It's morning at the CamPound. Ruthie and Lucy are sleeping while Kevin "T-1000" hangs out in their closet. Is he looking for Simon or engaging in unspeakable acts with Lucy's dirty laundry? Neither, as it happens. He tiptoes daintily over to Lucy's bed and lays down a large gift-wrapped package and a big-ass bouquet of roses. She doesn't wake up. Kevin stands there staring at her for a moment, wearing his usual goofy smile. He nods smugly, as if to say, "This ought to make up for my months of abusiveness," then tiptoes back out. The sad part is, Lucy is so dumb that she probably can be bought off with a dozen roses and a gift.
The camera closes in on her face, as she smiles and raises what's left of her eyebrows. Her eyes are still closed, though, so there's no way she could know that Kevin just brought her a gift. Good God -- I hope that doesn't mean there's a dream sequence coming up. Yep. Unfortunately, there is. Even in her dreams, Lucy's outfits are ugly. In this one, she's sporting some sort of beige cardigan with shiny appliqued...crap on it. She and Kevin are having a romantic dinner, complete with half-glasses of sparkling wine. It looks like this dinner is taking place in the backyard of the CamPound, possibly to the trash cans. When Lucy and Kevin are done making out, they stare stupidly into each other's eyes for a while, until Roxanne comes out. Even in her fugly asymmetrical dress, Roxanne still looks way better than Lucy, especially when Lucy whines, "What are you doing here?" Roxanne puts her hand on Kevin's shoulder and tells Lucy that she's no longer in love with Chandler. She loves Kevin, and she must "have him." What's especially funny is that she's shaking her head throughout this speech, as if part of her can't believe that such ridiculous drivel is coming out of her mouth. In love with Kevin! Who ever heard anything so moronic? Kevin gets up to leave with Roxanne, but not before telling Lucy, "I'm sorry, but I think Roxanne's feelings are bigger and better than the two of us. I'm afraid this is goodbye." They leave, arm in arm. Lucy even gets stuck with the check for dinner, a fact which gives me more pleasure than it really should.
As Lucy wakes up shrieking, she sees the whole stupid fucking Camden clan standing at the foot of her bed, watching her sleep. Can't they at least make a token effort to hide their stalking? They all shriek back at her, with varying degrees of realism. The fact that Stephen Collins waits about two seconds after everyone else is done yelling and then looks bitter and sarcastic as he screams makes me think he feels the same way about this scene as I do. The twins wailing, in unison, "Happy Valentine's Day" does not help matters any. The weirdest part is that Lucy doesn't even look freaked out that all these losers have been watching her sleep. If there's a world where that's normal, I don't want to know about it. It turns out everyone is waiting to watch her open her gift from Kevin. You know, if I ever reach the point where I find myself hanging around my sister's bed, waiting for her to wake up so I can watch her open a gift from her significant other, I'll know that my life has no worth anymore and that it's probably okay to do all the really dangerous things I've always been too scared to do -- like try some heroin. Nice going, Brenda. Way to promote intravenous drug use.
To everyone's unseemly delight, Lucy reads aloud the card attached to Kevin's gift. He writes, "Looking forward to our first Valentine's Day together. I'm sending a car to pick you up at seven o'clock. All my love, Kevin." Claiming that her dream was a "bad omen," Lucy says she won't be showing up for her date. Everyone looks exceedingly disappointed, which just makes me want to smash something.
