Thankful for the return of a TV tradition

'A Man on the Inside' creator Mike Schur orchestrates a moving holiday episode.

- ESTHER ZUCKERMAN

LILAH Richcreek Estrada, left, and Mary Elizabeth Ellis connect in Season 2.

Mike Schur bemoans the loss of holiday episodes on television.

“The new world of TV shows not following a September to late May schedule means that we don’t get Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Valentine’s Day, sometimes St. Patrick’s Day,” the creator says. “I really miss that. It’s such a staple of my youth and also most of the shows I worked on pre-2015 or whatever.”

MARY ELIZABETH ELLIS, from left, Eugene Cordero and Constance Marie gather in a Thanksgiving episode of "A Man on the Inside."

So for the second season of his Netflix comedy “A Man on the Inside,” now streaming, Schur, best known for “Parks and Recreation” and “The Good Place,” orchestrated a madcap Thanksgiving episode that eventually becomes a moving meditation on how women connect to their mothers.

In the half-hour fifth episode, titled “Thanksgiving Break,” the show's budding, elderly private investigator Charles Nieuwendyk (Ted Danson) hosts the traditional dinner at his home with his new girlfriend Mona (Mary Steenburgen, Danson's real-life wife).

Charles' adult daughter, Emily (Mary Elizabeth Ellis) has spent hours fretting over whether she should bake a pecan pie her late mother used to make, worried that if she does so, it will make her father even sadder about the loss, especially at a time when he's building a new relationship. Meanwhile, Mona invites Charles' boss, (Lilah Richcreek Julie Estrada), who is celebrating with her mother, Vanessa (Constance Marie), a former con artist who went to jail when Julie was a young girl, leading to their strained relationship.