Arts: What Makes The New Normal Special

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Brow Beat What Makes The New Normal Special By June Thomas Posted Wednesday, Sep 12, 2012, at 02:28 PM ET The New Normal, NBC's new Ryan Murphy-Ali Adler sitcom, has been reviewed as a dad comedy, a mean comedy, a show about changing families, and a gay show. In fact, it's a program about being special. The show's setup—accomplished with astonishing haste in Monday's pilot—is that David (Justin Bartha) and Bryan (the amazing Andrew Rannells), an affluent, gay couple, decide they'd like to have a child. After one brief misadventure, they find the perfect surrogate in Goldie (Georgia King), who has just reached Los Angeles after fleeing Ohio and her cheating husband, accompanied by Shania (Bebe Wood), her adorable daughter. Goldie's decision to become a surrogate is motivated by money—she intends to use the $35,000 fee for law school—but she specifically wants to help a gay couple, because "a family is a family, and love is love." Her own flesh and blood is decidedly less open-minded—the grandmother who raised her has zero tolerance for non-whites, non-Christians, gays, liberals, or women who don't dress, look, and think exactly like her. Nana, played by liberal firebrand Ellen Barkin, is such an extreme bigot you almost wonder if someone stole her script and substituted a few of Archie Bunker's pages from 1968. She spouts a kind of open hatred that isn't heard in public anymore, as though the character has Tourette's or watched so many episodes of Glee they forgot that Sue Sylvester would end up in ... To continue reading, click here. Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum What did you think of this article? POST A MESSAGE | READ MESSAGES Also In Slate Timeline: The Romney Campaign's Odd Response to the Embassy Protests Permanent Record NFL 2012	Advertisement
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