Okay, thanks to my lame-ass ABC affiliate, I missed the bit of the show. Our very own JohnConstantine has been kind enough to save my ass by providing an excellent blow-by-blow of the early action. Here goes.
We start the new season with Lily very carefully counting out six plates from the cabinet. Cut to B&W Lily on the Soliloquy Stool, explaining that they always warn you to be careful what you wish for. We all pause in shock when she claims she hasn't always. Been careful, she's careful to note. B&W Lily claims this is pretty radical for her, then stands serenely at the counter wondering how she got so lucky, as her newly expanded family starts streaming into the kitchen, accelerated by the joys of camera trickery. (I can't decide if they've inserted Lily digitally or not. She's not saying anything, but she's also not as twitchy as they usually are in time-stop photography. Oh, who cares.)
Breakfast begins as Lily tries making eggs for a bunch of folks who show absolutely no interest in them at all. Rick banters with Lily over the lack of cream cheese, as Jessie neatly dodges being saddled with one of the eggs.
The morning bicker begins when Grace asks Zoe what her posters are doing out in the hallway. The fight over room space begins between Jessie and Zoe, and you can already see Jessie clenching her teeth at the "perfect and innocent" tone Zoe has down to a science. Someone shoot her now, please. (Okay, this is where my affiliate finally got their shit together. Thanks, JohnConstantine!)
Judy bursts into the fray through the back door, hoisting a paper bag above her head and proclaiming, "We have bagels!" "But no cream cheese?" Rick gripes from beneath his new mop of hair. Looks like he and Lily installed a low-flow shower head in their bathroom. It's not pretty. Judy's confused -- Lily "always has cream cheese." Across the kitchen, Jessie and Zoe battle on, bitching about drawer allotments, while Grace sits between them, determinedly chewing her breakfast. Lily plunks more food on the table and begs them to talk about it later. She's wearing the first of many pseudo-retro fake-business-flaunting shirts. This one is pink with the sleeves cut off, and in gold lettering advertises "Pedro's Pizza Parlor." It's trying too hard. Zoe slams her silverware down and pops out of her seat, gritting, "Fine! She can have the whole room!" She storms out. Rick peers at the action from under his lank bangs and mutters, "Whoa!" With that hair, the lame Keanu-like utterance seems somehow appropriate. Everyone lets Zoe leave to her to have her tantrum elsewhere in the house. Judy shares some exciting news, somewhat bashfully. A guy who owns three bookstores in Boston called her after reading about Booklovers, and he wants to license the name. "To do what?" Lily asks. Judy explains that he wants to do the same kind of singles club at his stores, and he's going to pay her "real money" to do it. "Go Judy!" Grace says with a playful tap on the arm. Lily says, "That's so amazing! Boy, I got out just in time, didn't I?" Judy says she can come back "any time." Grace prods Rick to drive them to school, and the round-up begins. He asks Jessie if she's seen Eli this morning. "That's amusing," Grace mutters sarcastically. "Yeah, he usually comes down about noon," Jessie says. Rick and Judy exchange a look, but it seems like the editors cut it short for some reason. Zoe and Jessie almost bump bellies in their scramble for the door, and they shoot one another nasty looks. As everybody files out, Lily mocks, "Goodbye Zoe. 'Goodbye Mom!' Goodbye Grace. Goodbye Jessie!" Rick leans in, and Lily grabs his face to kiss him. He really needs to wash that hair. Once they're gone, Lily looks dejectedly into her frying pan full of rejected eggs. "Want five eggs?" she asks Judy. Not likely.
Cut to Lily, clad only in a towel and with her hair slicked back, heading into the hallway with a shirt in hand. She almost collides with Eli, who's sporting only a pair of boxers. "I thought you were sleeping," Lily says, uncomfortably. Eli stammers, "Did everybody...?" "Yeah, about half an hour ago," Lily says. She turns her attention to another semi-naked young man, who's emerged from Eli's attic. Well, well, isn't that cozy. Eli makes the introductions. Lily asks how late they practiced until the night before. Let's make sure everyone is clear: she's standing in the hallway, wrapped in a towel, making small talk with two half-dressed eighteen-year-old boys. Yeah, it's odd. The conversation soon falters, and they stand awkwardly for a split second. Lily makes a gesture like she's parting the Red Sea, and Coop and Eli move to let her pass. Coop stares after her pointedly, hormones raging. "Dude, that's your stepmom? Oh, my god!" he says. Eli grabs him by the shoulder and leads him away like a cop at a crime scene moving along the looky-loos.
Cut to PagesAlive, where Lily's just arrived to find everyone in the midst of boxing up their stuff. It's eerily quiet. She approaches a girl and asks, "What's wrong? Did somebody die?" The girl jabs her thumb toward Crusty's office. "Christy died?" Lily asks, her heart skipping a merry beat. "Lily! There you are," Crusty says, squelching the opening strains of "Ding-dong, the witch is dead."
