Episode Report Card Sara M: B | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Racism With a Side of Spying
By Sara M | Season 3 | Episode 13 | Aired on 01.24.1999
Back at the roadside diner, the Hamiltons are still waiting for their food. Finally, RevHam demands to talk to the waiter. The waiter comes to the table and RevHam asks him why he's still waiting for his meal. The waiter simply responds that if RevHam doesn't like the service, he can go somewhere else. RevHam says he sure will next time, and the only reason he came here in the first place was because he "won some two-for-one coupons at a raffle." RevCam and Matt sit there all, "Wait -- RevHam said he was treating us to lunch. Cheap bastard!" RevHam tells the waiter to go get his food, and bring the manager out with him. Waiter mutters that the manager isn't here, but he'll try to find him.
Mrs. Poole and some ladies sneak upstairs and try to break into Mary's room, but Mary, having anticipated their arrival, is already there waiting for them. Poole tries to cover by saying that they were just looking for the bathroom. All of them. Even though there's supposedly one downstairs. Mary points them towards it and closes the door. Poole and company walk into the bathroom and start searching it, only to find Ruthie and her Hamilton counterpart behind a shower curtain. The women beat a hasty retreat, which means the Hamilton child and Ruthie can talk about the new babies. Hamilton tells Ruthie that she is "so lucky" to have younger siblings to boss around. Ruthie says Hamilton can come over anytime and boss SamVid around, except that, by the time they're boss-around-able, the Hamiltons will have disappeared from the show, so never mind.
Lucy performs a shadow puppet play. I have to believe that her play has better production values, a tighter narrative, and more appealing characters than this show's eighth season.
In Simon and Ruthie's weird joint-room, Nigel and Simon talk about the babies while trying to fend off the church ladies, who keep rattling on the doorknobs, like, chill out, church ladies. You've gone from "nosy" to "scary" at a faster rate than even RevCam could aspire to achieve. Nigel talks about when his little sister, Lynn (I guess I'll have to stop calling her "Hamilton child," now that she's been assigned a real name), came home and he knew life would be different. Simon says that it was like that with Ruthie too, and she was always following him around and bothering him. Nigel says that Lynn used to do that, too, and he misses it. That's probably because Lynn isn't evil like Ruthie.
The church ladies are escorted downstairs by Mary and Gabrielle Union. Then, of course, Mary and Gabrielle talk about the new babies. Mary tells us about how unpredictable babies are, citing as her example the time Ruthie pulled out a patch of Simon's hair. So, early on, the Camdens knew Ruthie was a total sociopath, and yet they still allowed her to walk among us. Why? Whyyyyyyyyy?!?! Anyway, Mary says that growing up in a big family has made her want a big family of her own. Gabrielle disagrees, saying that she's only having one kid, so it better be a good one. But what's she going to do if she has twins? Can you abort one baby and not the other? Or what if her one baby is a stone baby? I think Gabrielle needs to be a little more flexible about this, is all I'm saying.