Episode Report Card Cate: B | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Family Secrets
By Cate | Season 1 | Episode 2 | Aired on 09.22.1996
Lucy is hanging with some girlfriends. I haven't seen enough early episodes to be able to tell if the extras playing her friends will ever show up again. One of the girls runs up to Lucy to let her know that Jimmy Moon is coming in their direction. The other rhapsodizes about how cute he is. Um, whatever. Lucy is crestfallen when Jimmy walks by without paying her any attention. As she is mooning after him (heh heh, geddit?), he turns around and smiles back at her, making her day.
Over in the CamKitchen, the Hell Spawn all troop in and attack the refrigerator. Annie comments that Happy is looking "chubby," which sends Simon into a frenzy of defensiveness and offers to help out. The rest of the kids leave, but SuperMom makes Dopey stay behind so she can inform him about not using the car for the next three weeks. She says she would feel better if she knew where he'd spent the night, but he still refuses to tell her anything. She tells him that they will continue this conversation with RevCam later, and as Dopey leaves, she calls out, "See ya, wouldn't want to be ya," in a way that makes me long to smack her.
Simon and Ruthie are playing in the back yard when Happy chews up another shoe. I'm not sure whose shoe it is, but if any of you actually cared about that detail, I'd be obliged to encourage you to pick up a constructive hobby or something. In fact, this whole scene is so irritating that we'll just move on entirely.
Annie answers the phone in the kitchen. It's Dopey's mystery woman, whose name turns out to be Renee. Annie invites her to dinner, and she accepts. Simon walks in, carrying the chewed-up shoe under his jacket. He's behaving in a suspicious manner, but Annie is too stupid to notice. Or maybe she's just too busy contemplating Dopey's romantic life again. In any case, that sailor top is really, really ugly.
Upstairs, Lucy is aghast that Mary is bold enough to call Jeff instead of waiting for him to call. Mary suggests Lucy call Jimmy Moon herself, since "it's better than waiting." I'm saddened to think that this coolness on Mary's part is probably a total aberration, and that eventually she must metamorphose into the asshole she was when I first started recapping this show in season four.
RevCam comes home and tells Annie about how a nurse offered to bring his shoes to the repair shop, but the shop was closed for the weekend and that's why he is now wearing surgical slippers. Honestly, are we supposed to care about this shit? Annie holds up Eric's wedding ring and asks if the nurse was pretty. In a way that it is not at all comical, but is very contrived, RevCam changes the subject to ask why there is an extra place set at the table. Totally coincidentally, Dopey walks in just then, so Annie tells him about inviting Renee to dinner. Dopey's upset, and I can't say I blame him. He says it just isn't a good time to invite Renee. Of course, that's Renee's cue to arrive. Simon leads her into the dining room just as Matt is saying that he has something to tell them about Renee. He doesn't get to finish his sentence, but what he was going to say becomes pretty obvious when we see that Renee is pregnant. While the CamRents clutch at each other in an ostensibly comic manner, Simon asks if Renee and Matt are going to have a baby. Renee informs them that Matt is not the father. Gee, now there's a huge surprise. Simon chooses this moment to mention that Happy is pregnant and has been eating RevCam's shoes. Eric looks heavenward in dismay. Excuse me, but why is a dog's pregnancy and shoe-chewing predilection being treated like it's as earth-shattering as the serious illness of Annie's mother? What's that? It's because the writing on this show is abysmal? You're right. It just slipped my mind for a moment.