On the season finale of Franklin and Bash, the lawyer bros work a murder trial.
Kevin: More like Franklin and SMASH, am I right?
Ryan: Hell yeah you’re right!
Ryan: Or Dranklin and Trash, Spanklin and Cash, Yanklin and Mash, et al.
Kevin: Take note, @frankandbashtnt, there’s another guaranteed season to possibly rename
Kevin: Wow, there was just a super-intense shootout on Bones, which I just inadvertently witnessed as I wait for F&B to start.
Ryan: Yeah, I was not expecting that. Bonez (how it should be spelled) always starts off with some quirky partners-stumbling-over-each-other hijinks. Yet, it ends with gunshots, death, visible breathing, and parenting ultimatums. Cool show, if you ask me.
Kevin: Huh. I’ve never watched. Fun fact: the Franklin and Bash Twitter today said, “Yes! We’ve are!” in response to a fan inquiry about whether the show was coming back for another season.
Ryan: Are Strunk and White dead? If not, now they are.
Kevin: R.I.P.
Kevin: So, Infeld has been accused of murder?
Kevin: Did I miss this last week?
Ryan: Yes you did, but I remember him getting misty about his friend’s dead body being found on Mount McKinley. I don’t see any connection, but that’s usually how this show works.
Kevin: Fair enough. I figure, missing an episode, if anything, makes me even MORE qualified to evaluate this show.
Ryan: As does being high, drunk, blindfolded, deaf, and not-English-speaking.
Kevin: Me gusta!
Ryan: Franklin was pre-med! I like unresolved storylines. Looks like the bros and Carp are now murder-trial lawyers. My mom is a lawyer and I’m pretty sure you can’t just suddenly be a lawyer at a murder trial. Then again, nothing ever stopped Franklin or Bash from anything.
Kevin: Pretty sure they’re channeling Jeffrey Tambor’s old-eccentric-man-in-prison act from Arrested Development. But yeah, I mean, law, it’s all the same, right?
Ryan: I’d take it a step further. Jobs? What’s the hell’s difference?
Kevin: A job’s a job. And hey, let’s take the supposedly powerful female character on the show and undress her within the first 10 minutes!
Kevin: I swear to God this show sets feminism back at least two waves.
Ryan: If women didn’t have boobs, they wouldn’t have power.
Ryan: And they probably wouldn’t be able to vote, either.
Kevin: We’ll never know. Anyway, this is the finale of Franklin and Bash. How will you possibly spend your Wednesday nights from now on?
Ryan: I will go through withdrawal, wet my pants in my sleep for the next month, and wake up one Thursday morning in the closet of a laundromat. Then, I’ll just go on living my life. You?
Kevin: I’m going to use the extra hour every week to develop my fledgling rap career.
Kevin: In fact, if this episode doesn’t hold my attention, I might start practicing now. Just warning you.
Ryan: Who are your influences?
Kevin: Gucci Mane. Waka Flocka Flame. OJ da Juiceman.
Ryan: There was this rapper in this Canadian boy band called Soul Decision. If I had a rap career, he’d influence me, probably.
Ryan: Thoughts on the wrestlers wearing Nacho Libre masks at all times?
Kevin: Only that Jack Black made that joke like five years ago and it wasn’t funny then either.
Ryan: So, you’re telling me recycled Jack Black jokes don’t work?
Kevin: Not in this particular universe. I’m a big fan of Franklin trying to argue that Infeld is innocent because he took a chance on Franklin and Bash. If you put your weight behind two incompetent hotdogging lawyers, you can’t be legally guilty of murder! Now THAT’S the law.
Ryan: Sounds more like an insanity plea to me!
Kevin: I could feel the heat of that zing through the Interwebs. It’s a series of tubes!
Ryan: /kisses own reflection
Kevin: Do you have a mirror handy at all times?
Ryan: Some people don’t?
Kevin: MCLOVIN!
Kevin: Is that Colin Farrell?
Ryan: Yep, he’s really branching out. First he was a fat, balding dude with a mullet and now he’s a vampire. Vampires are, like, so early 2009 though.
