NBC pays homage to Milton Berle, one of the worst comedians of the last forty years who passed away on the day this episode aired. Apparently, before most of us were even born, Milton Berle was "Mr. Television." Which sounds really cool until you put it in perspective: the guy was competing against freakin' test patterns, fer chrissakes. Once America wised up and realized that the guy was about as funny as a multiple murder case, he faded away, only appearing at the occasional Friar's Club roast and being known less for his role in television and more for his penis which, according to Hollywood legend, was enormous. The guy died at the age of ninety-three, and for some reason, the mental image of a gigantic ninety-three-year-old nut sack is giving me nightmares while I'm still awake.
Ed cranks up with Carol searching through the Stuckey Bowl, trying to find our recently coiffed hero. She finds him in the room behind the end of the alleys, fixing some bowling-pin thingie. She asks him if he'd like to accompany her and Molly to lunch at the Goat. Ed agrees to go, and asks if Jackass will be joining them. Carol says he won't; he's in Minnesota on a job interview. Ed asks if Carol thinks Jackass will get the job, and Carol says he's competing against twenty other people for the job. Ed asks if she ever calls him "Denny" rather than Jackass. She says no. He wants to know why. She has no answer. Her cell phone rings, and it's the Jackass calling from Minnesota. Ed starts mumbling, "Call him Denny, call him Denny, call him Denny." Carol tries to concentrate on the phone call, but Ed won't shut up. Finally, she says, "Bye....Denny," and cringes that the nickname actually fell out of her mouth. Ed bursts out laughing and she calls Ed an infant. That may be a disparaging nickname in Stuckeyville, but my seventeen-month-old boy has never objected to the name.
Opening credits begin. I instinctively rush to the bathroom to dry heave. Amazingly, a book of motel matches finds its way up my esophagus and into the toilet. I've gotta stop drinking tequila on these business trips.
Ooooo...the movie Panic Room opened today. Call me a heartless skeptic, but we're talking about Jodie Foster and a young girl hiding in a small room for two hours here. Maybe it's me, but the synopsis makes My Dinner With André sound positively riveting.
Back at the alley, Ed walks up to Phil and asks him what is missing from the Stuckey Bowl. Phil doesn't hesitate in replying that the alley lacks a giant water slide and wildlife. Ed says no: he means kids. Phil says that kids are overrated and that they're nothing more than small drunk adults, which takes me aback because I always thought that was the sentiment reserved for midget wrestlers. Ed says he wants to hire a clown on the weekends to attract the Stuckeyville kids. Phil groans and says that, every week, Ed comes up with a different wacky scheme to make money that never works; that made me snicker. Yet, Phil assures Ed that he will find a clown; "show business is in [Phil's] blood," because his cousin once dated Stone Phillips. I have a cousin who once gave André the Giant a handjob, but you don't see me riding his coattails to stardom.
At lunch, Carol's prattling on to Ed and Molly about receiving a speeding ticket and lamenting the fact that she has to go before Judge Travis Donnelly. Ed perks up and says that Donnelly was his boyhood idol, and that Ed would spend many days of his high-school life going to the courtroom to watch the judge in action. In fact, it was Judge Donnelly who inspired Ed to become a lawyer. Molly coughs out "nerd" in Ed's direction, which Ed declares "hiiii-larious!" Ed asks Molly what she used to do in high school, and she says she enjoyed making castles out of Twinkies and then pretending she was a giant castle eating monster as she tumbled face first into the castle and then scarfed the delicious cream-filled treats until she passed out from exhaustion. Ed and Carol stare at her for a second before they get back on the subject of Carol, Carol, Carol. Ed tells Carol to go plead her case and tell her side of the story to Ed's former mentor. Carol says she's going to do that, and try to get out of paying the $300 fine. My God. Her fine costs more than my car.
Mike and Nancy are positively bubbly as workers are moving brand-new equipment into Mike's new medical practice. He's pointing out everything that's new as he picks up a virgin stethoscope to check out Evil Baby Sarah's heartbeat. He listens to it for a second and hears the demons inside her soul screaming at him to abide by Satan's law. Mike smiles nervously, backs away from the seemingly innocent baby, and says that everything sounds fine; Nancy believes every word. As a man wheels a blood pressure machine past them, Mike cheerfully chirps that that machine is his blood pressure machine. The guy congratulates Mike, and the scene ends because the writers couldn't think of a decent payoff for it, which quickly becomes the general feeling of the whole episode.
