have time to get up to fetch a glass of wine), which still manage to pack in a heck of a lot, and in the finale there are multiple threads that demand explaining – and therefore another season. The only question, really, is when.
In the second year of the pandemic, it’s interesting to note how television is portraying it. In some procedurals like Law & Order: SVU and NCIS, there’s random mask waiting and casual references to quarantine and, more recently, vaccines. Depending on where and when they were filmed, plenty have ignored it completely, which is almost preferable because I’m not convinced we need to be reminded of the grim reality; television should be escapism.
Workin’ Moms touches on it very briefly in the first episode when Anne (Dani Kind) and her family move from Toronto to a small and unappealing hick town. Initially appeased that they’ll only have to sleep in their hideous rented house, a lockdown alert is issued. Fast forward six months, and the story continues, in a world apparently without Covid, and it’s never mentioned again.
“The idea of a season of characters in masks and being six feet apart didn’t really interest me. And it’s not even that it didn’t interest me. I mean, it’s our life, right?”, series creator and lead Catherine Reitman told TV, eh?
“I wanted the fans of the show to be able to come back and laugh at what we used to deem real problems. And I think that’s what our goal was this season, to put it in the rear view mirror. Deal with it quickly and get out.”
There’s not much need to recap the previous four seasons; it all comes back quite quickly because the characters are all tidily in their roles, places and storylines.
Anne is in a bit of a funk and self-medicating for anxiety, making the best friends she can in her new town. Spoiler: they are not real friends. Nope, Anne’s proper support group is in Toronto, but not without tension and conflicts of its own. Kate (Reitman) is still running her PR firm, and she lands a lucrative new account.
Thing is, Kate tends to get prematurely swept away by potential success on a wave of bluffing, and frequently comes down to earth with a thud. Val (Sarah McVie) is on the outskirts of Season 5 as she deals with kicking her teenage sons out, on the perceived advice of Anne. Frankie (Juno Rinaldi) is finding it difficult to bond with her baby son, and has her own work drama in a scene that is meticulously set up so when it happens you clap your hand over your mouth to stifle both a horrified gasp and an inappropriate snort of laughter. As shallow as ever, Jenny (Jessalyn Wanlim) blunders her way through her workplace relationship, eventually telling a whopper of a lie to keep her guy all to herself.
With everything being so compact, not a moment or a scene is wasted, and the series moves along at a decent clip, wholly satisfying for now but leaving you with a craving for more. It’s safe and reliable, and just what we need.
