The God of Marriage

In my putative position as your recapper of record for The Mind of the Married Man, I find myself with a bit of a disturbing dilemma. As I said on the homepage, we here at MBTV take our civic responsibilities very seriously. We also (occasionally, at least) take our political correctness responsibilities very seriously as well. Which, in this case at least, is a crying shame. If ever there was a show that truly called out for jokes like, "Man, this show makes me feel so dirty, I should be taking Cipro," well, this would be that show. I mean, I can't even make any good "Let's go to war against Mike Binder" jokes here. I could probably get away with something along the lines of "We here at Mighty Big TV strongly urge the United Nations to take action against the evident human rights abuses contained within The Mind of the Married Man," but that's not really the message I want to send. After all, it's just that sort of fuzzy-headed, left-wing, liberal thinking that would lead people to concur that poor, innocent Mike Binder couldn't possibly be at fault for all these atrocities, but rather that we here at MBTV are somehow responsible, what with our isolationist policies toward the sitcom world and our ongoing sanctions against the children of Picket Fences. And to top it all off, I can't even suggest that we bomb this fucker back to the Stone Age, because that would obviously be an extreme evolutionary advancement for the man. Damn you, Mike Binder! Damn you to hell!

We open with the weekly walk & talk. The Dorky Dilemma Du Jour is Donna's desire to have a second child. There's a reference to a fight between Mickey and Donna, as well as one to the make-up sex, which left Donna "like Jell-O," and concerned only with Mickey's ultimate happiness. I'd have thought it would be self-evident that anyone who was concerned only with Mike Binder's ultimate happiness would have to be the mental equivalent of Jell-O, but I guess not. At least there's no shimmering or glimmering in these shots. Or Bill Cosby, for that matter. I don't think I could have handled that. Mickey goes on to explain that when it comes to sex, "if I do my job right at my house, I get a big star on my forehead like back in school. I get a day and a half where I'm pretty much the Commander in Chief." Fortunately, Clinton jokes aren't covered by my obvious newfound respect for our American political institutions. Unfortunately, however, I've already spoiled any potential punchline by telling you that, so now I won't bother coming up with an actual joke. Incidentally, this week's "Written by Mike Binder" credit plays over a strikingly silent Mickey, and I again think that someone in the graphics department may signaling some subtle discontent. Mickey now reveals that he's decided to go along with the second kid plan. His reasoning? "What am I going to do, Doug? Keep having sex with her every day for the rest of her life just so I don't have to have another baby? That plan works when you're eighteen, but I got a job, I got a kid, I got shit to do. I need my rest." Okay, first of all, I need a rest from this freak, too, but you don't hear me complaining. Secondly, I'll just ignore the somewhat obvious flaw in the whole "have sex to avoid having a baby" plan, and instead point out that if Mike Binder truly believes that inflicting daily intimate contact with his flabby, naked body on an unsuspecting person would be an appealing prospect to them, well, he's even more egomaniacal than this show has already led us to believe.