In the courtroom, Judge Donnelly calls Carol to the bench to plead her case. She was apparently going 53 in a 40 mph zone. Carol pleads not guilty. To the speeding...not to her lack of common sense. She then starts babbling that she wasn't going that fast and that she's never gotten a ticket before and she's talking way too fast for my chubby little hand to write it all down. But trust me...if it was coming out of Carol's mouth, it wasn't important. The judge asks her to choose, heads or tails. She looks flabbergasted as he explains that he's about to flip a coin to determine her fate. Carol stammers and doesn't pick a side, so he tells her he'll make it easy for her: heads she's guilty, tails she's not. He flips the coin and it's heads...guilty. It's now time to spin the wheel of justice. The wheel is unveiled, and the bailiff is ordered to spin it. The wheel is spun as Carol sweats out the punishment. Ahhh...stand on one leg and sing "Bad Bad Leroy Brown." Carol says she can't sing. The judge orders Carol to sing or spend the night in jail. She sings...if you can call it singing. She sounds more like a border collie getting its throat slit, but it amuses the Judge and gets her out of spending the evening with a large, handsome woman named Tommy, so it's probably worth it in the long run.
Back at the alley, Phil and Kenny are inspecting the gaggle of clowns that have answered the newspaper ad. Phil tells them to take a look to the left and then a look to the right. He informs them that the people on either side of each of them won't be there long. He then instructs them to begin a series of clowning exercises, and watches them "clown." He tells them that, over the several days, they will be weeded out until only one of them remains; that clown will have the heart, mind, and will to become the official clown of Stuckey Bowl on weekends. A Korean clown asks if this will really take days. Phil snaps and says that, yes, it will take days, and if anyone has a problem with that, they can start walking right now. Nearly all of the clowns walk away. Phil laments about the days when wearing the big clown shoes meant something to clowns. Today it just means you're one clumsy asshole.
Meanwhile, Mike brings a poster into his waiting room and marks the occasion of his hanging the first poster in the waiting room. I think Mike's taking this all a little too seriously. A suave gentleman walks in and introduces himself as Jack Foster. He says that knowledge is his business, and that he's an "opener." I wish he'd open Nancy's legs myself, and take this show to a late-night Cinemax type of atmosphere, but who am I to complain? Jack opens new businesses -- everything from radio stations to shopping malls; he coordinates the publicity that a new business oh so desperately needs. He promises Mike that, with his help, he can get this place jumping like Mardi Gras. This is such a coincidence, because I was just thinking the other day that a good name for a bar band who played party rock and roll would be Marty Graw. Marty Graw, Mardi Gras....get it?! I mean...hellooo?! Is that a mental shout-out or what? Anyway, Mike says that he doesn't need Jack's opening techniques, and that sort of nonsense is considered voodoo and is the work of the debbil. Jack insists that Mike desperately needs Jack Foster Consulting and that Mike will be the medical equivalent of New Coke if he doesn't step up to the plate and accept Jack's help. Mike still declines, so Jack decides to work on Nancy, and not the way I wish he would. He asks Nancy if she has the common sense to see that this medical practice desperately needs Jack's assistance. Nancy pulls a Tammy Wynette and stands by her man, saying that whatever Mike wants, he gets. Jack hisses and recoils and says that when these two get their shit together, they should give him a call.
At the Smiling Goat, Nancy's whining to Molly that she doesn't see Mike's practice flying anytime soon. So much for standing by her man. She says that they've gone into debt so that Mike can follow his dreams and have his own practice where he doesn't have to wallow in Dr. Jerome's malarkey day in and day out. Molly tells Nancy not to worry, and that she has money if they need it...she's got $212 stashed away in a money market account. Nancy screams that $212 wouldn't buy a fucking stethoscope and starts beating Molly around her big dumb puffy head with a ball peen hammer. While Molly cowers in a corner as Nancy viciously lands blow after blow on her cranium, Mike and Ed are sitting at the bar. Ed brings up the fact that Jackass is in Minnesota on a job interview, and Mike chimes in that there's still some sexual spark between Ed and Carol. Ed blows off this statement just as he has for the last thirty-plus episodes, and changes the subject to the fact that his boyhood mentor had completely flipped his lid and is now flipping coins and spinning the wheel of justice in order to decide cases. Carol walks on into the party like she was walking on to a yacht and says that the Judge humiliated her by making her sing "Bad Bad Leroy Brown" in front of a crowded courtroom. Mike squeals and says how much he loves that song; he then graces us all with his feeble rendition of the tune, to a mixed response. Ed says that he's going to go see the judge and get things taken care of, because the judge "loves" Ed. Mike keeps singing.