Inside Crusty's office, Lily gets the lowdown: PagesAlive is now PagesNotSoAlive. It's dead, actually. Those horrible, horrible venture capitalists who are actually interested in earning a return on their money have pulled the plug. Lily opens her salmon-rimmed lips in a big "o." That lipstick does nothing for her, by the way. "But Graham said --" she stammers. "Graham? Graham? Is the new CFO of Feldspar Communications," Crusty bitterly informs her. Lily mutters that she's so sorry, and Crusty starts singing her diva swan song. "Yeah, well, it serves me right for thinking I could do something really different and creative and committed," she pouts. Like restaurant reviews, and flash-animated cows kicking over lanterns. We saw the shite, I mean "site," Crusty. Get over it. Lily assures Crusty that it wasn't her fault things didn't work out. Crusty's not interested in relinquishing any of the weight on her shoulders. She tells Lily that it is her fault. I'll summarize: she didn't believe in it enough; she didn't hire the right writers; she didn't arrange for a back-up server in case the primary one went down. I get the feeling she's echoing complaints that she's heard from other sources. Then she chokes up and says, "And when the financing runs out, that's my fault. Because, why didn't I go everywhere in the world to find somebody who believes in this as much as I did." Because that person doesn't exist? She starts openly bawling, and Lily hands her a tissue. Crusty says not to worry about her; she's already gotten three phone calls this morning. "I'm not worried about you," Lily says, her voice oozing sincerity. "What about you?" Crusty asks. Lily shakes her head somberly and says she doesn't know. "I'm sorry, Lily. I guess I can tell you the truth now," Crusty says. "You weren't much of an assistant." Atta girl! Send her out on a high note! "But you made one hell of an older sister!" she adds. Great. That'll look good on a résumé. Lily's face crumples, and she opens her arms to Crusty. Over Crusty's shoulder, Lily puffs out a couple of quick breaths, like she's trying hard not to hyperventilate.
We return from commercials to find Eli hard at work, making sure the couch is evenly worn and doing his part to keep the potato chip population from raging out of control. He's watching Jerry Springer. Right now, his demeanor bears a striking resemblance to that of my last boyfriend, which means he's treading dangerously close to Lowest Common Denominator territory. The topic of the show is "Mom, I'm marrying your man!" and Jerry is in the process of questioning some trailer-park trash who's squeezed her way into a wedding gown for the show. He clarifies, "So, you're sleeping with your mother's boyfriend," and the woman agrees. He asks why she's wearing a wedding dress, and the TPT answers that she's getting married today, to the boyfriend. The crowd erupts in an angry roar. Eli crunches another potato chip, and his expression changes from intense scrutiny to smirking superiority.
Lily quietly slips in the front door, setting down her boxes of crap from the office. She cocks an ear, listening to the sounds of Springer. We flash to the television, where TPT is predictably telling the audience they can kiss her [bleep] and to go [bleep] themselves. Eli turns down the volume and greets Lily, giving her the lowdown on the low-down dirty Springer guest. He concludes with, "No matter how bummed out you are, you can always find people who are worse off than you." Lily starts unpacking her boxes, asking, "You're bummed out?" Eli crunches a chip and grunts noncommittally. Lily asks, "How's the job search going?" perhaps as a means of cheering him up. "Ah," Eli says, and launches into an imitation of the ass-pole: "How many people have you called? What are you going to do about school? What are you going to do about the rest of your life?" He works a potato chip out of his molar as Lily unpacks framed photos and arranges them on the bookshelf. She turns and says, "Well, I guess [your mom] just figured that summer's one thing, but now it's September." Eli quickly points out that he's still looking for work and that he's not just goofing off all the time. He says the band has been practicing a lot lately. "I guess it's just hard for her to understand...that finding work isn't your priority," Lily says carefully. Eli pops another chip and asks why Lily is home so early. She perches on the back on the sofa. "Well, it looks like I'm going to be looking for work myself," she says, a little too calmly. Why isn't she freaking out? It's not like finding that last job was such a picnic. She tells Eli that "the whole magazine got fired," and slides wearily down the couch, gently nudging Eli's legs off so she can sit to him. Watching the family horror on Springer, she whimpers a little. Eli offers her the bowl of potato chips. She accepts without thinking twice, which means the spit bucket must be tucked behind the couch.
