Cleveland Show, Season 4, Episode 3: Turkey Pot Die, Review

So, it seems like this episode has more of a Thanksgiving theme than the actual “General Thanksgiving Show” from last week.

Cleveland takes Junior to pick out a turkey to kill for Thanksgiving dinner. Junior has a change of heart and refuses. Rallo and Donna go down to the parade float registration (with Donna none too happy, sporting her bedhead). Cleveland ends up at the bar, insisting that his son will kill a turkey. Rallo shows his mom a drawing for a float, with a hand turkey and sunshine. The neighboring bear stops by to say she’s won the float contest for years now and Donna gets riled up enough to want to compete for REALZ.Cleveland injects Junior with something to knock him out until they get to the turkey hunt. Junior realizes he’s been tricked as Cleveland compares him to the D.C. sniper (ooooh, bad…). Cleveland ends up being accidentally shot by a turkey and says he “suspects fowl play.”  Ha ha…is this really where the jokes are going?Cleveland ends up in the hospital, where he finds that his layers of fat saved his life. He decides that he must stop the hunting of turkeys once and for all. Donna creates a turkey float, which Rallo immediately, um, ruins with googly eyes and fluorescent paints. I mean, he is a toddler, after all…but Donna is about to pull out the big guns. TIM GUNN. He tells her to “make it work.”  Tim Gunn doesn’t do floats, I imagine. But she needs to beat Arianna! This is a serious vendetta now.Cleveland and Junior start dressing up in turkey suits and standing up for turkeys, which includes vandalizing soup kitchens…seems a bit counterproductive, but…okay. Donna surprises Rallo with her own version of the float to serve her desire for revenge against Arianna the bear. Cleveland and Junior learn that people hate turkeys more than ever because of their efforts and more will be killed ASAP for Thanksgiving dinner. It seems that their efforts have backfired, for now…Cleveland and Junior go to break out the turkeys. Lester is distracted by a, um, fat blond trailer whore? That’s the best way I can think of to describe her…but anyway, the turkeys are evacuated and taken to a safe house, similar to the Underground Railroad. Donna uncovers her float to find it torn apart…but then Cleveland has the idea to put the turkeys inside the float to smuggle them to safety. Rallo confesses that he vandalized the float…only to hear that Donna set Arianna’s float on fire. Whoops! Competition getting a little toooooo fierce!Cleveland ends up flashing Les to distract him from Junior saving the turkeys…although the “flash” goes on for a weeee bit too long. Still, the float gets stuffed with live turkeys…and Rallo goes after Donna for stealing his float. He climbs to the top of a turkey balloon, saying he is “higher than Woody Harrelson at Matthew McConaughey’s house.” (Okay, we DID get a funny line in this episode!) Les tries to get his turkeys back, blowing up the float and letting them free in the street, but chaos ensues and Rallo floats away on the balloon, hitting the power lines. When the balloon is shot, Junior calls the turkeys together to save the falling Rallo, proving that turkeys are not so stupid after all.The episode ends with Junior telling his dad he’s happy he saved the turkeys, although he would kill a pig with his bare hands and eat it the same night. He would also be willing to kill a person, provided he could get away with it. Um…creepy…Final review:  As I have said, I am not a huge fan of this show…it did explore the issues of killing animals for food, and brought up the inconsistencies between species (turkey vs. pig), which I think is important…IF this show reaches a rather large audience.  I still think the humor falls a bit flat and although there are attempts to make progress, I’m a bit surprised it’s in its third season.Best line:  Junior telling Cleveland, after a turkey takes food out of his mouth, “He put his pecker in my mouth!” And then Cleveland pulls out a rifle to shoot the turkey.