Back at Mike's office, the place is quieter than the audience at a James Taylor concert. Nancy's bouncing a pencil while Carmella is carefully scrawling the words "I Like Gravy" on a pad of paper. Mike thanks Carmella for filling in as the office receptionist, and Carmella gushes about how exciting it is to be on the ground floor of a new company like the secretaries at Apple Computers were so many years ago. Those secretaries...they make millions of dollars now! The phone rings, and all three of them stiffen up. Mike instructs Carmella to answer the phone "Dr. Burton's office, how may I direct your call?" So Carmella answers, "Doctor's office," because she's incapable of doing anything correctly. It's Jack Foster, wanting to know whether Mike has come to his senses yet. Mike tells Carmella to hang up the phone. Carmella thanks Jack for calling and to drive safely, then hangs up the phone. Mike tells Nancy that there is no way, no how he will ever hire Jack Foster to help him out. Of course, we know that he will, and that it's just a matter of time, because if Mike really didn't hire Jack, this wouldn't be a plotline, and we'd be checking in with the latest from Warren Cheswick or Molly.
Walking through the courthouse, Ed's telling Carol what a legend in the law Judge Donnelly is. They walk into Donnelly's courtroom, and the judge has some poor sap spinning the Wheel of Justice. Ed completely flips out and asks what the judge is doing. The judge tells Ed to be quiet. The wheel lands on fifty hours of community service, and Ed goes apeshit. Ed starts telling the judge that he cannot do this, and the judge orders Ed to be quiet or the judge will be held in contempt of court. Ed blurts out another word, and the judge pulls out his Coin of Justice and tells Ed that if it lands on heads, Ed and Carol will spend the night in jail; tails and they get to leave the courtroom. The coin comes up heads, and the Judge informs them that they'll be spending the night in jail because the Wheel of Justice demands it, even though he just flipped a coin and didn't spin the wheel. I think the ol' judge has a screw or two loose. I mean, I'm no certfied psychiatrist, but I think I know a looney bird when I see one.
One thing I've learned about Ed: when people flip out and start acting crazy, they are either dying or someone in their immediate family has been struck by tragedy. And when a lover of Ed or Carol gets a job interview out of state, they inevitably get the job and move away, leaving the door wide open for Ed and Carol to do the hanky panky naked, which they won't because none of the writers on the show want to take the chance of them having monkey sex and being the guy known as the idiot who completely ruined the show.
Sitting on the floor of their jail cell, Carol is mocking Ed, saying really sarcastically, "I'll talk to the judge...the judge LOVES me...he's a legend...I watched him in high school." Ed threatens to pop her a good one in the eye and she clams up like a smart jailbird bitch oughta. Carol's phone rings, and it's Jackass. ["She's allowed to keep her personal effects in jail? And men and women are allowed to share the same cells? How odd." -- Wing Chun] Ed wearily tells Carol to call Jackass Denny. She tells Jackass that she's in jail, and their conversation starts breaking up. Carol finally gives up talking to Jackass, and hangs up the phone. She asks Ed what they're going to do now, and Ed says that since they were denied bail, they just have to sit there all night until the morning comes. They sit there in silence before Carol finally coughs to break the silence.
At Mike's office, Carmella is snoring, and Nancy and Mike look completely bored out of their skulls. Mike asks Carmella to hand him the phone, waking her up. She apologizes for falling asleep and says that she had way too many pancakes for breakfast. She neglects to mention they were vodka-soaked pancakes. Mike calls Jack Foster and says he's ready to schedule an interview. Jack squeals and races over to the practice, gleeful that he's finally hooked another idiot into hiring him.