This week's Opening Credits Timewaster is particularly wasteful of our time. Annie and Eric are staring longingly into each other's eyes while they feed stuff to each other -- strawberries, I believe. I regret to inform you that this episode was written by none other than Brenda Hampton. Lucy interrupts the romance by storming in and demanding to know why there's a car and driver waiting outside for the CamRents. Annie explains that they've been invited to a party. Right -- that's likely. RevCam adds that he ordered the car. He says, "It's a valentine treat for my sweet." Lucy is surprised that there's not going to be a birthday party for the twins, but as Annie rightfully points out, "Nobody ever cares about having a birthday party with the boys." Annie adds that she and RevCam celebrated with them earlier. She does not indicate whether the celebration took place behind the couch. Annie says she'd assumed that Lucy would rather get ready for her date with Kevin than celebrate her brothers' birthday. Is there not even going to be a pretence of genuine family values anymore? I'm fine with that, but someone may want to let the WB's marketing department know. Lucy's announcement that she's not going out with Kevin is met with the kind of horror you'd expect if she'd just announced that she was planning to conduct a ritual human sacrifice in RevCam's church Sunday. Eric says, "You're not gonna stand Kevin up on Valentine's Day," as if Valentine's Day were some totally sacred holiday. He basically orders her to get dressed and go out with Kevin, which is pretty weird, actually. Lucy reminds him that she and Kevin have an "agreement" that he won't ask her to marry him tonight. I must have missed the episode where she decided she wouldn't go out on any dates unless marriage proposals were included. That must limit her dating prospects somewhat. Annie sounds really judgmental and accusatory when she says, "Kevin told us that was your idea." Lucy sadly replies, "I didn't want to expect a proposal and not get one." Am I supposed to feel sorry for her? Boo-hoo, cry me a fucking river. People have real problems, you know. After a little more encouragement, Lucy agrees to go out with Kevin.
, Lucy runs into Simon, who's walking around upstairs with a toothbrush sticking out of his mouth. If I actually saw someone doing that in real life, I'd probably tell him to be careful since, if he fell, that toothbrush might get jammed into his brain. Since this is Simon, I won't bother. He says he's feeling ill and won't be going out with Cecilia on Valentine's Day. Not going out on VD! Just awful. Even if he hadn't been feeling ill before, he probably is now, since he's listening to Lucy whine about how she's not engaged yet. She does add some heartfelt sympathy, though, for the fact that Simon won't be spending this holiest of holidays with his girlfriend. Simon tells us he will be talking to Asslee on the phone. They won't be having phone sex, of course, but they do plan to spend the time discussing what they love about each other. I sincerely doubt that that will take all night, as Simon seems to feel it will. Since Lucy's obviously fishing for sympathy, Simon gives it to her -- probably to make her go away.
Ruthie's watching the twins -- watching them jump on the bed, that is. If I actually saw kids jumping on the bed in real life, I'd probably tell them to stop because they could crack their heads open. But since these are the twins, I won't bother. Thing One wails something about how Ruthie made them birthday hats. What a crappy gift -- but not much worse than Lucy's gift, which is to make the twins spend the day with her at the zoo. She even lets them choose the day. Why not? It's not like she ever goes to school or has a job or anything. With the twins' birthday nicely glossed over, now it's back to the Lucy and Kevin bullshit. Ruthie wants to see the dress that Kevin bought Lucy. Naturally, she's already peeked in the box. Lucy pulls out the dress and acts surprised that it's her size. Of course it is! Determining her size must be a piece of cake for a cyborg. After all, doesn't Kevin have that computer readout stuff going on in front of his "eyes"? I don't know whether to be impressed that the T-1000 bought Lucy an expensive dress she really wanted, or creeped out because he's telling her what to wear on their date. I will feel sorry for him, though, if he's going to have to listen to Lucy whine all evening about not being engaged. Maybe she'll get it all out of her system now, but I doubt it. And speaking of whining, she's doing it again. I guess the person I really should be feeling sorry for is myself. Or Peter, since Ruthie's planning to bring the twins over to his house to celebrate VD.
As Ruthie's walking downstairs with the twins, they see Simon talking on the phone. He says, "I'm thinking we should have the all-clear by 7:15." What could he mean? The suspense is not exactly killing me.