Cut to Grace coming through the back door of Manning Manor, where she's faced with an auditory assault. Following the "music" to the living room, she finds Lily flopped out in a chair, grooving to the beats, while Eli crouches eagerly in front of the stereo. Grace freezes, certain that she ate something rotten at lunch and it's causing freakishly vivid hallucinations. She approaches the surreal scene with caution, half expecting Lily's head to swivel 360 degrees on her shoulders. "How can you understand anything?" Lily laughs. Eli advises her to "just forget the words. Just listen!" "Mom?" Grace says, unnerved. They don't hear her. "Mom!" she shouts. Lily turns in the chair, chomping on yet another chip. She's now holding a bag of blue-corn tortilla chips, which suggests that she's been eating pretty steadily since the last scene. Yeah, that's believable. "Oh, hey Grace," she says, flashing a lovely wad of chewed chip bits. Grace smiles and asks what they're doing. Lily says they're listening to the new Vibe album and asks if Grace has heard it. "Yeah," Grace says, smiling indulgently. "It reminds her of the Moody Blues," Eli says, but Lily quickly denies it. She'd never say something so unhip! This season, anyway. Grace, smiling like you would at an escaped con, asks why Lily's home. "Oh," Lily says casually, "I got fired." She pops another chip in her mouth, trying to fill the emotional void with additives, preservatives, and fat. That's not healthy. And it's not conducive to those tiny little tank tops she's become so fond of.
Later that night, we find Lily perched on her bed, filing her nails. The pounding sounds of the Vibe filter down through the ceiling from the attic. Lily's still getting her groove on. "The Vibe," she says knowingly to Rick, and examines her nails. Rick moves onto the bed and says, "Ooooh!" Other than "whoa," that's the second thing he's uttered so far. Billy Campbell must be pissed. He looks toward the ceiling and wonders, "How'm I gonna get him off his ass?" Lily drags the file across her nails and mutters, "Oh, he'll do it." Rick pushes her hair back from her ear and leans in, saying softly, "You're awfully philosophical for someone who just lost her job." He nibbles at her neck. "Yeah, well. Maybe I'm getting more mature in my old age," she muses. With the exception of her wardrobe, which seems to be regressing. "I just figured it was denial," Rick mumbles around a mouthful of neck. "Oh. Yeah, that," Lily says. She gets into the nuzzling. Rick offers to comfort her with "sexual ministrations." Ew. Not the offer; the line. "How about if you just jump me instead?" Lily suggests, grabbing him for a passionate tonsil massage. The position, coupled with her tank top, shows off her sculpted new arms to advantage. I bet that's no accident.
From the hallway, they hear the sounds of arguing, and stop making out to look toward the door. "I didn't hear anything. Did you?" Rick whispers. She shakes her head, and they get back to the action. A door slams. Feet thud along the hallway. "Three...two...one..." Lily says, bracing herself for the onslaught. There's an insistent knock at the door. "Come in, Zoe," Lily calls wearily, blowing a stray lock from her eyes. The griping commences. "I cannot sleep with a computer screen in my face. And you know that!" Zoe whines. Lily starts trying to reason with her when Jessie appears in the doorway. Rick asks her what's up. "Nothing's up," she sighs. "I just have to finish my homework." Zoe glares at her with crossed arms. Lily and Rick look at one another. After a second, Lily informs Zoe that Jessie is in tenth grade, and she has a lot of homework. Zoe is unmoved. "I'm in sixth grade, and I need my sleep," she says. Jessie rolls her eyes. "Okay," Lily sighs, hanging her head. She suggests that Jessie use the computer in her and Rick's room, "just for tonight," and they'll figure out a better solution tomorrow. Here's a solution: move the computer back to the living room. Lily rolls off the bed and takes Zoe by the hand to lead her back to bed and to "settle [her] down." If by "settle [her] down" Lily means "smother [her] with a pillow," I'm so there. Jessie approaches Rick on the bed, who's sitting rather unabashedly in his boxers. Guess the action wasn't so hot after all, if you know what I mean. Jessie announces that she wants to live at Karen's. "Sweetie, you're at Mom's four nights a week as it is," Rick reminds her. "I don't like it here, Dad," Jessie says, her voice teary. He softly tells her she just has to "give it a chance." Jessie flops face-down on the bed.
If this keeps up, Rick and Lily will be having less sex than they did before they got married. What a rip-off.
Cut to Eli, Grace, and Jessie in the car the morning; I guess Eli is driving them to school. They're all talking about some field trip Grace is supposed to go on. Eli crumples up her permission form and tosses it at her. She tosses it back. He reaches for the paper ball under his seat but can't find it. He's simultaneously lecturing Grace on how "serious" driving is. Too bad he doesn't mean it. He reaches over and taps the back of her neck to annoy her. She grabs his arm, but he wrenches it away. She's found the paper ball and tosses it at him again. When he looks over at her, she's holding Coop's jacket up, I guess as some sort of threat. It's really so the baggie of pot will fall out of the pocket, though. Everyone looks down at it for a few seconds without saying anything. Jessie finally picks it up and says, "Eli!" Eli reaches into the back seat to grab the stash from her. Jesus, can you say "distracted driver"? Luckily, Grace manages to direct her eyes forward, just in time to see someone on a Lark 2000 puttering into the crosswalk. She gasps. Eli finally -- finally! -- looks ahead. He slams on the brakes to avoid turning the Lark into a hood ornament. The guy behind him isn't so quick with the reflexes and slams into the back of Rick's truck. Eli takes a few seconds to register what happened and asks if everyone is okay. They say yes.