Back in jail, Ed and Carol are being let out of their cell. Carol says she wants to take a four-hour shower, while Ed says he's going to go talk to the judge. No wonder he's not getting laid. A hot babe tells him she wants to take a four-hour shower, and Ed heads for the office of a deranged senior citizen. It's a sad day when Uncle Bob has more common sense than a freakin' lawyer, kids. A sad, sad day.
At the Stuckey Bowl, Phil is explaining the ABCs of clowing...Always Be Clowning. He has resorted to calling each of the clowns by numbers rather than names because it's more impersonal. He tells #9 to make a funny face. The guy holds his breath and puffs his cheeks out, standing there quietly. This is the best he can do? Cut off the oxygen to his brain and hope that the results will leave him with a "funny face" with nary a fleeting thought to the possibility of permanent paralysis? Phil then instructs #2 to do a funny flop. The guy starts falling backward and does a backward somersault. He tells #6 to make a funny noise. Number six is about 6'5", 300 lbs., and bald. He looks like he'd be more at home in a Toughman contest than a bowling alley yanking balloons out of children's noses. The guy complies and makes a slide whistle sound, which cracks Phil up. Phil tells him to do another one, and #6 makes a boi-ing sound. Phil's dying from laughter. He then gives them all instructions to relax and tells Kenny to keep 1,2,4,5,7,8,9 and 10. Kenny says "You're getting rid of 6?" Phil says that the guy was going for the cheap laugh, and that's not what Phil's looking for.
Ed enters the judge's chambers and asks if the judge is all right. The judge has his back turned to Ed and remains silent, staring out the window. I get an uneasy feeling that this isn't the judge and is really Michael Myers from the Halloween film series because that's exactly what Michael would do: stand there quietly and then turn around and plunge a butcher knife into Ed's heart. So the rest of the details of this scene are rather sketchy since I was watching through cracks in my interlocked fingers. Ed says that he's known Donnelly for fifteen years, and that justice means more to the judge than anything. Ed says that justice is not a flip of the coin or a spin of the wheel. The silent figure turns around, and thank God it's the judge and not Michael Myers, because quite frankly...my heart can't take a scare like that. The judge says that Ed is WRONG and that justice IS completely random. The judge than leaves the room, leaving Ed to ponder what color spray paint the Judge has been huffing.
Back at Mike's office, Jack Foster is telling Mike that he's a handsome, big-boned, healthy man, and that's what they're going to sell. Jack asks Mike how tall he is, and Mike says he's not going to tell him. Jack is insulted, and reminds Mike that opening is Jack's business. He tells Mike to fall backwards and to let Jack Foster catch him. They're going to shoot a TV spot, and Mike vehemently says no way, Jose. Nancy reminds Mike that they're in debt up to their eyeballs and that he HAS to do this. Mike grudgingly agrees to do the commercial, and Jack reminds Mike that he will catch him. Like a bad venereal disease.
In Ed's office, Ms. Migaski walks in. She's, like, the judge's secretary or something. But the way she's talking, she could just as easily be carrying the judge's baby, because she really, REALLY wants Ed's help. It seems the judge is missing. He just walked into the office and said he was done, then left and hasn't come back in days. Ms. Migaski says that the judge has a cabin by the lake, and that's where she thinks he might have gone. She hasn't contacted the family yet because she didn't want to worry them. Ummmm...hello? If he's been gone for a while, I think the family might be a tad alarmed already, there, Sweetknees. She says Donnelly's weirdness happened all of a sudden: one minute he was fine, the he was a candidate for Most Likely To Snap And Take Out A Family of Five With An Uzi Screaming About How His Mother Never Bought Him Sweetened Cereal. The secretary has printed some directions to the cabin for Ed and wants him to go look for the judge. As if Ed doesn't have enough to do around Stuckeyville, now he's gotta play bounty hunter. The secretary hopes the judge hasn't done anything crazy. Well...you know, crazier than making people stand on one foot and sing "Bad Bad Leroy Brown" to get out of a speeding ticket. Ed hopes so, too.
Commercials. The bald guy on ER appears to be dying. Apparently NBC needs pallbearers or something, because they're constantly shoving this information down our throats. Fine. I'll help bury the bald guy. Just quit showing the freaking commercials, please.
