Episode Report Card Cate: D | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT How do you solve a problem like Mary?
By Cate | Season 5 | Episode 7 | Aired on 11.12.2000
RevCam asks Annie if she's noticed anything missing from the house recently. She's appalled at his implication and calls him "creepy." Word, Annie. The CamRents come up with the brilliant suggestion of calling Hank and Julie. Annie and Julie make incredibly dull small talk for a bit, and then Annie comes right out and asks if the hated couple lent Mary any money. When Julie replies in the negative, Annie rudely hangs up on her. You know, the shout-out thing was cool at first, but it's getting a little tedious now. I got it the first time. Please don't call her back, please don't call her back, please? Damn, she calls Julie back. She asks if anything has gone missing from Hank and Julie's house. No, only any modicum of respect I may have had for Ed Begley. Ho-ho, I kill me! Anyway, Annie hangs up on her again. The fates are kind, however, and Hank and Julie's "special guest star" appearance ends. Unfortunately, Eric and Annie's conversation continues. And let me reassure you that it's still about Mary and her money, just in case you thought they may have changed the subject or something. They discuss and veto The Amazing Robbie as a possible source of the money, and Eric again accuses his children -- or as he so oddly calls them, his "coconuts." Shudder! Isn't that slang for testicles? He pegs Ruthie's confession as a smokescreen.
Ruthie and Simon have been listening in from the stairs. They run upstairs to the twins' room, where Lucy is holding the twins' piggybanks at the level of her chest. Held there, the piggybanks look disconcertingly like some sort of bizarro science fiction-inspired fake breasts. Evidently one of the twins is fooled too, because he reaches for her "piggybank" (wink, wink). Oops, sorry, I almost forgot about the stupid dialogue in this scene. Ruthie tells Lucy that the CamRents are onto their deception. She also informs her that tomorrow is the day when Ma Camden will be putting more money into Lucy's fake breasts -- I mean, the twins' piggybanks. Ruthie says this all urgently, is if it's information that she just found out, even though I don't recall the CamRents discussing the twin's money in the kitchen before. Maybe the writers are hoping we won't notice. Maybe they tried to insert that information into the CamRents' conversation but couldn't come up with any way to make it fit. I know that usually they take the clunky, non sequitur approach to forwarding the plot, but perhaps, in a brief fit of restraint, they decided that would stretch credulity too much. I should probably offer the writers some positive reinforcement here. Rah, rah, sis boom bah, go writers!