Buddy climbs out of the car behind them, hurling accusations about Eli's driving. Eli braces himself and hops out of the truck. Finally, we get to see the full front of his t-shirt, which my boyfriend made. (Inevitable plug: they're available at an Urban Outfitters near you.) It says, "For good luck, rub my tummy." ["I have one myself, and so does Wing Chun. They rule. Buy one today!" -- Sars] Eli'd better get rubbing, no? The Rear-Ender comes flying at him, and through a thick Eastern European accent complains loudly about Eli's stopping short. Here's a thought: isn't it always the rear-ender's fault in collisions like these? And what the hell was he doing that he couldn't stop in time? Tailgating, maybe? Eli tries to explain that there was a woman in a wheelchair, but The Rear-Ender could give a shit. Look at his car! Eli should have crunched the old lady to save the front end of his Taurus! He starts complaining about "kids driving" blah blah blah grumpy-and-old-before-his-time cakes.
A cop car cruises up to the scene. Yeah, right. How convenient is that? Eli pleads with the guy to be reasonable and suggests that they exchange insurance information. The Rear's not interested. He'd rather continue making a scene. The cop saunters up to see what happened. "Have you exchanged information?" he asks. "Look at my car!" The Rear says for the billionth time. Okay, I'd probably be the same way, but it's still annoying. With arms and accent flying, he claims that Eli was "weaving all over the road!" Eli and Grace make it clear they have no idea what he's talking about. "Well-y-well-well," the cop thinks, and starts to imagine how this would play out on COPS, but The Rear interrupts his thought by getting in his face. The cop holds up his hands and tells the guy to calm down. He asks Eli, "Have you been drinking? Taking any kind of medication?" Grace pipes up, "Of course he hasn't! What do you think?" Grace has clearly never dealt with cops before. The cop tells her that he's talking to Eli. Eli says he hasn't been drinking, and he wasn't weaving all over the road. He shoots The Rear a dirty look. The cop asks if Eli has his license and registration. Eli flips through his wallet for his license and explains that the truck is his dad's. Grace pipes up yet again, "It's my stepfather's car, sir. The registration is in the glove compartment." Eli shoots her a look like, "Cheese it! It's the cops!" The cop catches it. Grace moves toward the truck, saying she'll get it. "Stop right there!" the cop orders. "Why don't you let me get it, okay?" Grace protests that she knows where it is. "That's fine. Why don't you let me get it," the cop says, pointing her toward the sidewalk so he can conduct his illegal search unmolested by these pesky kids. Eli knows the shit's hit. He glances at Grace while the cop tells The Rear to get his own information ready. Turning back to Eli, he "asks," "You don't mind if I look in your car for the registration, do you?" Eli knows he's damned either way, so he relents. It takes the cop approximately two-point-two seconds to spot the weed on the floor of the truck. Suddenly, he's not so interested in the registration. He emerges and asks Eli to step towards him and turn around. Uh-oh. Eli is so...wait for it...busted! The cop slaps on the handcuffs and Mirandizes him as we fade to commercials.
By the time the commercials end, Rick and Lily are down at the juvie station, where Jessie and Grace are relieved to see them. Jessie mumbles, "It was so horrible!" and falls into Rick's arms. Grace quietly says, "Rick, they had no right to search your car." Rick doesn't seem too interested in the finer points of constitutional law, though, and just says he's sorry they had to go through it. He then asks where Eli is. Jessie says Karen is already inside, and Lily says to him, "Why don't you go."
Inside, Rick finds Karen doing the ass-pole merengue, i.e. pacing a groove into the linoleum. There's a big red sign on the wall that says, "No firearms beyond this point." So I guess if you need to shoot somebody, you'd better do it in the waiting room. When she sees Rick, Karen clenches, "They say he's coming out." The ass-pole jabs her in the ribs, and she adds, "I need to spend a little time with him. You could pick him up later." Whatever, Mommy Knows Best. How insulting is that? Rick tries to speak, with a warning, "Karen --" but she cuts him off, declaring, "We need to deal with this right away. We can't be weak." Rick points out, "They weren't even his drugs." Karen argues that they don't know that. And then she's off again, saying, "It's been four months since he graduated. He's lost, Rick. And we're not helping him, and we need to do that, or he's going to get worse." Does Karen ever say anything that doesn't come out like a lecture? Rick snaps that he knows they need to help Eli, and reminds her that they all agreed to take the summer off. Karen's on her manic panic again, rhyming off everything that needs to change now that summer's over: "[Eli] needs structure in his life, now; he needs to get a job or go to school." Rick cuts her off loudly to say that he agrees. Maybe she can't hear him over the roar of the ass-pole, because Karen hoarsely declares, "We have to be united in this, Rick. There's too much at stake!" Seriously, where's the evidence room, because someone needs to roll Karen a nice big fatty. Rick holds up his hands as a sign of acquiescence and begs, "Could we just, not --"
A buzzer sounds behind them, and a sullen Eli is escorted out by a cop. He doesn't say anything but lowers his head, knowing the ass-pole will demand some kind of penance. He's saved when the woman at the admittance desk pounds on the Plexiglas. She calls him over to retrieve that bathtub chain with the lock on it that he's always wearing around his neck.