Back in the Stuckey Bowl, Phil is monitoring the clowns as they make balloon animals. He instructs them to make giraffes and reiterates that a giraffe is NOT a poodle with a long neck. As the clowns frantically tie their respective balloons into mishapen knots, Phil sees one of the clowns struggling to make a balloon giraffe that looks more like a balloon snake with a spinal fracture. Phil takes the clown aside and asks him his name. The clown says his name is Jacob. Phil asks Jacob if he worked on his balloon animals the night before and Jacob swears he did. Phil says that he heard Jacob was out until 3 AM drinking vodka gimlets and hitting on sorority Susies. Phil tells Jacob that he has a God-given talent to make balloon animals, and instructs him to get back in the group with the rest of the clowns and twist the shiznit up. Phil saunters back over to Kenny and tells him to cut 1, 4, and 10. Kenny asks if he's going to leave Jacob in there, and Phil says yes, because he sees Jacob going all the way. Kenny says, "But he's terrible." Without a moment's hesitation, Phil agrees and tells Kenny to get rid of him as well. That's the only thing I don't like about Phil: he tends to abuse any semblance of power handed to him.
In Ed's sporty SUV, Carol is reading out directions to the cabin that Miss Migaski scrawled out for them. Carol tells Ed to take a left at the dog. Ed says there can't be a dog on the map. Carol shows him the map and, sure enough, the secretary drew a dog on the map. I'm thinking maybe the judge ran away because his secretary's crazier than a hoot owl. Ed thinks they should have turned right several miles back, and Carol tells him to turn around, then. When Ed goes to turn around, he gets stuck in the mud. Not a little stuck...a lot stuck. As in marrying a woman whose dad is a Soprano. You're stuck, buddy.
Back in Mike's office, Jack Foster is applying makeup to Mike's face and telling him to introduce himself. Mike looks into the camera and says, "Hello there," like Freddy "Boom Boom" Washington from Welcome Back, Kotter. Mike gets frustrated and says that he's not an actor. I agree wholeheartedly until I realize that it's his character saying it. Jack tells Mike to introduce himself to the camera as "Dr. Handsome." Mike gets even more pissed and says he's NOT calling himself "Dr. Handsome." Jack sighs, hands Mike a hat, and tells him to put it on, pretending that he's just arrived at work. Mike refuses to wear the hat, even when Jack swears that it's the same type of hat that Vincent Price wore on the cover of Cigar Aficionado one time. So Jack gets some dumbbells and tells Mike to do some curls with the dumbbells. Mike doesn't want to do this, either, and everyone quickly realizes that they are working with the biggest diva since Barbra Streisand. Jack explains that people will be coming to Mike to have them take care of them, and that they would feel better about him if they saw him taking care of himself by lifting weights. Mike thinks about it, and Jack tells him not to be a freak about it. Carmella pipes up and tells him to take the freakin' dumbbells. Finally, Carmella steps up to the plate of common sense and bats a homer.
Meanwhile, Carol and Ed are trying to get the SUV out of the mud. Carol is behind the wheel, and Ed is in the back pushing with all his might. Do I really need to tell you what happens ? I mean, it insulted my intelligence and I'm sure it will do irreparable harm to yours as well. Really? You still want me to type it? Fine. Carol sprays Ed with mud. Ed gives up and tells Carol to try calling Triple A again, but the signal on Carol's cell phone is as weak as it was in the jail cell when Jackass called. So Ed starts yelling for Triple A by screaming, "Triple A! Triple A!!" Carol laughs and says she doubts Triple A can hear him all the way out here. So he starts screaming for Superman, which makes her laugh even more. He finally stops screaming and suggests that they gather some wood for a fire, because they're going to be spending the night in the woods.
Mike and Nancy are at home when Mike's commercial comes on the TV. We see Mike skipping rocks by the side of a lake and checking out the fine ladies who just happen to be there. Mike asks where the ladies came from, and Nancy doesn't answer. We then see Mike look at the camera and introduce himself as a booming voice-over says, "Otherwise known as...DOCTOR HANDSOME!" The words "Dr. Handsome" fill up the screen. We see him wearing the hat and curling the dumbbells. We see Carmella watching him walk by and sighing in ecstasty. Mike says that he's now a joke. Nancy thinks it was cute. Mike says he's now officially a whore. Nancy asks what was up with the hat, and Mike says that Vincent Price used to wear one just like it. Maybe so, but at least Vincent Price had better judgment than to bill himself as Dr. Handsome while wearing one. The Abominable Dr. Phibes...maybe. But not Dr. Handsome.
