Review:
The Cleveland Show: Episode Twenty

120: Cleveland’s Angels

‘Donna, what you consider a cautionary tale, to this listener promises a second chapter for a life that’s had too few pleasures.’ – Cleveland Brown

The first series of The Cleveland Show is nearing its end now, and it has yet to pick up the pace. While this may not be the episode that will draw in whole new armies of fans, it’s a better tale than the previous one.

This week, the Bigg Nugget Riverboat Casino comes to Stoolbend and Cleveland immediately feels the need to visit and start gambling. Luckily Donna intervenes, telling him not to go and brings him to the ladies’ poker night, where she cleans up Arianna and Kendra for all of four dollars. An amazed Cleveland can do nothing but gape in awe as Donna adds the winnings to Roberta’s college fund, a piggy bank with over two thousand dollars of poker winnings in it. You can probably guess what’s going to happen here. Yes, that’s right, Cleveland manages to both visit the casino and get duped into frittering away his step-daughter’s money.

As comedy plots go, this is probably the least original one since ‘character goes on date wearing headset to talk to friends’. Luckily (and as with that same setup) the writers have just enough sense to find a new light on the story and twist it on its head. The result is this mixed, but consistently entertaining, package.

There’s a fair amount to like in this fairly scattergun episode. Seeing Cleveland struggle to maintain his dignity while carrying out a series of demeaning tasks is fairly amusing and the Charlie’s Angels parody is excellent, although would have been better if it wasn’t given away in the title of episode considering how late it crops up. The two cutaways to University of Delaware stoners watching the show are hilarious, although might perhaps have been better if filmed for real, like the Alyssa Milano gag in Family Guy. Also, the few potential flashbacks into Kendra’s mysterious past are cracking and will hopefully become a running gag and Donna’s reactions on finding out the truth are highly amusing.