Out on the sidewalk, everyone heads for their cars. Eli hangs back to walk with Rick, while Karen mothers all over Jessie. Grace pesters Lily about why they have to go to school after such a "traumatic" experience. Nice try, but no dice. Jessie wants to know why Eli's going to ride with Karen, and Karen stammers that Rick's going to get his truck out of the impound. She adds that she and Eli need to spend a little time together. The ass-pole rubs its hands with glee as Karen glances pointedly at Eli. Rick calls to Eli that he'll pick him up from Karen's after dinner.
Once they're alone, Karen can't wait to lay into Eli. "You know everything's going to change now, don't you?" He insists they weren't his drugs. She stops and grabs his shoulder, giving him a steely glare and asking, "Are you telling me that you don't smoke pot?" Eli hedges by saying that it was Coop's coat. The ass-pole's no fool. Karen says that's not what she asked. Eli shoots her a wary look and starts walking away. She's right on him, saying, "Do you understand that as a lawyer, I'm an officer of the court? I can't knowingly ignore illegal activity. I can be made to testify against you in court, even though you're my son!" And even though you don't know anything relevant about his drug use. Eli can't believe what an old lady she is, and points out that it was pot and he's not exactly a junkie or a dealer. ["And, seriously? I don't know how much pot he had on him, but unless he was carrying, like, a brick, there's no 'testimony' involved. The penalty for a first-time 'recreational' possession charge is roughly equivalent to that for an unpaid traffic ticket -- you go to court, you plead 'conditional discharge,' you get a fine and probation, that's it. It's just not that big a deal." -- Sars] As a parting shot he says, dubiously, "You're telling me you never smoked pot?" Karen doesn't answer him. If she did, she didn't smoke nearly enough of it.
Karen climbs into the minivan and launches into her concerned-parent lecture, saying, "Do you understand that your father and I are worried about you? That it's not about pot -- it's about your life!" Eli mutters that he can run his own life. "I'm not so sure you can," Karen says with a disappointed shake of her head. She looks straight ahead instead of at him. Eli wants to know what she means. "Things have to change, Eli," she says again. Jesus, shut it off, already. "And I'm sorry," she starts (and she so isn't sorry at all), "but starting now there's going to be structure in your life. You decide: Evanston Community, or find a job. Either one is fine, but now you're going to do it! We need to know where you are when you leave the house." Eli breaks from biting his nails and rolling his eyes to say an offended "excuse me." The ass-pole's on a roll, though, dictating fast and furious, and there's no time for interruptions: "And you need to be home by ten every night." Eli protests that he's eighteen years old. Eyes flashing, Karen snaps, "And you live in my house!" She's scary right now. Eli thinks so, too. Karen offers a bogus compromise, saying that after he gets a job, he can move out. No shit, genius. Like he needs your permission to pay his own rent. She adds that, until then, she's not going to sit back and "watch him head down the path to destruction." Okay, this drill-sergeant bit is so not how to deal with a kid in this situation. Karen needs to send away for How To Talk To Your Teen About Drugs. Or better yet, How To Talk To Your Teen, Period. Eli's boiling, but manages to keep it in. Karen's winding down, feeling the waves of hate radiating toward her. She adds, "One more thing. And I'm sorry, Eli [and, again, no she isn't], but, no more music." This snaps Eli to attention. "What do you mean, 'no more music'?" he demands. "Just what it sounds like," she says. "No sessions, no gigs, no rehearsals. Not until you put the rest of your life together, period." Oh, does he ever hate her now. He can't even speak, he's so full of loathing. Karen shakes her head slowly, knowing he despises her, and says calmly, "Eli, I know what this sounds like." She reaches out to touch his shoulder, but he jerks away. "But it's not a punishment, really," she continues. "We're your parents. We love you. And this is the best way we know how to show it." What's with all this "we" crap? She adds that he's "just going to have to try to accept it." She waits hopefully for a response. There isn't one, unless staring straight ahead, glowering, and grinding his teeth counts.
