Episode Report Card Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Mark says, "Psych!"
By Gwen | Season 4 | Episode 4 | Aired on 11.12.2000
Louie Anderson conducts a group-therapy session with Mark, Cindy, and several other couples. He babbles about mental and emotional disparities as the camera pans to show us an old woman with a young man; a fat woman with a midget; a large woman with a short man; and a woman with Siamese twin males who are joined at the foreheads. Then the scary music plays, and we see Cindy hailing a taxi. "I am not a freak. What the hell was that? A blob, a midget, a man with two heads?" she says. Mark finishes, "A woman with a penis." Cindy says that if Mark thinks of her as a freak, they should break up. I guess this is the part where we're supposed to stop sympathizing with Cindy because she's so prejudiced. Except that she's acting just like all the other characters on the show. So maybe we're supposed to sympathize with her more...? I'm so confused. Let's just move on.
Ally and Larry show up at Fish & Cage. Elaine shakes Larry's hand and then sniffs her fingers. Larry instructs Ally to stay quiet during the deposition. Nelle asks who Larry is. "I don't know -- some guy who has yet to drool all over me?" Ling answers. Larry tricks Kimmy with his questioning. He asks if her colleagues think of her as a chaste person, and if they could be wrong about that. Kim vehemently states, on tape, that there's no way the other women would ever have believed the slanderous remarks Ally made. Larry thanks her and gets up to leave. Kimmy's lawyer is chagrinned because Kimmy just ruined the case with her big mouth. Larry is too clever to date Ally.
Vonda and the Vondettes sing a song about change while Ally tells Jonathan all about how groovy Larry was in the conference room. Then Larry comes into the bar with Nelle, who is way overdressed. Ally runs off to make a scene, and Elaine takes the opportunity to make eyes at Jonathan. Ally claims she needs to talk to Larry about their settlement conference. She takes him aside and tells him that it's inappropriate to date Nelle when he's married. Larry informs her that he's divorced. She does her stupid giggle and he mocks her facial expression hilariously. Nelle walks up to reclaim Larry. Elaine has cocktail-garnish sex with Jonathan, sucking on her maraschino cherry in front of him until Ally chases her away.
Mark and Richard are having another heart-to-heart. Richard is saying, "Women should be obscene and not heard. Fishism. And Cindy is obscene..." when Cindy walks through the door. He makes a frightened noise and then tells her, "I was just trying to represent the homophobic viewpoint, 'cause I know it's out there." He leaves. Cindy asks Mark if he thinks of her as a freak. He says he thinks of her as aberrant. She reminds him that the other night he thought of her as a woman he wanted to continue seeing. Mark just busts out with, "I could never be sexual with you, Cindy." He admits that he may be influenced by others' opinions. She says they should be adult about it and admit that it's not going to work. They say goodbye. Cindy opens the door, and eavesdropping Richard falls through it. She says she wants to thank him for everything he's done, and she does so by grabbing his head and giving him a long kiss on the mouth. There's a weird growling sound effect as this goes on. Then Richard runs through the lobby with the noise of a pig squealing. I guess it was supposed to be funny that Cindy took advantage of his homophobia. Maybe I just have a lame sense of humor and that's why I didn't even smile.