As the CamRents open the door to their super-swanky hotel room, Annie gasps in amazement. She tells Eric there's "a hospital nearby with a really, really good cardiac unit," which is just her stupid, G-rated way of saying she's planning to sex him up, I guess. Okay, gross. Annie sees a vase filled with yellow roses. She opens the card and reads, "Dinner will be sent to the room, in gratitude for all the dinners you've cooked for me. Love, Kevin." That's nice, I guess, but wouldn't she rather have some money for all those dinners Kevin's mooched off her? You know, especially now that it looks like Eric's gonna be out of a job soon. No, it looks like Annie can be bought off with a bunch of flowers. I guess that's where Lucy gets it from. The CamRents start in with the closed-mouthed making out. I don't think there's much danger of anyone needing a trip to the cardiac ward. The only danger I see is that someone could die of boredom. And that someone could just be me.
Lucy is putting on a whole tube's worth of lip gloss while staring at herself in a makeup mirror. Then she starts to cry, which always makes me happy. What's worse, she starts talking to herself in the mirror. I'll bet you can't guess what she's talking about. Oh, you can. That's right -- Lucy only ever talks about one thing these days. Now she's lamenting the fact that she asked Kevin not to propose tonight, because the fact of the matter is that's she's really dying to get engaged on Valentine's Day. Try as I might, it's totally impossible for me to dredge up even an ounce of sympathy for this stupid twit and her non-problems.
The doorbell rings, and Lucy answers the door to find Max, who will be her driver for the evening. Poor guy.
After Lucy leaves, Simon goes to the kitchen and gets a corsage from the refrigerator. Oh, barf. I guess this means we'll be subjected to Asslee after all. Sure enough, there she is now, walking into the kitchen with Ruthie, Peter, and the twins. Everyone's dressed to go out. And what a romantic evening it promises to be, what with the twins along and all. Peter is distraught because he didn't get Ruthie a corsage. She won't go corsage-less, though, since the twins made her one. It looks halfway normal too -- for a corsage, anyway. Personally, I'd feel like a dork wearing one anywhere but to a wedding or a prom, but maybe things are different in magical Glenoak.
Chandler is delivering a marriage proposal to his mirror while he puts on a tie. It's not particularly romantic, and it takes him about three or four decades to get all the words out. Oh, I guess he's actually practicing a proposal for Roxanne. Well, it's about time, I say. They have been dating for about a month now. And here's Roxanne, knocking at the door. It looks like she overheard RevBong proposing to his mirror, but she doesn't say anything about it. She just wants to know where he's taking her for dinner. When he says he's bringing her to a restaurant at a hotel, Roxanne gets this horndog look on her face as she fixates on the word "hotel." It's a little hard for me to suspend my disbelief enough to buy that Chandler could make anyone that passionate.
At the CamPound, Ben walks through the front door with Bo Derek. She looks far too young to be his mother, but that's the role she's playing, unfortunately. You know, she really should just stick to acting in bad made-for-TV movies. It would be so much more dignified. Ma Kinkirk says she knows she'll love Lucy. I wouldn't be so sure about that. We learn that Ma Kinkirk is engaged, but hasn't told Kevin yet. Number of viewers who give a shit about that: zero. Ben insults Happy for being a bad guard dog. Hey, leave the dog alone, you hateful doofus! Maybe Geoff Stults is just jealous of her acting skills.
Lucy is alone with Max in the car, and she's trying to find out where he's taking her. He won't tell, since it's supposed to be a surprise. Lucy says, "Great. I hate surprises." And I'm sure they hate you too. God knows most of the viewers do.
By the time the commercial break is over, Lucy has moved up to the front seat of the car, and she's boring the hell out of Max. After describing her nightmare for him in excruciating detail, she starts bitching about how Roxanne is a "sex kitten" and how Kevin should have proposed to her on Christmas Eve. Boy, that scrunched-up face she makes to show that she's angry sure is unappealing. Max politely refrains from mentioning that spending the evening with Lucy is turning his life into a living nightmare. He even good-naturedly listens to her whining, even when he has to keep driving aimlessly for a while to allow Kevin time to get to his destination. This man is a saint.
