Episode Report Card Jacob Clifton: A+ | 20 USERS: B YOU GRADE IT Dig Your Own Hole
By Jacob Clifton | Season 1 | Episode 4 | Aired on 10.14.2013
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.The Sanderses spend the whole day doing an insane (yet uncomplicated, as usual) escape plan that mostly involves running around doing the same shit as always. Ellen pawns her wedding ring, because her husband is a cheater and a pumpkin eater and because their accounts are frozen, which blows their minds even though they are on their fourth episode of being in the middle of an omnipotent conspiracy and that is not a very surprising thing to have happen. Oh, and Tate gets some cash from his ho.
The kids spend the day selling weed, calling in bomb threats, and carving their microchips out by hand. The degree to which their competence and effectiveness dwarfs every adult's on the show is kind of mind-boggling, but not a problem. (Well, the annoying daughter is kind of a problem, but she's growing on me.) One thing with which they don't have to contend is squirmingly awkward interactions with daddy's jump-off Samantha, who gets real clingy about him to the point that later, Ellen has to explain to her that she knows about the affair, which makes everything Samantha does even ten times grosser than her already infinite grossness.
When Ellen acts sketchy in front of her assigned abductor, he threatens the whole plan by enforcing check-ins every fifteen minutes. Her response to this is, she gets in her Volvo and drives really fast in the opposite direction from the bus depot, because guess what: Her car is being driven by Tate, who is bravely sacrificing himself so the rest of the family can hie themselves to Montreal, which is a city in Canada that speaks french.
Agent Hoffman, the Secret Service guy that is up everybody's butt for no reason all the time, invites Duncan into a taskforce to figure out why that nurse killed herself. So now he is investigating his own group's fake-suicide fake-murder that probably didn't even actually happen, in addition to his other two full-time jobs of being a hostage negotiator and also a hostage taker. But none of this is as important as the Nina situation.
Wife Nina -- who was never in a coma, it turns out she has leukemia; it also turns out that she is great -- decides to stop doing chemo so she can have some fun in her life. But he needs her to stay on chemo so he can reach the endpoint of this whole situation, which is intended to earn him access to experimental treatments that have come to represent for him a magic bullet or handful of magic beans that are worth killing the President over. But now that three-quarters of the Sanders family are five minutes from getting on a bus to Montreal, it is within his grasp! It is Duncan's game to lose! So he skypes with Ellen so she can watch him shoot Tate Donovan in the abdomen, the end.
Next Week: Tate dies for a little bit but not permanently, and Duncan -- surprise! -- is really disappointed with Ellen but then barely does anything that bad to her, like usual. I mean, I gasped when he shot the husband, but that was purely for Tate and for the threat to my volatile quality of life, should Tate levels be reduced in coming weeks. But Brian Sanders? Eff it. She'd be better off without his cheating, embezzling ass. Right? Good thing he's married to a surgeon.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!PREVIOUSLY
Ellen Sanders cannot stop fucking with destiny by getting on Duncan Carlisle's nerves every opportunity she can, despite the fact that it always leads to her in tears, running around her house looking for the dead corpses of her family members because of whatever tantrum she decides to throw each week. After getting her best friend murdered (but only after manipulating her into ruining her own life) Ellen took the day off from being a hostage of a conspiracy so she could go visit Soy-Soy at kindergarten, like the total creeper that she is.
Duncan was having an off day due to getting burn noticed, but eventually saved himself with a combination of parkour and Bullet Time and then took hostage the man who took him hostage to force him to take Ellen hostage, so he could continue having her as a hostage without people trying to kill him and testing his parkour abilities. Duncan Carlisle doesn't have a lot of time, due to having so many full-time jobs in this economy -- such as hostage negotiator, hostage un-negotiator, absent parent -- so it's good that at least one thing is off his plate. Good thing he's got enough radness to spread around.
Duncan Carlisle is so rad that he wears a motorcycle helmet indoors. It has flames on it, thus providing both safety and style. The two raddest things. Duncan Carlisle is so rad mainly he just eats Slim Jims. Duncan Carlisle is so rad he is taking me on a zeppelin ride later in the zeppelin that he owns, it has a giant picture of him on the side of it. We are going to buzz the Jacob K. Javitz Center with it, and then get some frozen yogurt. All yogurt becomes frozen yogurt once Duncan Carlisle comes around, because that is how fucking cool he is. Duncan Carlisle likes his fro-yo with TABASCO SAUCE.
Oh, and Tater told his wife that he was cheating on her with the worst person in the world, which makes it easier to sacrifice him for the good of the family when they put his doomed escape plan into effect, which I'm guessing is how Ellen will piss off Duncan this week.
NEXT AM
Ellen puts on lipstick for, conservatively I would say, around eleven hours. Tater joins her in the bathroom; he is wearing a heather gray t-shirt and cute PJ pants, while Ellen is already dressed for work in a black sleeveless sheath dress. If you were wondering what they are dressed like in this bathroom right now, there's your answer.
Tate: "Are you ready for our big escape plan?"