Cut to the kitchen of Manning Manor. "How come you didn't get arrested?" Zoe demands, like it's a total rip-off. Grace, sitting at the table with Jessie, answers impatiently, "Because, the stuff was in a boy's jacket." "Did Eli cry?" Zoe asks. Even more impatiently, Grace says that he didn't. She says to Lily that the cops "had no right to search that car." Lily says that's not the point, but Grace won't let it go. She argues that it's not constitutional, and asks, "How would you feel if some cop came up to you and didn't like your look and started searching your car?" Lily's unconcerned. It's inconceivable that some cop wouldn't like her look, after all. Especially when she flashes a little bra strap. Grace isn't surprised that Lily doesn't have a problem with it, saying, "You're not black and you're not a teenager, so they wouldn't stop you." Lily looks disturbed, perhaps because despite her wardrobe, someone noticed she's not a teenager. Zoe pipes up that some kid she knows smokes pot. "An eleven-year-old?" Lily cries. Grace taunts, "Mom, eleven-year-olds are not smoking pot at Zoe's school. Twelve-year-olds, maybe." Lily tells her to shut up. Grace is loving how uptight Lily's being, and gloats, "It's all around. That's just the way it is." Lily asks the requisite parental question: "If everyone you knew was blah blah blah..." Oh, sorry, automatic reflex. She gives the old jumping-off-a-cliff scenario. Grace patronizingly says that pot doesn't kill you. That's right. The cancer does. Lily stares at Grace and tries to remain calm. "Are you saying you use it?" she asks. What a square. Who "uses" pot? Jessie finally looks like she's enjoying this exchange. Suddenly, Grace isn't gloating anymore. She says she doesn't "know if [she wants] to answer that right now." Lily clutches her pearls and asks what Grace means. Grace says, "Because it's very private. And if I said no, you'd think it's because I think it's wrong, and I don't know if I think it's wrong. And frankly, I have to make that decision, not you." Lily's looking at Grace like her head is melting. Grace adds, "And if I said yes, you'd just kill me." Jessie sidles over and offers, "I've never smoked pot," with a grim little shake of her head. Great. Here's a lollipop. Zoe pipes up that she hasn't smoked pot, either. Lily doesn't react. She's too busy trying to keep the room from spinning.
Luckily, this little drug summit is interrupted when the junkie -- I mean, "Eli" -- and Rick come home. Everybody stares at the jailbird with pitiful eyes. "Well, I'm starved. Anything to eat?" he asks, ambling over to the stove. Don't they see the signs? They're all there! The boy's been "using" pot again! Any minute now, he'll grab a knife and carve up every last one of them!
Later that night, Lily slides into bed to Rick, who reaches immediately for the strap of her tank top. She shoots him down with, "I don't know if I can have sex with you. You raised a drug addict." Rick retorts, "And your daughter is his dealer." Huh? Lily decides this deserves a kiss for some reason. There's a sound of feet thumping down the hallway, and Lily breaks the kiss to wearily count off, "One...two..." Their bedroom door flies open, with a fed-up Zoe attached to the doorknob. What, she doesn't even knock anymore? I'd be locking that door, pronto. "Mom!" Zoe whines. With deadbolts.
Cut to Eli sitting at the dining-room table the morning. He's staring at the yellow pages, pen in hand. Lily, in a skin-tight tank top, approaches with an armload of laundry -- all the better to show off those deltoids she grew during hiatus. She asks Eli how it's going. He asks how he's supposed to know where to start. Lily closes her eyes, waves her finger around, and plunks it down on the page. "Exactly," Eli says with a grin in his voice. He tosses down the pen and mutters that he didn't want to be a waiter, anyway. "What do you want?" Lily asks earnestly. Eli says he wants to play music, "but they won't let [him]." Lily suggests a job in the music business. "Like...?" Eli asks. "Like working at a guitar store. Or for a music publisher. Or a recording studio." Eli's intrigued. "A recording studio?" he asks, waiting for the catch. Lily says, "Well, sure, they must need some young people to exploit." Eli starts thumbing through the yellow pages. I can only hope he's looking for "R." Lily turns to head for the laundry room. Her sweat pants have a star on the ass. Right in the middle, like a bull's-eye. She might as well have a flashing neon arrow directing your eyes there, too. It's weird. Eli asks if he can borrow her car later, and she pauses to say she'll take him wherever he needs to go. Vroom, baby, vroom! Eli turns his attention back to the yellow pages and starts rifling through the book like a man with a mission.
Cut to Lily sitting in her truck. The camera pans over to Eli, hands in pockets, shuffling out of a recording studio. Lily asks how it went, apparently overlooking the dejected expression on Eli's face. He sighs that the woman said she'd call. And that she looked at him "like [he] was a snail." Lily jokes that "they teach them that at reception school." She asks when they're making their decision. "Was I supposed to ask that?" Eli asks, pitifully. She gives him a sympathetic smile before glancing toward a big black truck. Men are hauling music equipment out of the back of it, and Lily's wheels are turning. "Come with me," she says. Eli asks where. "Just...come with me," she says with a little grin. She's clad in yet another little tank top, her bra straps prominently displayed. Now, I'm not saying there's necessarily anything wrong with how Lily's dressed. I don't care that she's over forty and shops in the junior's department. I just think it's odd that she went from Land's End to Delia's, got a flippy new shag, and turned hip over the summer, and there's no explanation for it. It's like we all know that Lily's missing, and there's this strange new fembot in her place, but no one else is noticing. It's eerie. And distracting, obviously. Sorry.