RevBong has stopped at a gas station to fill up the tank of the BMW he bought while he was busy scrimping and saving his way through school. While they're waiting, Chandler and Roxanne have a stultifyingly dull conversation about how Chandler doesn't want his hands to smell like gasoline during dinner. They move on to Roxanne propositioning him for sex, which he turns down. She takes it surprisingly well, and tries again. She even manages to turn a conversation about her stab wound into a discussion of why she and Chandler should have sex. She's still not getting any, though.
When Max finally pulls up in front of the hotel, Lucy stares at it in awe. "Pretty swanky," she says. I love the word "swanky," but I didn't realize that there are people who actually use it in a non-mocking fashion. I suppose it's a step up from "classy." Max leads Lucy inside, and when she goes to the ladies' room, he calls up Kevin (I assume) to share the news of Lucy's visit to the ladies' room. Max seems happy. I can only presume it's because his Lucy ordeal is almost over.
Bad television shows are often filled with unlikely coincidences, and this one is no exception. There are Roxanne and RevBong walking into the hotel now. And sure enough, Roxanne is about to join Lucy in the ladies' room. The two spy each other in the mirror and scream. It's about as entertaining as it sounds. When Max enters the ladies' room to see if everything's okay, Lucy tells him that this woman is the "sex kitten" she was talking about earlier. Max points out that what Lucy is talking about was a dream, "just a stupid dream." Nevertheless, Lucy chooses to accuse Roxanne of trying to steal the T-1000 from her. Sometimes I have to wonder what Beverley Mitchell ever did to Brenda Hampton to warrant receiving such dreadful storylines and dialogue. Roxanne tells Lucy that she's expecting Chandler to propose tonight, and threatens Lucy with a lack of forgiveness if she should do anything to ruin the proposal. Ooh! That must have her quaking in her boots.
As he's bringing her to Kevin, Max is forced to endure yet another tirade from Lucy about how tragic it is that Roxanne will get married before she does. I'm jealous. At least his exposure to Lucy is almost over. I'll bet he feels like I will when I get close to the end of this recap. Max stops outside the door of a party room. From inside, we hear someone singing a song which the closed captioning assures me is called "Isn't It Romantic?" Lucy claims to recognize that it's being sung by "jazz legend Bobby Short," who, I am told by a reliable source, is "weird-looking and annoying." Oh, and a nincompoop like Lucy might recognize a jazz legend's voice when hell freezes over. Max doesn't say anything. He just opens the door for her and gives silent thanks to the Lord that she is someone else's problem now.
As Lucy walks down a curved stairway into the party room, Bobby Short lip-synchs in the background and Kevin gazes up at her. For once, he's not sporting his usual doofy smile; in fact, he's looking like he just caught a whiff of something extremely unpleasant. I'm tempted to say it's the script for this episode. Case in point: Kevin has invited all the available Camdens, plus Ben and his mother, along on this very special VD date. To answer Bobby Short's question, it really isn't very romantic at all. Especially not when the T-1000 gets down on his knee and opens up a jeweler's box to show off a huge diamond. He says, "Lucy Camden, will you marry me?" Lucy replies, "Yes, Kevin Kinkirk, I will marry you." What's with the full names? I don't see anyone else named Lucy or Kevin in the vicinity. Bobby starts warbling away again, and everyone starts to dance. Everyone except Ben, who's guzzling champagne like it's going out of style. Hey, don't be too hard on him. I know I want to drink myself into a stupor just because I'm watching this crap on TV. I can't imagine how awful it would be to have to witness it in person -- especially when Lucy keeps staring lovingly at her big rock. It's kind of funny when she mistakes Ma Kinkirk for Ben's date, though.
