Georgie and Mandy’s First Marriage Season 1 Episode 3 Gave The Strongest Hints Yet As To Why This Relationship Is Doomed

It’s weird rooting for a couple you know from the outset will fail.

Georgie and Mandy’s First Marriage is a brilliant family comedy, but even the title reveals that this marriage is doomed.

Every episode mixes in more clues as to what goes wrong with the comic situation of the week, and Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage Season 1 Episode 3 gave the biggest hints yet.

Mandy’s Credit Card Debt Secret Was A Symptom of Problems To Come

The episode’s focus on Mandy’s credit card debt was a fairly typical plot that both sitcoms and drams us and always have, going back to classics like I Love Lucy.

However, this one went in an atypical direction.

Instead of the story being about Georgie getting in trouble with his credit card or Mandy running up a bill on it without telling him, his getting the card was a vehicle for the big revelation that Mandy had $12,000 in credit card debt — and some of it came from an ex-boyfriend’s medical bills.

As an aside, were medical bills as bad in the 1990s as they are now? Apparently, that huge debt came from a sprained wrist.

Anyway, Georgie fumed that Mandy had not told him this before they were married, and in a sense, he had a point.

Getting married could make him equally liable for Mandy’s debt, assuming it wasn’t more than seven years old. (Yes, thirty years ago, we had the same laws stating that credit card debt was supposed to be expunged from your record after seven years.)

Still, Georgie’s anger that Mandy and her parents hadn’t told him about this debt was out of proportion to the offense. There was no reason this should have been so important to him that he got Ruben involved!

The guy’s Georgie’s worst enemy, so if he can find a way to use this against Georgie, he will.

Fortunately, so far all he did was ask if Mandy’s secret is that her sister is really her mother. She doesn’t have a sister, so we’re safe there.

Confiding in Ruben was only the first bad choice Georgie made on Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage Season 1 Episode 3. He browbeat Jim into secretly giving him the name of Mandy’s ex so he could collect the money, and the two of them agreed not to tell her.

Jim: If I tell you, it has to be a secret.

Georgie: I won’t say a word. Cross my heart and hope to die, stick a needle in my eye.

Jim: This ain’t the playground. Just say you promise.

Considering Georgie and Mandy agreed not to keep any more secrets before lying down with their backs to each other and panicked-stricken looks on their faces, it’s safe to say this issue is going to come back to bite them at some point.

The other big problem, of course, is the age difference.

As people get older, age gaps matter less.

Still, the number of jokes about Georgie being so much younger than Mandy, the repeated refrain of someone stating he’s just a kid compared to her, and even the ex-boyfriend thinking Georgie looked awfully young suggest that their being in different stages of life will eventually do them in.

Hopefully, that won’t be for a long while because the show can’t continue if they get divorced, and Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage just got a full season order.

Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage Season 1 Episode 3 Proved The Series Can Work Without Young Sheldon Characters

This was the first episode without any crossover appearances from Young Sheldon, though there was a reference to that stupid Season 7 storyline about Meemaw getting in trouble for running an illegal gambling ring.

I missed Missy, but the episode worked fine without any Coopers, and that’s a good thing.

Spinoffs need to be able to stand on their own.

It’s good to have familiar characters in the first few episodes, but if a show depends on those characters to be watchable yet is supposed to be about other people altogether, there’s a huge problem.

In this case, everything flowed smoothly, the jokes were funny, and the episode kept my interest, so Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage Season 1 Episode 3 passed its first major test.

Georgie’s Visit To Mandy’s Ex Might Have Been A Mistake, But It Was Funny

Georgie wasn’t going to get any satisfaction from Mandy’s ex, nor was he ever going to get a penny of that money back.

I knew the check would bounce, and the guy’s idea that he could get the repayment money back by robbing the bank was silly, even if we did get a cameo from Days of Our Lives‘ Julie Dove just a month after she wrapped up her run there.

The interactions between Georgie and Mandy’s ex were some of the best comedy of the hour, though.

I especially liked the guy being a “recovering alcoholic” who still drank, but only beer, and how easily he fell for Georgie’s lie that Georgie and Mandy lived out of state.

Those scenes also offered some more insight into why Audrey is so skeptical of Georgie.

The guy before was not very bright, drank too much, and ran up Mandy’s credit card debt, so Mandy’s choice to marry the high school dropout with whom she accidentally conceived a child must seem like more of the same.

Georgie isn’t stupid, but his strengths are not academic, and the fact that he didn’t finish high school makes it seem even more to Audrey that Mandy is repeating the mistakes of the past with a different but similar guy who will never amount to much in the world.

Connor Is Starting To Be More Well-Rounded

Connor’s appearance on Georgie and Mandy’s First Marriage Season 1 EPisode 3 was much improved (except for the part about him wanting to eat his food standing in the corner, which was a quirk for the sake of having one.)

Connor writing to Jay Leno because they share a birthday and he is interested in Leno’s band gave him something more substantial to his character than just saying and doing strange things.

The answering machine message was a nice touch, too. That was funny without making fun of Connor for being different.

He also displayed some empathy for Georgie after Georgie and Mandy’s fight, even if he didn’t fully know what was going on, which dismantled the idea that he was just weird and lost in his own world.

Still, it’s clear he’s supposed to be a replacement for Sheldon, and even these improvements don’t make that work.

He needs to be developed as a character in his own right rather than being Sheldon 2.0.

Over to you, Georgie & Mandy fanatics.

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Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage airs on CBS on Thursdays at 8/7c and on Paramount+ on Fridays.