Ed and Carol are lying on either side of a small campfire, chewing taffy. Carol asks if he always carries taffy with him, and Ed says he does because it's chewy and delicious. Ed apologizes for getting them into this mess; Carol says it wasn't his fault, and reaches for the last piece of taffy. Ed says he'll flip her for it; he tosses a coin and says that she won it. From the look on his face, I think he's lying, but we'll never know. Ed says that so much depends on the flip of a coin...including starvation in the middle of the woods with a hunka hunka hot-assed woman who won't give you a guided tour of her pleasure valley even for a stick of taffy. Carol giggles. Ed says, "Good night, Carol Vessey," and Carol says, "Good night, Ed." Before they fall asleep on their respective rocks and dirt, Ed asks Carol if she really likes Jackass, and she says, "Yeah," which is nice considering she's been boinking him every chance she gets. Ed says that he's happy for her, and she sighs.
Commercials. I get the feeling that if I don't order a Pizza Hut P'zone soon, I'm going to have one angry Tommy Davidson on my door screaming at me and calling me a "boy-eee."
Hiking through the woods, Ed spots a sign that says Shenley Road. Shenley Road is on the map. They must be close to the cabin. Oh, look...there's the cabin! End of scene!
At Mike's office, his waiting room is now full...of hot and horny women who want a private meeting with Dr. Handsome. Mike mentions to Nancy that all these women are treating him oddly. Suddenly, Dr. Jerome walks in, with a plant in his arms. He's come to wish Mike good luck and admits that a large part of him didn't think that Mike was ready to start his own practice, but he can now clearly see that he was wrong. He leaves, saying, "Congratulations...Dr. Handsome!" and then cackles gleefully at his dig. Mike's shoulders slump as Carmella laughs and says that she likes Dr. Jerome because he reminds her of Don Rickles. It could be worse, I guess. He could remind her of Milton Berle.
Ed knocks on the cabin door and hollers out, "Hello?" They walk into the cabin, and the judge walks into the room in a robe. "I hope you're here to borrow sugar," he says. "Because I don't have any, and if you're here to do anything but borrow sugar, I want you to leave right now." Ed says that's not why they're here, "Your Honor." The judge stops Ed and tells him to quit calling Donnelly "Your Honor." He's no longer a judge. Ed asks if Donnelly's okay, and Donnelly says he's not okay, he's not going home, he's never stepping foot back into a courtroom because there's no such thing as justice. He then hands Ed a newspaper, which Ed opens up and begins reading as the judge leaves the room. It seems a young man by the name of Frank Jericho had sustained some injuries in a freak accident that left him unable to ever walk again. Jericho was to play for the Cincinnati Reds and was on his way to a restaurant to have lunch with his hero....get this...his grandfather....who happens to be...are you ready....THE JUDGE. Aha! So that's what has the judge in a tizzy...his grandson will never play baseball for the Reds. I've got a pretty good feeling that my grandson will never play for the Cincinnati Reds either, so I think I'm just going to quit my job, move to a cabin in the woods, and start eyeing the local squirrels as future sexual partners. Carol asks what can they do; Ed says there's nothing they can do, and that they should leave. I think they could have asked to use the phone and called Triple A, but that's just me and my sissy non-mechanically-inclined self.
Nancy approaches a depressed-looking Mike on the sofa and says it's time for dinner, but Mike seems too depressed for dinner. Nancy asks if Mike remembers when they first got married and were dirt-poor, living in a tiny apartment, and she worked while he went through med school? He remembers those times. She asks if he remembers Saturday Pizza Night, when they'd order a pizza with half pepperoni and half cheese and then redistribute the pepperoni to cover the entire pizza and really stick it to The Man. Mike says he'd like to say, "Those were the days," but he can only say, "Those were days." Nancy produces a pizza with half pepperoni and half cheese and tells him to call Jack Foster and drop out of this whole embarrassing Dr. Handsome project. Mike gets giddy with glee. Sadly, Nancy doesn't do her sexy happy dance to celebrate their impending poorness. But she does admit that too much pepperoni gives her gas, which bursts every sexual bubble I ever had about the woman. Even though I knew she was probably capable of ripping a hole in her panties with a hot one, I sure didn't need to hear about it.
