Episode Report Card Sara M: F | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Big Big Shop of Horrors
By Sara M | Season 9 | Episode 12 | Aired on 01.23.2005
Frank makes another visit to the elevator and tells Matt and Lucy that the ambulance should be there soon. Matt writes down a few phone numbers he wants Frank to call for them. When Lucy demands that Kevin be on that list, Frank takes a minute to ask Matt if he actually is Lucy's brother. Lucy further delays things by saying that she actually is married, because preserving her moral purity is more important than to her than the baby she's about to deliver. Frank rushes off.
Lucy asks Matt how, exactly, he's supposed to get her into an ambulance and to the hospital if he can't even get her out of the elevator. Matt says he thought about this. Apparently not enough, or else he would have asked Frank to hand them a ladder that a department store with a cafeteria and a sporting goods section is bound to carry, and then they both could have easily climbed out of the elevator. Lucy ends the scene in her now-usual fashion, squeezing Matt's hand hard as she experiences another contraction. Wimpy Matt winces in pain.
The baby shower guests are still helping themselves to the free food. They surround Aunt Julie and ask her if there's anything wrong, with the usual non-acting ability this show's guest and regular cast displays. Julie says that everyone is off dealing with something Kevin bought for Lucy, but she doesn't know what the present is. "I bet I know," says some random twelve-year-old girl, whose presence in this scene I can only explain by guessing that she must have been the author of this episode; "it's a house, isn't it?" I don't know why Ruthie, who is sitting right next to the girl and obviously listening to the conversation, can't just tell everyone what it is. Oh, wait -- that's not Ruthie after all! It's the only other African-American girl in town. The three adult guests cluck in surprise at Kevin's purchase. Aunt Julie says she doesn't think Kevin would buy Lucy a house as a surprise. "I think he would. He's handsome," says the girl, who I'm just going to call Brenda, Jr. Julie demands to know what someone's good looks have to do with buying a nice house. It's important for her to know this because she is, after all, married to Ed Begley, Jr., whose looks could maybe get them a toolshed if that is the basis. "Nothing," responds the girl, "I was just saying." That's great.
Suddenly, Aunt Julie's cell phone, in which have occurred the twin miracles of not being out of batteries and being able to receive signals, rings. She leaves the room to take the call, putting this scene in the completely incapable hands of its five guest stars. "I wonder whose house he could've bought," an elderly woman I'm going to call Aunt Millicent says. The lady who looks like The View's Joy Behar makes a "hmmm!" face.