Nighttime at Pete's Pizza. I never noticed this before, but the sign for Pete's Pizza, which prominently features a fat, mustachioed, rather demonic-looking Italian man holding a pizza aloft, is really offensive. Maybe those Italian groups that complained about The Sopranos should concentrate their efforts on even more destructive images of their ethnicity. Peter and Vic are having dinner, and Peter is nattering on about some upcoming school project which isn't due for a week, and for which he already knows he can get an extension, but that he's already started on, just like the dork he is. Although maybe I would get started on project early if my school assigned as many as this poor kid gets. Peter asks Vic if he's paying attention. "Honestly? No," says Vic. Damn, Vic -- I know how awful it can be to have to listen to Peter for any extended length of time, but he is your son, and you are trying to make up for being absent from his life in the past three years. So try a little harder, Vic. Off-camera, though, because Peter's not my son and I'm not the one who abandoned him, so I would really rather not have to watch. Thanks! Vic decides to change the subject to himself, and how he wants to take Paris out to dinner tonight. He asks for Peter's help; Peter agrees to give it, provided that Vic promises not to hurt Paris again, and that he doesn't "expect miracles." "You sure are a confidence-builder," Vic says, apparently forgetting how helpful his little inattentive father act must be in building his son's self-esteem.
Matt is sitting in a moving vehicle. Wow, he looks terrible. He's all unshaven and greasy and gross. His cell phone rings, and oh holy god please do not let this be another episode devoted to Matt's inability to use a cell phone. Ruthie's on the other end, calling on the Lame Clear Phone to remind Matt that tomorrow is his second wedding anniversary -- the one that only she, Matt, and PC know about. Matt says he did remember and made plans to that effect -- he's flying home to celebrate it with Ruthie. Umhuh. You know, I'm just going to leave that one alone. It's probably best not to question what we do not/cannot/would never, ever want to understand. Matt tells Ruthie not to tell anyone else in the family that he's in town, and that he'll be staying with the Glasses. Hopefully, they will remain both unseen and unheard, but I never have that kind of luck. Ruthie agrees to sneak out of the house and meet up with him tomorrow night.
Opening Credits Timewaster: Paris and Peter are making breakfast and staring at each other. They do this for a quite some time, as the list of guest stars is exceptionally, not to mention frighteningly, long today. It starts getting really weird, with them each stopping what they're doing to stare at each other and smile not just a little bit flirtatiously. Aunt Julie's name flashes across the screen, and I get really scared, but it turns out that she's not a guest star; she's directing this episode. I'm relieved, but not really, because then I remember that Aunt Julie directed another episode this season, and it was goddamn terrible. Finally, the mother-son bonding ends, which is good, because it was starting to give me an Oedipal complex. Peter starts talking up his dad, and how good he is at making pancakes after Peter spends the night with him at the motel. A night in a disgusting motel bed AND chocolate-chip pancakes made on the hotplate? Sounds like the perfect slumber party to me! Paris distributes some rock-hard pancakes to each of their plates and starts trash-talking Vic until she notices that it makes her son very upset. She asks him why, because she's a complete idiot who can't understand how her kid might not like it when she denigrates his father. Peter tells her about how Vic was planning to ask her out, and if she rejects him, "it will really break his heart." No pressure, though!
“ SamVid show that they possess the motor and coordination skills required to play catch. thing you know, they'll be figuring out how to use underwear, and only four years after their peers! ”
Asslee sees Mac and some other guy outside the movie theater, and her eyes bulge out inI don't knowrecognition? Excitement? I'm not even going to try to figure out what emotion Ashlee Simpson is attempting to express anymore. It kills more of my brain cells than her entire family collectively possesses, and I'd much rather kill those brain cells by drinking, thank you very much. Asslee asks Mac and the other guy where Martin is; he told her that he was spending the day and night with them. Mac says he doesn't have any plans with Martin today or tonight. In fact, he has a date. With Pampers? Or has he perhaps moved on to other, more desperate girls with even bigger problems -- like the girl with a sixth toe, or the girl who didn't have enough money to buy milk with her lunch one time. The other guy says that he also has a date, although he's not very convincing. He must be the unattractive, lonely friend in the group. Asslee pouts, I guess.
Peter enters the CamPound backyard, where Ruthie is attempting to kill her brothers by throwing a large ball at their heads. Thus far, it seems that she has had little success, although she might have given them brain damage -- it's impossible to tell. Peter asks Ruthie if she wants to go to a movie with him tonight. Ruthie says she would, but she has other plans. Peter's like, "oh, whatever then," obviously not caring to hear any more about her stupid plans. Ruthie asks him if he wants to know what her plans are anyway; he says he doesn't. She says that's good, because she can't tell him. Then why even bring it up at all, Ruthie? Also, shut up. Peter starts talking about his dad and says that he loves having him around again, and would really like it if he was around "on a more permanent basis." SamVid show that they possess the motor and coordination skills required to play catch. thing you know, they'll be figuring out how to use underwear, and only four years after their peers!
Lucy's face is all scrunched up and silly-looking, but this time it's for a reason: her husband has pulled her over for going twice the speed limit. Roxanne tells Kevin to give his wife a break; he says that he is by only giving her a warning, and he took an oath, blah blah blah. Whatever, Kevbot -- my best friend's father was a cop, and this meant that my friend got to put a special sticker on his windshield that told any officer who pulled him over who his father was, and thus that he shouldn't get a ticket. When my best friend and I were suspended from school, his father took to following the superintendent of schools who personally suspended us around town and pulling him over for any and all traffic violations. The best was when the guy got a hundred-dollar ticket for riding his bike on the wrong side of the road. What I'm trying to say is, when you live in a small town and you are somehow related to one its police officers, you do get a couple benefits. All the same, you shouldn't drive like a crazy person, Lucy, especially after your own brother ran some kid over in his car.