Anyway, Lily's boots are made for walking, and that's just what they do. Right over to the boys in the band. "Hey guys, what's the name of your band?" she asks with a big smile. "Planet Suicide," one of them answers. Oh, brother. Lily bullshits, "Oh, I saw you guys! Didn't you play at Ground Zero?" Yes, she said Ground Zero. I can't believe they didn't see fit to change "Ground Zero" in light of recent events, and considering the band's stupid name is "Planet Suicide." Lily solemnly declares that they were great. One of the band members eyes her like she's fried chicken and says they sucked. Eli leans in and mutters with awe, "You saw them at Ground Zero?" He's not the brightest crayon in the box, after all. Lily gives him an ixnay look and insists, "Absolutely. They were totally edgy." She enunciates every syllable of "totally edgy" like a little old British lady, but no one seems to notice her forced delivery. She fishes, "You know the last song...?" One of the guys supplies the title for her and she snaps her fingers with an exuberant, "Yes! That didn't suck." The sucky guy says, "It sucked." "'Cause you sucked," another one chimes in. "Yeah, well. I always suck," the sucky guy says, looking pointedly at Lily. Dude, what you do behind closed doors is your business. Seriously. Another guy chimes in, "Stop flirting and grab your sucky drum kit!" Lily pulls the Ally-patented finger-in-the-mouth trick and turns a little toward Eli, nudging him inconspicuously. He takes the cue and jumps forward, offering to help carry the equipment. The sucky guy tells him to watch out for something, and Eli says he knows. Lily points out, "He's very helpful." Eli quietly tells her to shut up, but you can tell he's about to bust with excitement. Lily stands there smiling and showing off her bra straps, and one of the guys hops off the truck to say, "Hi there. What's your name?" Slick. I bet he writes all their songs. "Lily," Lily coos. "Pedro," the guy says. "Hi Pedro," Lily says, her voice oozing sugah. Are the writers trying to give a shout-out to some guy named Pedro? That's the second time that name came up this episode. Eli stands a bit off and takes in the show. I bet he's wondering the same thing we all are: Who is this sex kitten, and what did she do with The Mom?
Cut to Rick staring into the kitchen cupboards. "Okay, soup is out," he says, pulling a box of pasta off the shelf. "I could make pasta," he says, almost pleadingly, as he turns to tempt Zoe and Jessie with the box. Jessie, arms folded, says it's fine with her. Zoe scrunches up her face to protest that she had pasta at lunch time. Yeah, and? Is she afraid of getting sauce on her tiara? Rick, frustrated, can't believe there isn't one thing in the house that both girls can agree on eating. Jessie wearily gives up, saying she has too much homework anyway. Rick doesn't protest, even though the kid has an eating disorder.
Eli and Lily come through the back door, and Eli announces, "Lily got me a job!" Lily plays it off modestly, claiming, "Eli got himself a job." She gives Rick a quick kiss, and he says, "Do tell." Eli supplies, "With a band that's so edgy!" Lily tells him to shut up, but you know she's loving it. Eli mumbles a few complimentary things about Lily and her, ahem, powers of persuasion. I wish I could tell you exactly what he says, but I can't understand him, even after several rewinds. Anyway, Grace comes in and wants to know what all the excitement's about. Zoe fills her in that Lily got Eli a job. Eli starts relating the scene, blow by blow: "They won't even talk to me at first, right? So she's like all over them just to get us in the front door." "Band guys?" Grace asks incredulously. Lily points out, "They were very sweet." Grace gives her an odd look. Eli mutters, "Dad, they were like asking her for her phone number!" Lily feigns embarrassment and ducks her face into Rick's armpit. "So she starts talking to the manager for like an hour about this band she used to be in," Eli adds. Rick is surprised. Lily clarifies, "Okay, so I used to go out with a guy in a band." Rick protests that she never told him about this old boyfriend, just as the phone rings. Zoe answers it and hands it off to Jessie. It's Karen. Jessie lets her know that Eli got a job, and then is silent for a few seconds as the excitement fades from her face. "Yeah, sure," she says, a little flatly, before passing the phone to Eli. Dun-dun-dunnn...
Karen's actually mild as she asks Eli about the job. He evades giving her the details, but she won't relent. He finally admits that it's in a recording studio. Karen, who's been eating a Lonely Woman's microwave dinner, pauses with her fork in midair as the ass-pole spasms violently. Her face goes stony and she blinks hard for several seconds before stammering, "You got a job in a recording studio after we talked about music?" She struggles to remain somewhat calm and asks whose idea it was. Eli's not picking up the dangerous undercurrents in her voice and says it was Lily's idea. Lily senses the reaction on the other end of the phone, and looks a little less than thrilled to be fingered. She's eating chips again. As if. Karen, meanwhile, looks like the world is falling down around her. She slowly closes her eyes and rubs her forehead as we head to commercials.
