If Steve Carell is involved, I can’t imagine a world where we don’t get another season of the comedy, Rooster. And I’m glad because I actually really liked it!
For me, this is the lane that Steve Carell thrives in. He’s a comedic gem and I’m so glad to see him get to put the cops to use here. He plays Greg Russo, a fiction author known for his Rooster novels, who finds himself on the campus of the college where his daughter teaches. At first it seems like a bit of chance that he’s there, but it’s known pretty quickly that his ex-wife used to go there and has some pretty strong pull. The pull was necessary, in Greg’s eyes, because his daughter Katie is navigating life on campus after her husband cheated on her with a grad student. Who he’s still cheating on her with. Archie is handsome, which definitely stings, but it’s the fact that she has to see him every day because he is also a professor on this small campus.
Seeing Katie in this environment, along with her involvement in some semi-accidental arson, prompts Greg to accept a writer-in-residence position. School president Walter takes a real shine to Greg, and maybe puts too much spotlight on him. Easing some of that attention is poetry professor, and eventual Dean of Students, Dylan. While it seems like initially she and Greg are going to be the romantic couple of the season, I like how they pivot to making them really good confidants and friends. They have a great rapport that could maybe later morph into something romantic, but I’m glad it’s platonic for now.
The rest of the season sees Greg get to live out some of the college life he never got to experience for himself. And in an effort to give Katie some space, he takes on Tommy, a new student struggling with college life and his classes. There is a scene involving his mom that had me both cackling and cringing, so look forward to that moment. Katie on the other hand spends the season trying to wrap her head around how she’s supposed to live her life in this post-cheating world. It doesn’t help that on top of seeing Archie all of the time, that he infrequently peppers in that he still wants to be with her and loves her. The fact that his new fling is pregnant definitely adds a wrench in things, but I don’t know how I would act if I were in Katie’s shoes.
I’m glad that this was just a first season. Like I said, I would be shocked if there wasn’t a world in which this doesn’t get a second season. I can’t wait for things to expand more with these characters and to see how relationships evolve. All in all, it was a solidly funny show worth checking out.