HBO just put out a promo for the much-anticipated third and final season of "Eastbound and Down," and what it lacks in Kenny Powers it makes up for in its winking reference to "Myrtle Beach drunk," which is the most drunk a person can be, according to Danny McBride's movie "The Foot Fist Way." (One Myrtle Beach blog has even lovingly dedicated a post to owning the phrase.) Or it might just be a reference to the fact that this season is based in Myrtle Beach, where Kenny finds himself playing minor league baseball:

"Eastbound" has been filming in Myrtle Beach over the summer, a fact that was covered by the local news as good publicity for the city ("National TV Show Shooting Scenes in Myrtle Beach"). The local Pelicans baseball team's general manager says: "This gives Myrtle Beach a platform unlike any other platform." I guess you could say that! Everyone in that report seems acutely aware of the fact that the extremely dirty "Eastbound and Down" isn't going to turn around Myrtle

And he looks so natural here! (Joe Corrigan/Getty Images)Last Sunday, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg made an appearance in the season finale of HBO's "Curb Your Enthusiasm," in which he used his authority to banish Larry David (Larry David) from the city. Compared to many of the non-professional actors "Curb" has used over the years (and even in this season: Bill Buckner?), I thought Bloomberg did okay. But Dan Amira didn't agree, including it today at New York magazine's Daily Intelligencer blog, in a slideshow of the Mayor's most awkward TV and movie cameos. [Daily Intelligencer]

The reason I didn't take to "Parenthood," after giving it a few episodes' trial run back in its first season, is right there in its title: I am not a parent. And while I liked the movie on which the series is based well enough (not so much the first short-lived attempt to bring it to the small screen), my recollection of the first few episodes of this new one were that they REALLY hammered on the point that there is no harder job than...well, see title. It's not that I'm saying there are harder jobs: There's a reason I don't have kids, and it is that I am lazy. It's that parents complaining about parenting is boring. "I didn't tell you to have children!" I wanted to scream at all the characters on this show. (Exception noted: The kid characters. I didn't yell at them.) But it's critically acclaimed and everything, so when it returned last night for its third season, I gave it another shot. And what do you know, the parent characters have stopped yammering on about their UNPARALLELED SACRIFICES and I found so much more to like about it!

1. Adam is out of work. In its first season, Adam (Peter Krause) was kind of a smug jerk: He condescended to his out-of-work sister Sarah (Lauren Graham), forced to move back in with their parents to save money, and he seemed to regard the Asperger's Syndrome diagnosis of his son Max (Max Burkholder) as a grievous personal imposition. But last season, Adam lost his job, and as we find him in Season 3, he has been humbled in ways that make him more compelling to watch.