Ed and Carol show up at the doorstep of a woman named Barbara Jericho. They ask if she's the judge's daughter, and she says she is. Ed says they need to see Frank. Barbara doesn't want them seeing Frank, because he's a loser in a wheelchair who will never play baseball for the Cincinnati Reds and is an embarrassing klutz to the whole family. Ed says it's about her father, explaining that Donnelly has taken the news that his grandson's a loser pretty hard. Ed thinks that El Crippo can pull Donnelly out of this dark funk. Barbara mentions that her son won't eat, which doesn't really bother Ed because...you know, big deal. We've got a judge who won't judge...what's one more Gomer in a wheelchair who won't eat? Barbara agrees, lets them in the house, and takes them to Frank's room. Frank is staring out the window, just like his wretched bitchy grandfather. Except his grandfather still has the ability to pee standing up. Ed says he's not going to pretend to know what Frank's going through because he doesn't since he can still go through a buffet line for himself and doesn't need someone else to pick out his food for him and then come back to the table with a plateful of radishes and crusty meatloaf. But Ed needs Frank's help. Ed's known Frank's grandfather a long time and Donnelly's in a bad place right now. Not as bad as being confined to a wheelchair for life, but almost as bad. Because Gramps has lost his faith in how the world works. Ed says that neither of them can just "give up." "Are you here to tell me to not give up?" the confused young wheelchair occupier says. "No, you simple fuck," Ed replies. "I want you to tell your grandfather that."
We follow this scene of pain and soul-searching with the week's musical montage set to Three Dog Night's "The Show Must Go On." At the Stuckey Bowl, the clowns are all trying to cram into a VW. Carol and Ed are riding along in Ed's SUV with Frank being towed behind in his wheelchair, chained to the bumper. Phil hands the prize of a pair of big shoes to one of the clowns. We have no idea which one it is because he's wearing makeup, which makes that plotline about as anti-climactic as your parents catching you humping the family pet. Back at the cabin, Ed guides the judge out onto his front porch, where he's greeted by his grandson the Gimp. At Mike's office, Carmella and Nancy are building a tongue depressor castle which Mike knocks over and they all laugh and laugh and laugh. The judge is back in his chambers and has gotten rid of the Wheel of Justice. The Stuckey Bowl clown is handing out balloon animals to young kids as they walk in the door. Phil turns to Kenny and says, "Do you think we should have went with 6 instead?" and Kenny answers, "Who really gives a crap anymore?" and walks away. The way he said it, he could have easily been talking about the fate of the show itself. It wasn't a truly hilarious line, but seemed more like a line from the writers to NBC: Cancel the show if you want. Who really gives a crap anymore?
Ed sees Carol in the alley and says that the judge has now been derandomized. They both agree that sometimes lives are changed by random events that are totally out of their control. Yet another clue from the writers about the fate of the show: if the show is cancelled because of a lack of viewership, that's out of their control. Maybe I'm reading too much into this, but after viewing one of the weaker episodes of the show in a while, it seems to me like everyone on the show is already waving the white flag and surrendering to the network. Anyway, Carol says she needs to go pick up Jackass at the airport. Ed asks how his interview went, and Carol says it's between him and another guy right now. Ed's impressed, and says then it's a 50-50 chance that Jackass may be leaving the show. Carol agrees that the odds are exactly that. She walks away. Ed pulls out a coin, flips it, and then looks at the result. His face then kind of falls, and he looks slightly depressed, meaning that his coin toss says that Jackass is here to stay. And the show fades to black.
Boring. Boring, boring, boring. Once again: no plot advancements except to get us prepared for the possible (probable) departure of the Jackass. A rehashed plot line concerning somebody going off the deep end after receiving tragic news affecting his life. Even the clown plotline fell embarrassingly flat. The only amusing portion of the show was Mike's commercial, which ate up about twenty seconds of screen time. The writers seem to be dropping clues as to the possible cancellation of the show with lines like, "Who gives a crap anymore?" and "lives are changed by random events that are out of their control." Let's see if the show can rebound week with the arrival of Ed's brother. (I wouldn't bet on it.)