Previewing House of Lies: Season Two

Whenever an actress show up to work pregnant the writers basically only have two options (they are no longer able to utilize a third option anymore after a soap opera actress sued when she was fired for getting fat back in the nineties). First is to ignore the pregnancy and just shoot the actress from the chest up or have her hide behind coaches and always carry bags (How I Met Your Mother actually had to do this in two seasons back to back when both lead actresses got knocked up, included the one who’s character was unable to conceive). Option two is to write the pregnancy into the storyline like Nashville did with Juliet’s shoehorned pregnancy coming out of nowhere.

Back in season two, the writers of House of Lies chose the former option when Kristen Bell reported to work in that starting to get fat period of a pregnancy. It was weird, on a show where characters constantly bag on each other; no one mentioned Jennie’s drastic weight gain. Even worse during a sex scene, they hired a body double whose body looked like Kristen’s without a bun in the oven and there were cuts where Jennie kept on gaining and losing about thirty pounds.

For the second time in three seasons Bell showed up on set with Dax Sheppard’s spawn in her stomach region. This time around the writers opted for the second option thus making Jennie pregnant too. Plus this works from a storyline perspective because Jennie is kind of a drunken slut sleeping from everyone from a sex toy maker to a gangsta to Dick Casablancas in three seasons of the show. Oh yeah, and there is always Marty, of course he is probably the father, it is not like Clyde got some. And from a creative standpoint, the pregnancy is a boon because we finally get some fat jokes and maybe the best scene of the whole series comes in episode two when Doug and his wife try to adopt the unborn child and raise it as their own..

Not as successful is how the writers were able to get Marty his job back. When we left off, the government had Marty dead to rights on multiple charges. But Marty was able cut a deal where his was able to keep his company with minimal jail time. Season four starts off with Marty already don with his bid, but we do get some flashbacks with Marty running into a potential client behind bars played by Demitri Martin.

And Marty really needs him as a client because though he was able to keep his firm, most of his former clients do not want to work with an ex-con, now Khan and Associates only employs four workers and rests out their space to a app upstart. Be on the look out for another Veronica Mars cameo, one by one of the few that appeared on the show that did not make it into the movie.

House of Lies airs Sundays airs Sundays at 10:00 followed by all new episodes of Episodes at 10:30.