Flipping Out: Brad Sherwood Shows His Non-comedic Side...For The Worse

As intimated in the previous episode of Flipping Out, it became apparent that Jeff and Ryan's previously strong relationship is nearing the breaking point. Jeff, suspecting Ryan of shady business tactics, lying, and flat-out stealing business, is nearing his breaking point. The big surprise of the night, however, is not the confrontation that takes place at the end of the episode between Jeff and Ryan, but rather the sets of small confrontations throughout the episode between Jeff and one of his clients, Brad Sherwood.

Some of you may have seen Brad Sherwood before as a performer on the American version of Whose Line Is It Anyway? On the show, he showed a pretty good grasp at handling improv comedy, and I was often happy to see him as one of the performers.

On Tuesday's episode of Flipping Out, however, Brad Sherwood showed a very petty, unfunny side to his being that made me lose quite a bit of respect for him. Most of the arguments revolved around the gardeners that Jeff had hired to help the Sherwoods (both Brad and his wife) renovate the garden of their expensive Los Angeles home. The gardeners would often leave scraps of trash lying around in the yard, much to Brad's dismay.

Now, I can't defend the gardeners' actions, as they probably should have properly disposed of all their trash. Brad's tactic to solving the situation, however, was to spend hours going around the yard, picking up the trash, and then shoving it in Jeff's face. While Brad's anger at the sloppiness of the crew is understandable, it was a drastic (and downright catty) tactic to gather it all together to show Jeff, with a very smug "look how self-righteous I am, cleaning up all of the trash which I'm going to blame on you" look on his face.

What really struck me as over-the-line, however, was when Brad gave Jeff a "flower" he had picked from the garden. That's right, he made a makeshift flower out of the trash he picked from the garden a couple days after the initial confrontation. Apparently Brad's career isn't exactly demanding right now, for he appears to have a lot of free time if he's able to make "trash flowers" to try and prove a point.

I'm not exactly sure why all of this punishment is heaped upon Jeff, who was only the coordinator of the project, and not the workers themselves. After it becomes apparent that the Sherwoods are going to call Jeff every single time something happens (no matter how minor), he decides to "break up" with the Sherwoods and let them hire a supervisor who has more free time.

The behavior Brad exhibited throughout the ordeal is especially odd considering how upbeat and positive Brad always seemed on Whose Line Is It Anyway? The biggest positive that can be taken from this incident is that it's a glowing endorsement of Brad's acting abilities: Anybody who can be so funny on television and so petty and unfunny in real life certainly has some talent. Maybe next time Jeff will be a little more selective of his clients, especially if they invite him over for a pajama party and tacos (Episode 302). That should've been the first sign that something was a little bit wrong with the Sherwoods, and I'm pretty certain that Jeff will be a little more cautious in the future.