Episode Report Card Couch Baron: B+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Chimpback Mountain
By Couch Baron | Season 1 | Episode 11 | Aired on 04.10.2008
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close. So, like, have you guys ever wondered if we recappers sometimes write these recaplets, like, piss-assed drunk? Well, I'm not saying that happens as a matter of course, but it's seventy-five degrees here tonight, which is margarita weather, and I'm just fast-forwarding through the American Idol results show before I do anything else, but yeah, I'm at least half in the bag here. OK, Desperate Housewives previews, Nicolette Sheridan looking about seventy-five somehow, previouslies, trolleys, some newspaper guy babbling at Eli as he has a vision of the year 2018, people shouting "Live Brave" over and over again for some reason, some African-American named "David Mosely" for some reason, Sassy Patti and Maggie bonding and forcing Eli to take a case involving gay chimps, which as I remember was a Will And Grace plotline if you replace "chimps" with "penguins," a MILF from the London office who's apparently the missing partner and is played by Peg from Married With Children showing up with concerns about Eli, Matt going to Eli for romantic advice about Taylor and Eli getting him and Taylor to represent the gay chimps, Eli realizing that Mosely is a former client of Keith's who led hunger strikes in prison and pulling Keith into the case, Taylor bitching Eli out for being jealous of Matt, Mosely getting attacked in prison, Eli and Keith deploying the whole team of associates to help in a class-action suit on behalf of prisoners in Mosely's prison and Peg The MILF busting their chops, Asian Judge I love agreeing to hear the gay-chimp case, Maggie pretending she has a fiancé named Scott, Sassy Patti rightfully (!) ripping a strip off both Taylor and Matt, Eli having a future vision of Keith, himself, and Maggie…with his child (baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarf), Taylor falling in love with a chimp, besides Matt I mean, some witness betraying Keith and Eli, Maggie disgustingly saving the day, Pete the chimp taking the stand and warming our gay hearts, including that of Awesome Female Asian Judge, Eli really kicking dirty ass and taking douchebag names, Peg The MILF making sure she's going to be a thorn in Eli's side for the duration, Keith teaching Mosely the ins and outs of the law, Taylor, Matt, and Sassy Patti bonding over the reuniting of the gay chimps, Taylor throwing Matt a challenge, and one more vision, in which Mosely lauds Eli for being a champion of the people. I…kept drinking while I was writing that. Did it show? Want more? The full recap starts right below!We follow Eli as he crosses a street and stops at a newspaper stand. He greets the proprietor with a "Morning, Bill," which prompts the inquiry, "How long have you been buying your newspaper at this stand, Mr. Stone?" Not as long as you've been wearing those checkered newsboy caps, Vendor Exposition, and you can feel free to take that as a hint. Eli thinks it's been since he moved into his place five years earlier, and the guy babbles that he knows about Taylor and Maggie, yet Eli doesn't know that his name is actually Hank. Eli doesn't really so much care, which is something we have in common, and then he frowns as he sees a story in the paper about the U.S. completing its withdrawal from Iraq, and fog kicks up over the screen...
...and then we see the date on the paper: Tuesday, October 16, 2018. I can't be bothered to check to see whether that date will actually be a Tuesday, so apparently there are limits to my propensity to be a know-it-all, which is personally surprising to me. Anyway, it's night in what looks like a green-screened Times Square, and there's a huge crowd chanting "Live Brave" and holding signs that say the same. Eli watches as an African-American man climbs some steps up to a nearby podium, and yells over the crowd to ask a neighboring woman who the speaker is. "David Mosley" is the response...
...segueing into Chen asking, "David who?" After some George-Michael-based chitchat, Chen points out that since Eli still thinks his visions are random hallucinations, he's not sure what he can do for him. First off, I cannot believe that Eli or anyone else still thinks that after last week. Up until then, I was willing to buy the ebb and flow of his belief, especially after the whole Silver Terrace debacle, but this is twice now that he's seen things in the past that he could never have known about otherwise. Those can't be random hallucinations -- it's odd to say this, but the only logical explanation for those occurrences is the guidance of a higher power. However, just because I agree with Chen doesn't mean I don't think he's being a little "I'm not angry, just disappointed" about the whole thing. Anyway, Chen counsels Eli to find out if Mosley actually exists in the present. Geez, Eli, if you couldn't think of that on your own, maybe you need the brain surgery just to get a little smarter.
Eli is telling Sassy Patti (I've come back around to it) that he needs her to search for David Mosleys, but Sassy Patti (and Maggie, TF?) aren't paying attention, instead intently watching Patti's computer screen, which is playing a video of a chimp. It's cool if that's what you're into, I guess, but I'm surprised the company doesn't block those sites. Anyway, Eli actually gets slightly annoyed at Sassy Patti's complete ignorance of him, to which she cryptically (and sassily!) responds, "You scratch my back, I scratch yours." That sounds fair -- no need to let the fact that you get PAID TO DO A JOB enter into it. Parents, if you want your kids to get ahead in the world, raise them sassy! Anyway, Patti is all upset because the zoo took away the chimp's mate, and he's now heartbroken as a result. Maggie wonders if that's a violation of Equal Protection, opining that the state can't separate her from her fiancé. Eli, looking at the screen: "That's your fiancé? You didn't tell me you were engaged to a monkey!" Hee. Patti corrects him that he's a chimp, and a gay chimp to boot, as he, Steve, and his partner, Pete, face the problem that "some right-wing closed-minded crazies are trying to keep them apart." Eli says he doesn't practice chimp law, but Sassy Patti tells him he will if he wants her to find Mosley, and then goes back to cooing over the chimps. Patti should just give in and start singing at gay bars around the city -- she could easily pass for a drag queen.