Having now expanded and folded in on itself, "Too Many Cooks" takes its concept to the next level: it expands into other genres. In its fourth iteration, it's suddenly now a cop show, with a mismatched cop-buddy team, both named Cook, cleaning up the mean streets of the city. The theme song shifts tone lyrically but not tonally, it still burbles happily along as it expands to include the antics of protecting the city. We see the lady cop take down a stereotypical TV mugger, and he gets his own grinning freeze-frame, reminding us that, even though the context has changed, the rules of the show have not: a character, even a criminal, should still be happy to see the viewer catch him at his most embarrassing moment. (IMDb identifies the criminal as "D.C. 'Fingers' Cook," indicating that the lady cap has actually just arrested a member of her own family. The Cook family, it seems, is large enough to include both lawmen and rule-breakers, and they police their own.) [...]
This is Bill's apotheosis, his goal from the beginning: to wipe out the Cooks and take over their show. Like John Doe in Seven, Bill envies the middle-class drudgery of the Cook family, envies and despises it, and, as the tenth iteration winds to a close, we see him literally feasting on the characters' bodies, drenched in blood.
This analysis of "Too Many Cooks" is much more entertaining than the video itself.
3 Responses:
oh god that was so good, thank you for posting that.
That actually makes the video entertaining, rather than just tiresomely long. Thanks!
Todd Alcott is great.