After the commercial break, Simon and Asslee are getting ready to bring the twins home, but Kevin stops them. He signals Bobby to play "Happy Birthday To You," as someone wheels out a giant cake in the shape of a pirate in a treasure chest. It's kind of a scary-looking pirate too. You can tell he's thinking, "Aye, bend over, matey, and I'll show you where I bury my treasure." I guess Kevin's creep-o-meter doesn't work quite as well as it might if he were, say, a human. Ma Kinkirk proves that she's just as lame as any Camden when she turns to her son and says, "So, Ben, in all of Glenoak, there's no one for you to share Valentine's Day with?" Jesus, Brenda, get a grip. As far as I can tell, the world doesn't grind to a halt if someone has to spend Valentine's Day without a date. But just in case, the twins have come up with a potential date for Ben anyway: Peter's mother. I hate this goddamn show.
Over dinner, Roxanne tells Chandler about her run-in with Lucy earlier. She's extremely curious as to why Lucy and the T-1000 are here. RevBong wisely asks, "Does it matter?" Roxanne seems to think it does, although her reasoning is a little convoluted. She says that she saw Chandler proposing to his mirror earlier and admits that if he proposes to her, she will say yes. However, she suspects that Kevin may be proposing to Lucy tonight, so she'd rather Chandler propose to her another night. And get this -- she's doing it all for Lucy's sake. Okay, if a good show like Friends couldn't make the whole "steal your thunder" bit into a good plotline, what chance does Brenda have? That has to be one of the most puerile concepts ever. What difference should it make to Lucy if someone else gets engaged on the same night she does? And if Chandler's already pretty much admitted he's going to propose to Roxanne, and she's told him she will accept, isn't the actual proposal going to be quite the anticlimax? I can't think about this anymore or my head will explode.
Back at the CamPound, Peter rushes off to call his mother. God, I hope they've given up on that ridiculous idea of setting her up with Ben. Apparently, no idea is too stupid for this show, though. Peter tells his mother that he and Ruthie have a VD gift for her: "It's Kevin's brother." I sure hope they're going to gussy him up a bit for the occasion -- you know, dress him in some edible underwear in honor of the holiday, or make him jump out of a pirate cake. Peter's mother hangs up on him. I hope it's because she's revolted by the idea rather than hurriedly rushing to the CamPound before some other single woman snatches up the prize.
Kevin tells Lucy that he's independently wealthy. What a magical, beautiful fairy tale this has turned into! He doesn't tell us how he got his money or admit that it's thoroughly unlikely that two Camdens would score themselves rich spouses. But just like in a fairy tale, you'll have to suspend your disbelief. After all, it's not like anything else in this episode has been very realistic. Lucy borrows Kevin's cell phone to call Matt and Mary, and Kevin says he will be right back. Bobby Short keeps singing his heart out, even though the only person left in the room is Lucy, and she's not even listening to him.
Kevin runs into Chandler and stops to chat. RevBong explains the incredibly foolish situation wherein he has to wait to ask Roxanne to marry him because Lucy might be getting engaged tonight. Instead of snickering over the stupidity, the T-1000 claims that Roxanne is "a nice woman." He manages to say it in a way that somehow implies that Lucy is not. Chandler manages to insult all women when he snidely says, "Female logic is fascinating." I wonder why Brenda hates women so much.
I guess Peter's mother, Paris, decided that her son's offer was too enticing to resist, so she's rushed over to meet Ben. Peter coyly advises him not to do "anything crazy," since Paris is his mom. How obvious can you get? Especially when Ruthie and Peter leave for the living room to give the potential couple privacy to fall in love and get engaged.
In the living room, Ruthie practically asks Peter to kiss her, but he won't. He says, "I'm not gonna kiss you and risk never seeing you again." I have no idea what that's supposed to mean, and quite frankly, I don't care. When Peter says, "I'll decide when we kiss," Ruthie is bowled over by his manly, take-charge attitude.
Ben has obviously just asked Paris to kiss him. What the fuck? How long have these people known each other? Has it even been a minute? Paris explains that she hasn't been dating since her divorce. She starts to explain some other boring stuff but then cuts herself off and kisses Ben. Ma Kinkirk walks into the kitchen and smiles indulgently at the couple while shaking her head. She interrupts the making out to ask Ben, "What is it with you and kitchens?" Then she departs. Ben is left to explain that his mother "recently caught [him] in the kitchen with a woman." Paris does not look impressed to know that he still lives with his mommy. It doesn't take long for her to get over it, though, and start making out with him again.
