Episode Report Card Couch Baron: A+ | 572 USERS: A- YOU GRADE IT Much Nothing About Ado
By Couch Baron | Season 2 | Episode 6 | Aired on 2008.08.31
Duck pushes hot chocolate on his kids despite his son's lack of enthusiasm: "It's good when it's hot to drink something hot. If you'd continued with the Scouts you would have learned that." Mark does not point out that Duck's imbibatory education was perhaps carried a bit too far, but that's what his mother's for, I guess. He tells Patricia that she can use the phone but can't monopolize his secretary, and leaves them money for the food cart: "No scraps for Chauncy." I'd feel bad for the dog if I thought there was the slightest chance that the kids were going to listen. Mark, however, is pissed that he's being forced to burn his mouth on hot chocolate at the end of May, so he pipes up that he's got plenty of money -- a hundred and fifty bucks, to be exact. Patricia shushes him, but is then forced to admit that the money came from a "Mr. [Franklin] Reeve," who's apparently greasing the kids so there will be no resistance when he marries their mother. Duck chokes back some vomit as he says they all want the kids to be happy, "and whatever his intentions, it's very generous." Mark confesses that Reeve already asked her, and Duck sucks it up and says she has the right to start a new life, especially now that Mark is at boarding school and "she's lost her man of the house." Mark seems more like a Man of the West Village to me, but unless Sal's into the May/December thing I doubt it's going to be explored. Duck's equanimity is finally shattered, though, when Patricia tells him her mother's going to stick him with Chauncy, and Mark adds that they're supposed to say goodbye to him. Duck tells them that even though Chauncy was his, he's learned to live without him so they could have some consistency, but Patricia puts paid to any further discussion: "Frank's allergic." There's nothing for everyone to do but turn and stare at Chauncy, who untimely yet hilariously slobbers water all over at that moment. Duck, beaten, tells the kids that their mother will be back in half an hour, and leaves, possibly to drink something hot, like Irish coffee.