RAISING HOPE: Prodigy Recap

The second season of Raising Hope premiered last night, bringing back with it its beloved—or shall we say crazy—characters, and the outrageous scenarios that the Chance family always seem to fall into.

The show begins with a light-heartedly adorable song about Hope, performed by everyone’s favorite day-care provider–for babies, old people and pets–Shelly.

In the season opener Jimmy discovers a video of him playing the piano and singing when he was thirteen years old. Obviously, Jimmy was a musical child genius! Duhhh. Anyone could’ve guess that…?

Jimmy was taught how to play by Maw Maw, who used an abusive sock puppet so that she could yell at him without feeling bad. Obviously not the sanest of moves but certainly characteristic of everyone’s favorite grandma.

Jimmy’s thirteen year old self is portrayed by Greyson Chance, the real-life child prodigy who became well known via YouTube. And I must admit, he is extremely adorable. Justin Beiber fans should be on the look out for this budding star.

Despite his natural talent, Jimmy doesn’t remember any of his musical glory days. Not only that, but he can no longer play or sing at all. Virginia explains that Jimmy got hit on the head with a mini-golf putter and was knocked out. When he returned to consciousness, he remembered nothing. She feels responsible for the incident because she had been showing him off at the mini-golf course and was making him sing to the other people in line. However, we later find out that it was Burt who had thrown the putter! Burt was so upset that Jimmy was getting all the attention that he threw it in frustration, accidentally hitting Jimmy from a distance, and he’s carried around the burden of guilt over the incident ever since.

Jimmy, distraught over his lost abilities, decides to get drunk with his parents (if only getting drunk with Mom and Dad could be the solution for everyone’s problems). However, while intoxicated he starts to sing, and to the amazement of Virginia and Burt, he is a brilliant performer again! Virginia, in her never-ending quest to find something to brag about, enters Jimmy in the local musical recital. Yet, right before the show they realize that his skills are lost again. With their deductive reasoning skills, in true Chance fashion, they decide Jimmy must only be able to sing when drunk.

When they arrive at the recital, Jimmy and Burt are inappropriately drunk for such an outing, but obviously that wouldn’t stop this pair. Jimmy gets on stage to play and he’s horrible! Virginia can’t understand it but Burt appears to think he’s brilliant again. Oops, looks like Jimmy wasn’t good the night before, they were just all too drunk to realize it. What a bummer, especially for Jimmy who hoped to use his talents to win Sabrina’s heart (Sabrina was pining for thirteen year old Jimmy when he showed her the video).

Even though Jimmy is no longer a star, there’s still hope…for Hope that is! It appears the little darling might have inherited some of Jimmy’s talents. Here’s hoping!