Tricks And Treats

S01E03

Kim and Lindsay are each holding eggs and leaning out of the Caddy windows when Kim yells, "All right, jackpot, jackpot!" We cut back to the geeks. Sam and Neal continue their argument, and Bill is still trying to break up the fight so they can go home, because his "bra is chafing." They hear the screaming from the freaks' car, and everyone ducks except Sam. Kim and Lindsay must have exceptional aim, because they both score a direct hit on Sam's head. They drive off laughing, and Lindsay turns to look back. Her face falls when she realizes what she's done. "Oh, my God," she says, "we just egged my little brother!"

After the commercial break, Lindsay is still freaking. She keeps yelling at Daniel to stop the car, which he finally does. He's driving back down the street in reverse when the geeks see his car. Bill runs away, shouting, "Oh, my God, they're coming back to finish us off. Run for it!" Lindsay apologizes repeatedly to Sam and pleads with him to get in the car, but he doesn't say a word, just stares at her sadly. Finally he turns around and runs away. We see him walking home, pulling off pieces of his robot costume as he goes.

It's a sad night all around, as we see Mom Weir sitting at home, sadly eating cookies and not even bothering to get up when some trick-or-treaters come to the door. Sam comes in, and Mom rushes over to see what happened to him. She's fussing all over him like a mother hen when Lindsay walks through the front door. Mom asks Sam who egged him, and he replies, "Some freaks," while staring at Lindsay accusingly. Mom says, "'Freaks'? Like circus freaks?" Count Floyd replies, "I don't think there are bearded ladies running around throwing eggs at kids. He means hippies." I pause the tape and renew my vow that if I ever have kids, I will try to maintain some connection, no matter how tenuous, to the world in which they live. Dad asks if Sam knows who these freaks were, and he replies, "A bunch of dirtbags." Okay, Sam, it is pretty awful that your sister egged you, but she's obviously devastated and has apologized profusely, so now you're starting to look just a little self-righteous in my book. I still feel for him, though, when Mother Hen starts clucking some more and he shouts, "I'm not a baby," before running off.

Mom guilt-trips Lindsay a bit by saying, "If you didn't want to hand out candy with me, you could have just told me." Lindsay says she didn't want to make Mom feel bad. I wait for the part about Mom feeling worse now, but the writers have mercy on us, and it never comes. Mom just comments on how much the world has changed from when she was growing up: "Everyone just seems so much meaner these days." Lindsay is skeptical, as am I. Mom admits that kids probably did throw eggs back in her day, "but I just know I never did." If it's physically possible for Lindsay to look any sorrier, I know I don't want to see it.