Episode Report Card Couch Baron: A- | 343 USERS: A- YOU GRADE IT Do You Know How "Taps" Sounds on a Ukulele?
By Couch Baron | Season 3 | Episode 4 | Aired on 2009.09.06
Peggy and Anita walk Katherine into the living room, having her cover her eyes. Given the news Peggy's about to break, they should have taped up her ears as well. When they let Katherine look, she's delighted to see a new TV, which she pronounces "beauty-full." Heh. Anita, who's totally become BFFs with Peggy, who apparently paid for the TV, prompts Katherine to thank her, but the TV is obviously the cushion to the blow that's coming, as Peggy informs Katherine about her plan to move to Manhattan. Katherine takes it even worse than the daughters expected, snitting that family is cheap these days, and they should take the obvious bribe of the TV back, because it'll just remind her of how stupid Peggy thinks she is. Anita defends Peggy, prompting Katherine to up the guilt quotient by telling "both of yous" that someday they'll feel the broken heart she's carrying. (Hello, resistance to change and saying goodbye.) After a pause to smoke, she tells Peggy, "You'll get raped. You know that." Amazingly, Peggy isn't rendered speechless here, but the conversation doesn't improve, so the daughters leave the mother to sulk. Anita tries to say it didn't go that badly, which at first seems like spin, but indeed, as Peggy says goodnight, you can hear that Katherine has turned the TV on. Righteous anger doesn't stand a chance against that thing. If it did, I would have spent a lot more of my life outdoors. The program continues...
...without missing a beat into the next scene, which starts with Sally once again hiding under the dining room table. William and Judy have made it up already, and William toasts to "Eugene Hofstadt Number Two." Don doesn't get the reference, so Betty, who looks like hell, explains that there was another Eugene Hofstadt at his bank, hence the addition to his name. I think I would have preferred "The Second Eugene Hofstadt," for reasons both immature and obvious. Judy offers that he's with Ruth now, and Betty replies that she hopes so; she remembers him once asking what happens when he gets to heaven and has two wives. William makes a crack about Gloria that gets everyone to laugh momentarily, but that's all Sally needs to hear, and after Betty bites into an overripe peach that was apparently in Gene's car (not sure how that works with the timeline, but whatever), Sally comes in and berates them for laughing and for apparently being unaware that Gene is gone forever. William and Don at least try to mollify her somewhat, but Betty, without even looking at her, tells her she's being hysterical and sends her off to watch TV. Sally looks to her father for an alternative opinion, and Don looks conflicted, but defers to his wife (...again), and as Betty looks distraught, Sally leaves...