Episode Report Card Niki: D | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Daddy's Girl
By Niki | Season 1 | Episode 16 | Aired on 02.13.2000
Just as the Mannings are sitting down to eat, a commercial comes on the radio; it's for the restaurant's re-opening. Lily is shocked and wants to know where Jake got the money for radio air time. She's the only pooper at this party, though, as Zoe excitedly announces that her father is famous and Grace and Dad high-five in Jake's honor. For some reason, Grace announces that she's not hungry. Please tell me they're not going to give her an eating disorder. I say that only because they made such a point of showing her checking herself out before dinner, and I suspect it may have been a set-up for later episodes. But I digress. Zoe says that she's not hungry either. Lily snaps so hard I'm surprised you can't hear it. She grabs their plates and dumps the food down the disposal while everyone watches her in stunned silence.
Cut to Lily and her dad walking outside the grocery store. Did he spring for the groceries? She asks about life in Florida and he talks about how much he loves it, saying he doesn't miss the restaurant but he's glad that it's there for her: "This is your bread-and-butter, honey." Not surprisingly, she looks bitter when she hears this and then blurts out that she's hired an attorney. He's really disappointed that "it's come to that" and Lily says she feels like she's committed a felony -- not because she hired a lawyer, but because she wrote a bad check to cover Grace's camp deposit. She's freaking out because she knows there's not enough money to cover it, and "people go to jail for that." Her dad wants to know why she didn't come to him for help. "Okay, I'm asking for help -- help!" she chokes, trying not to bawl. She says she feels like she's drowning, that she can't even afford to pay the attorney. Dad shines up the old armor and asks how much she needs, and then tells her to consider it done. She hugs him like he's a life preserver and promises she'll pay back every penny.
Cut to the restaurant kitchen, where Zoe is checking things out with Jake. She's oohing and ahhing when Grace joins them and adds her approval. Jake sends Zoe off to string some lights across the bar, and Grace takes the opportunity to ask him what's happening with him and Lily. "Oh, your mom's a little tense. We're strapped for cash, that's all," he says with a smile, and then he assures her that everything will work out after the opening. He goes on about how Grace doesn't see the big picture (like how everything they have is riding on the success of this restaurant, you mean? like if it fails they don't have anything to fall back on? yeah, she's pretty blind, all right). He mocks her for thinking that the restaurant will "just magically" do well without his putting any money into it. "You know how she gets about money," he says, belittling Lily's fear and anger over their tenuous financial situation. Hello, she doesn't even have money for food, thanks to your wonderful planning, jackass. I restrain myself, with great effort, from pitching the remote at his smug, fat head. Grace isn't exactly reassured: "But the opening will be a big success, right?" Jake flippantly replies that they can't expect to make money as soon as the place opens. Hey wait, hasn't he been blowing Lily off until after the opening, implying that he'll immediately have money for her then? And Grace raises a good point: "But you're spending all this money..." So Jake gives her another one of his financial lessons: The first rule of business is that you've got to spend money to make money. Okay, I understand that and it's true to a degree, but really, did he have to spend every penny they had on the place? I'm totally backing Lily on this one; it seems pretty irresponsible not to keep aside some "what if" money when you have two kids depending on you.