Episode Report Card Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Bad Happens
By Sara M | Season 8 | Episode 11 | Aired on 01.04.2004
Richard Lewis offers Matt a piece of his muffin, but Matt says he isn't hungry. This sets Richard off on yet another long ramble about his muffin until Matt points out that eating a piece of muffin won't save his marriage. "It's my marriage -- if I can't fix it, no one can," says Matt. Hey, I can play that game, too! 2, 4, 6, 8, who do we appreciate? And here's my personal favorite cheer cliché: Florida oranges, Texas cactus, we play your team just for practice! Oh, the things you learn playing recreational soccer. Richard talks some more. And some more. And. Some. More. He takes fifteen minutes to tell us a story of a time early in his marriage when he and Conehead got in a fight and it lasted four minutes. Matt laughs as if this story were entertaining. I wonder if he would have laughed if Richard told him about that other time he was having problems with Conehead and then sexually assaulted Matt's mother.
Roxanne hands Kevin a message as he enters work. It's from his ex-wife, Mindy, who's in town and waiting to hear back about dinner tonight. Here's hoping that her "bad conversation" with Kevin involves him having herpes! ["Also…'Mindy'? For real, where do they get these names?" -- Sars] Kevin tells Roxanne to stay out of it, but she doesn't, since this is the only thing she has to do in this episode, so she's going to milk it for as much screen time as possible, goddammit! The two argue like little children over whether or not Kevin will tell Lucy that his ex is in town. Kevin says he will. Roxanne says he won't. Kevin says he will. Roxanne says he won't. Will. Won't. Will! Won't! Det. Michaels overhears the argument, but decides not to fire them for having a personal discussion at work. Instead, he offers Kevin some advice -- "just say no" to dinner with the ex and leave it at that. Right, since Det. Michaels is the marriage expert, having a failed one of his own.
Roxanne leaves, and Kevin calls Mindy. She's walking along the Promenade, because that's where everyone goes at any and all times of day. She answers her cell and says she's really excited about meeting Lucy and what time will they be picking her up? She invites two people to dinner and then forces them to drive her to it? How rude is that? Also, Mindy is rocking the sweatshirt zipped to just below the boobs style that this show loves and that I hate. Kevin lies that he has a big case and doesn't think he'll be able to make it to dinner. Mindy says that's a bummer, but maybe she can have dinner with just Lucy. Why? Why would she want to, unless it's to warn her that Kevin has herpes? And in a close-up shot of Mindy, by the way, we see that she's about forty-five years old, and when she speaks, she moves her jaw like platinum rapper Fifty Cent, which is to say, not very much. Wait a minute -- is Mindy played by Kaia? She's still more attractive than Lucy. Kevin is an idiot. He tells Mindy he'll call her back. "Great!" Mindy says, then hangs up on him. I thought hanging up on people was just a Camden thing. Don't tell me Brenda's being inconsistent again!
Back at the CamPound, Annie is cleaning up breakfast. She tosses a box of what looks like baking soda into SamVid's food cabinet, where she notices the brown paper bag. She takes it out, looks inside it, and then, after way too much time elapses, figures out that it's her broken cookie jar. She walks over to SamVid and asks them if they have anything to tell her. They say no.