‘Bless This Mess’: Lennon Parham and David Koechner Are the Best New Supporting Couple on TV

Every fish out of water story needs a good foil, someone who almost effortlessly understands the weird world that’s causing our heroes to flounder. And boy, does ABC’s Bless This Mess have a good one. Though they only appear briefly in the comedy’s first episode, Lennon Parham and David Koechner‘s Kay and Beau are already two of the best new additions to network television.

What makes Kay and Beau, a longtime farming couple, so entertaining is how clueless the protagonists of this series are. Bless This Mess follows newly married musician Mike (Dax Shepard) and his therapist wife Rio (Lake Bell). With their strategically ruffled good looks and love of all things organic and covered in quinoa, they are aggressively urban hipsters. So when they decide to uproot their life to try their hand at farming in the middle of Nowheresville Nebraska, you know it’s going to be a disaster.

And for the most part Mike and Rio’s new life goes as poorly as you’d expect. Rio and Mike get into a non-fight fight over Mike’s inability to fix the roof (pronounced “ruff”) and whether or not Rio believes in her husband. It’s couple antics as usual, delivered wonderfully thanks to Shepard and Bell’s natural charms. However, it’s Parham and Koechner’s performances that lift Bless This Mess from just another cute sitcom into something that may have legs.

Parham’s Kay and Koechner’s Beau stand as everything Rio and Mike aren’t. They’re hardened farmers who know exactly how to fix the property that is causing this couple so much grief, and they want to buy it. It’s when these two try to convince Rio and Mike to sell their dream house that the show is at its funniest.

Parham is a master transforming a polite smile into something that seems physically excruciating for her character. Much like with her role as Selena’s long-time indecisive friend on Veep, you can feel just how stupid Kay thinks these city slickers are, just through a single eyebrow raise. Yet she never drops her fake good neighbor act! Predictably, Koechner’s approach is far more straightforward. Koechner’s Beau replaces his wife’s faux kindness with a smirking gruffness. He calls out Mike for never using a hammer before and does everything but roll his eyes at this couple’s cluelessness. Mike and Rio don’t belong in the country, and Beau wants them to know it.

Kay and Beau, with their misleading hospitality and sharp one-liners about their idiotic son Jacob (JT Neal) perfectly cut through Mike and Rio’s cavity-creating sweetness. They’re two jerks in flannel and cowboy hats. And they’re exactly what Bless This Mess needs.

Where to stream Bless This Mess