‘The Mick’ simultaneously goes its darkest and sweetest yet

“The Mick’s” latest episode was easily its best since the pilot — and we say that as fans of the entire series so far — because it managed to be simultaneously laugh-out-loud funny, incredibly disturbing, and amazingly sweet.

The set-up here is that seven-year-old Ben (Jack Stanton) is busy doing things his imaginary friend Omicron (Kevin Will) tells him to do. When that includes stealing a pack of cigarettes from Mickey (Kaitlin Olson) and Sabrina (Sofia Black-D’Elia), who both smoke, the ladies of the house realize it’s time to quit and to lay down the law with Ben.

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What follows is more smoking on television than an episode of “Mad Men” — a show set when it was still socially acceptable to smoke, which means it was “OK” to show it on TV. But in modern TV shows, smoking is hardly ever shown on TV, let alone as a shared bonding experience between a guardian and her teenage ward.

But wait! There’s more!

In a sitcom confluence of events, Ben ends up covered in nicotine patches — and his “imaginary friend” is actually a real dude named Chester Omicron who lives in the woods behind the Pembertons’ house.

It’s easily the darkest the show has gone since the pilot, but it completely works because the laughs are plentiful — and the writers know juuuuust when to pull back from going too far.

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The sweetness comes in when it turns out Ben and Omicron have been taking care of each other. Omicron is dying of lung cancer and Ben has been bringing him things to help him, while Omicron has been providing Ben with some supervision and guidance in the wake of his parents going AWOL and his aunt not being the best caretaker. Omicron even takes the fall for Ben burning down the neighbor’s guest house (actually caused by Mickey and Sabrina) because that’s how much he loves the little boy — and he has nothing to lose. It’s quite the touching moment.

The show even manages to make sure no one thinks smoking is cool, as evidenced by Omicron’s phlegm-filled, hacking cough and use of an electrolarynx to speak (and smoke through the hole, ewwwww). Bravo, “The Mick.” This is more what we expected on a weekly basis after the pilot. Between the heroin clown (who wasn’t really on heroin) and the smoking squatter, this show has delivered two terrific episodes in a row.

“The Mick” airs Tuesdays at 8:30 p.m. ET/PT on FOX.

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