Lucy is admiring her diamond some more when Roxanne walks into the room. After apologizing for acting nasty earlier, Lucy holds out her left hand so that Roxanne can admire her diamond also. Lucy figures out that Roxanne asked Chandler not to propose. Short of being psychic, I have no idea how she'd do that. But again, I don't care. I'm too mesmerized by how Lucy's weirdly curling hair defies gravity. Suddenly noticing the song Bobby Short has been singing throughout this entire scene, Roxanne asks Lucy to dance. Lucy happily accepts. RevBong and the T-1000 come in and watch, except Kevin says he's not comfortable with this. Whoever designed his circuitry obviously doesn't know much about the average heterosexual man.
RevCam and Annie are snuggling in their hotel bed. It doesn't look like there was much hot sex, unless the CamRents like to do it fully clothed. They're discussing Lucy's engagement, which is not exactly the sexiest topic either. People, what point is there to renting a hotel room if you're not going to get it on? Annie starts to mention that Lucy is going to want RevCam to perform the wedding ceremony, but he doesn't want to think about it right now. Yeah, there's plenty of time for that boring plotline to ruin another episode or two. Now it's time for some painful, closed-mouthed kisses. Aw! Happy VD, everyone.
Simon is following through on his threat to spend the evening telling Asslee how scrumptious she is. I can't quite bring myself to even pretend to believe that she is "kind" or "sweet." Asslee's reasons for loving Simon are some of the shallowest and stupidest I've ever heard. She says some crap about how she likes holding his hand and dancing with him. Romantic? And how!
Peter is asleep on the living room couch. If he knew how many people have made out on that couch, would he still feel comfortable sleeping there? His mother and Ben are watching him sleep. Paris is trying to decide whether to wake him up when Ruthie comes in and says she will do the honors. She kisses him somewhere in the vicinity of his chin. It does wake him up, though, and he seems unaccountably thrilled even by such a lame kiss. Ruthie leaves the room, and Peter follows, leaving the exciting new couple alone in the living room.
Except it seems they're not destined to become a couple after all. Even though they have been, as Ben puts it, "making out in the kitchen for hours," Paris thinks Ben is too young. She thanks him for swapping spit with her and then leaves. At least she's polite.
While driving Roxanne home, Chandler pulls over and pretends that the car is out of gas. It's all a ruse to get Roxanne to kiss him. Watching these two going at it is not my idea of a good time.
Back at the CamPound, Ma Kinkirk is on the phone with her fiancé. I assume it's not a local call, so that's actually kind of rude of her not to use her own cell phone. It sounds like the fiancé is trying to make her tell Kevin about her impending nuptials. Ma promises to tell Kevin tonight. I have no idea why it can't wait until morning -- or, indeed, why the fiancé is making such a big deal out of it anyway. He sounds like kind of a jerk. But then, the Kinkirks are used to marrying jerks, it seems.
Bobby Short and his band are still playing while Lucy and Kevin toast each other with half-glasses of sparkling wine. I certainly hope it's non-alcoholic, since I don't think Lucy is twenty-one yet. Kevin actually answers his cell phone when it rings, except he has to get all cutesy and say, "Kevin Kinkirk, future husband of Lucy Camden." Yeah, that just makes all his abusiveness A-okay. God, he's a tool. He leaves to talk to his mother in private. At least while he's gone we get to see Bobby Short, rather than Lucy staring at her damn ring some more.
Kevin comes back and breaks the news that his mother is getting married. Not only that, but they "want to go to Europe -- maybe even Italy -- for six months." Newsflash for robots (and Brenda): Italy is part of Europe. Really. It's true. Kevin tells Lucy he'd like to have his mother at the wedding, but that then they will have to get married in April. Lucy freaks out at first, and then acquiesces. Just like that. I guess she's no longer crazy. It's amazing what a diamond ring can do.