Let's Talk About DUNCANVILLE Episode 3 - "Undacuva Mutha"
Episode 3 of Duncanville, “Undacuva Mutha,” was hilarious. New episodes of Duncanville air on Fox Sunday nights and are available on Hulu the following day.
Once again, this episode follows two major story lines. The first one we’ll follow is with Duncan’s mother, Annie, who is hoping that by reaching her quota on Quota Day it will help her to move up in the world and become a detective. Honestly, this episode really makes Annie feel like a Leslie Knope from a different universe. She has a similar drive factor and it’s fantastic. While she’s out getting the best luck ticketing people she comes across a dead body and sees it as her chance. Unfortunately, the detectives shut her down. Then, when Duncan mentions that he bought fake Air Jordans from a pop-up, she decides that is how she’ll become detective. A lot of hijinks ensue with Annie and Duncan staking out a van they believe is responsible for ripping Duncan off. It should be noted that Duncan has no desire to actually do any of this. However, during the stake out, Duncan does have a very personable moment where he asks his mom why he never sees her kiss their father on the lips. She starts fumbling an answer before they have to give chase to the scoundrels, but it is a surprising twist away from the jokes that really tells you that Duncan’s not as dumb as he seems. I really appreciated it.
The other storyline deals with Duncan’s father, Jack, and Duncan’s two sisters, Kimberly and Jing. To get out of going to school, the girls goad Jack by saying he’s not a cool dad which really gets him going and sure enough he takes them to the mall instead of school. Then, to further prove his coolness, he feeds them a disgusting concoction of food that makes them all sick the next day. This is really when the fun begins. As it turns out, they only have two bathrooms in the house. This means one of them doesn’t get to take care of things in a preferable location. Later, Jack tries buying their love with gifts and mentions a Barbie house to which Jing responds, “Does it have 3 bathrooms?” That’s a very solid joke and I loved it.
Eventually, the stories combine as Duncan and Annie go for one last time to try to stop the shoe scammers and everyone else tags along since the girls don’t feel safe with Jack and he agrees. This is actually another sweet Duncan moment as just before they head out Annie has decided to give up on her dream of being a detective. Duncan then spots the van they were trying to tail the other night and gets her to go with him. Back to the final chase. There are some pretty fun moments including seeing the car go through a skate park that will just make you go, “What am I watching?”
At the end of the chase, we learn that the principal, Mr. Mitch, is the scammer and he did it to help fund things for the school after budget cuts. For example, he got Hamilton tickets to help students still have experiences with the arts. It’s a very interesting commentary actually about school funding.
This episode was another hilarious one and it solidified my belief that the more the show focuses on characters other than Duncan, the better they are. Duncan works well as a catalyst, but it cannot focus solely on him.