Kevin: This is true. Though Horrible Bosses was actually very funny. Ok, so, Infeld’s from Liverpool, and apparently Franklin and Bash fight over oatmeal. Also, they’re talking about this girl and she’s literally five feet away. This episode is proving to be unrealistic even for Franklin and Bash standards!
Kevin: “Being a lucha fan isn’t like rooting for the Lakers.” Take THAT, Jack Nicholson.
Ryan: Infeld is NOT from Liverpool. Liverpudlians don’t speak English. They just make variations of the sound “woy” to communicate.
Kevin: “I’m not white, I can’t be racist!”
Ryan: FACT.
Kevin: As Das Racist says, “We’re not racists, we love white people/Ford trucks, apple pie, bald eagles”
Kevin: Another influence of mine.
Ryan: Isn’t rap supposed to rhyme?
Kevin: People, eagles, white, pie. Assonance!
Ryan: Now there are like four people with wrestling masks on. Do wrestlers even wear masks anymore?
Kevin: Rey Mysterio, Jr. does. C.M. Punk doesn’t, and I’m pretty sure he’s the only wrestler that anyone can actually name anymore.
Ryan: Prediction time! We know Infeld killed his best friend with a knife, but is he a murderer?
Kevin: Obviously not. Just another obstacle for Franklin and Bash to overcome.
Ryan: And now the new sexxxxxy, powerful, lawyer woman looks like she’s actually sabotaging Randall Coombs’ case so she can take over the firm. Women are very mischievous according to this show.
Kevin: They’re either evil, like that girl and Bash’s ex; they’re crazy, like Lily from the last episode and their roommate, who’s addicted to sex with a con; or they’re the daughters of luchadores.
Ryan: Which is basically a combination of the other two.
Kevin: Basically. Can we talk about these two dudes who are the lawyers of the green luchador? What’s with that guy’s stache?
Ryan: If he didn’t have a mustache, it wouldn’t feel right.
Kevin: There are surprisingly few moustaches on this show.
Ryan: Is that proportionate to the quality of a show?
Kevin: Absolutely. All right, what the hell is going on? Are you getting this? Every accused murderer is allowed to face their accuser, even when they’re dead?
Ryan: That can’t ever make sense, no matter how you look at it. I wonder if this is how all lawyers work? You suck at lawyering for the majority of the case and then have a random epiphany while eating Cheetos and watching a horse race on TV that ends up winning you the case.
Kevin: I hope so. Also, there were some serious “knowing glances” exchanged between jurors in that morgue. Why did they actually need to see the dead body, again?
Kevin: Couldn’t they have just brought the coroner in as a witness?
Kevin: An “expert” witness, even?
Ryan: That shouldn’t have been an intelligent question, but it was. My only guess is that it might have something to do with the phrase “over my dead body”
Kevin: Nothing like taking things literally. Also, in case you were wondering, because I was, 5,000 hours of pro bono work can be accomplished with 125 40-hour workweeks. Just over two years!
Ryan: Oh that’s not bad at all, especially if you’re like 85 years old
Ryan: I KNEW IT!
Kevin: DANNY TREJO
Kevin: OH MY GOD
Ryan: It was either him or George Lopez, this show would never dig deeper than that for a Hispanic actor
Kevin: That is absolutely fair. I love how he has the conversation with him, after being led away from kissing his daughter, and then they go to fantasize about Jessica Alba before he eventually returns to her. Class.
Ryan: Like jobs, a woman is a woman, Kevin.
Kevin: And that is the message of season one of Franklin and Bash. It’s been fun. In a way.
Ryan: Sure, and it definitely hasn’t been real, at all. But I think we’ve all grown and learned from this season, don’t you?
Kevin: I think so. I just learned that the actor who played Voodoo Taylor on Friday Night Lights is a part of the cast of Leverage.
Ryan: Voodoo! Friday Nights is a good television show.
Kevin: Yes it is. Might go and watch another episode of that. Good night, and good luck, Franklin and Bash.
Ryan: O Captain, my captain.
Ryan O’Hanlon is the sports editor for the Good Men Project. He used to play soccer and go to college. He’s still trying to get over it. You can follow him on Twitter @rwohan.
Kevin Lincoln is a staff writer for the Good Men Project; you can follow him on Twitter and Tumblr. He likes hip-hop, postmodernists, and good writing about sports.
—Photo via TNT