Episode Report Card Couch Baron: B | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Here's a Question For You
By Couch Baron | Season 1 | Episode 4 | Aired on 08.09.2007
Glen, in his PJs, and Betty are sitting on the couch watching TV, and then Betty excuses herself for a moment. In the bathroom, she checks out the contents of the drawers before sitting down to use the commode; however, she doesn't get far before the door handle turns. Betty snaps that she's in there, but that doesn't stop Glen from opening the door anyway. Unfortunately for him, he sees nothing, as Betty's flowing dress is so long that it covers not only her parts but the entire toilet as well. Betty awkwardly gets to her feet and sharply tells the "young man" that the room is occupied, and asks what's wrong with him. Honey, please. Betty slams the door.
Glen's back watching TV (The Real McCoys, as Helen mentioned earlier) when Betty stalks back in and turns it off, asking what he has to say for himself. He casts his eyes downward, so she grabs his arm and scolds him, but when he continues not to face her, her tone softens as she explains that the room is private, and that's all she's trying to say. She gets him to look at her and to apologize, and when she gives him a conciliatory pat on the shoulder, he ups it to a full embrace. It's clear that the kid is heartbreakingly, desperately lonely, so it's not really creepy when he tells her that she's pretty -- really pretty. Betty accepts the compliment gracefully. However, when Glen asks how old she is, she pauses for a second before telling him that she's the same age as his mom. She seem to realize this probably isn't quite the case, though, as she asks how old Helen is, and upon hearing she's thirty-two, tells Glen that she's twenty-eight. Man alive, that means she got married when she was twenty or twenty-one. Not that I don't know people who have done that very happily, but for that to be the societal norm is a little unsettling. Glen compliments her hair and says she looks like a princess, and then asks if he could have some of her tresses. Betty's resistant at first, but Glen keeps at her, and this is where we see how childlike Betty is in her own way as she cuts a bit of her hair off and gives it to him before sending him off to bed. Well, it was either that or talk to him about why he wanted it, and it's not like she signed up for this gig, right?
In some bar, Pete is doing just what his father thinks no white man should do -- bringing drinks and girls over to meet Ken and Walter, the Bethlehem client. He introduces the two women as Charlotte and Wendy, his two "cousins." Before I even get a chance to wonder how this escapade will be recounted in the family Christmas update, we get a bit of aside talk between Walter and Pete that implies that these are Pete's kin in the same way that Eliot Spitzer transported his cousin across state lines. Pete orders champagne and more cocktails for the group, and then pitches an idea to Walter about calling Bethlehem "the backbone of America." That's actually not bad for a wining, whoring toady. Walter, however, is more interested in the blonde's backbone than in talking shop. No, seriously, that's just about exactly what he says. Pete looks bummed.