After the break, we join Eli, Karen, and Rick in an attorney's office, where they're going over Eli's case. The lawyer, Stephanie Arlyn, tells him that, as a defense attorney, "it's [her] job to believe what [her] clients tell [her], so [she'll] believe the pot wasn't [his]." Wow, what a ringing endorsement. You can totally tell by her voice that she thinks he's lying. I hope she's got a better poker face in the courtroom than she does behind closed doors. She bluntly adds that a judge won't believe him and then launches into the sentence his possession charge can carry -- a maximum of six months. She says that since it's his first offense, she can get the sentence reduced to enrollment in a "drug deferral" program, and as long as he stays clean for two years, his record will be wiped clean. What the hell is a "drug deferral program"? You put the bong on hold for a while? She warns that if there's a second offense, Eli will go to jail. ["See my comments above. Doesn't happen, not for recreational use." -- Sars] He looks disappointed to hear this, which makes me think he probably wasn't planning to cut the smoke cold turkey. Karen is oddly silent for once. No one raises the issue that the search of the car was illegal, which means it either wasn't (since I'm Canadian, I don't really know), or the Sammlers got this lawyer's number off a bus bench. As everyone stands to leave, Arlyn promises that she'll "get [him] out of this" and warns him to "watch what other people drop in [his] car time."
As they walk down the hallway, Eli promises that he'll "make it up to" them. Rick, following along behind Eli and Karen, says he should "make it up to" himself. Karen instantly starts nagging again, saying they'll "have to talk about this job," and starts in about his appearance for court, and how everyone's perception of the music business is that it's filled with drugs. Eli tries to protest, but Karen cuts him off sharply: "Excuse me! You're not a lawyer. I stand in front of these judges three times a week. I know how they think." In the background, Rick silently presses the button for the elevator. Eli asks what she wants him to do. Rick finally pipes up, saying he'll "at least have to look for another job." Karen immediately vetoes this, shaking her head and saying, "No, you're going to have to find another job. I'm sure there are plenty that don't put you squarely in the path of temptation." Is she serious? The "path of temptation" winds through every workplace. In high school, I worked with these guys at a pizza place, and they'd shut themselves into the walk-in fridge to hot-box. And since that's about the caliber of job Eli can expect to get at the moment, it's a pretty safe bet he'll have coworkers with pot, too. Frustrated, Eli points out again that they weren't his drugs. "So you're saying you never used them?" Karen asks calmly, knowing he's cornered. She nods knowingly at Eli's silence. The elevator finally arrives, and she actually marshals him into it, as if he's going to bolt.
Later that night, Lily and Rick are in the bedroom, and she's going over Eli's new regimen with disbelief. He has to be up by eight every morning, and on the phone by nine, calling around for a job. Rick calmly looks up from his book and adds that Eli has to make five phone calls before he can take a break. Man, the poor kid. Lily asks how Rick will know what Eli's doing, since he'll be at the office. Rick can't quite look at her as he answers, "Well, I guess you make sure he does it." Now that's pretty fucking nervy. And pretty fucking wussy, at the same time. Lily's not so hot on doing the dirty work for him and Karen, pointing out that he "and his wife" never even asked her opinion. "You are my wife," Rick says, unruffled. He adds, "She's his mom. She's freaked out. You'd be freaked out." Lily resents being lumped in with Karen and says she "wouldn't treat [her] child like he's already doing time." Karen's minion mouths, "Making phone calls is not jail." Lily's astounded at his nonchalance, asking, "Rick, have you ever watched him make one of these phone calls? Do you know how hard it is for him? Have either of you given him any guidance or help or reassurance how to face all these mean people on the other end of the line?" The ass-pole has worked its magic, and Rick is impervious to Lily's reasoning. He tells her that she's making too big a deal of it. Lily doesn't like this, and snaps, "Why, because I'm seeing who he actually is?" Rick resents the implication that he doesn't know his own kid. Lily says maybe he and Karen are "too close to it." Rick holds up a finger and says, "Lily, I beg you. Let this be between Karen and me." What alternate reality is he living in, where he's part of the parenting equation with Karen? Lily shoots him the death-ray eyes and says, "I don't know how I feel about having to enforce this regime when I don't agree with it." Rick sighs, rubs his head, and mutters, "I could just shoot myself now." Lily leans over and says, "You should have married a submissive little girl who would do whatever you say and not give you a hard time about anything." Rick teases that's who he thought he did marry. Hey, so did the rest of us. Lily flips over and straddles him, putting her face close to his and barking softly, "I am the boss around here and don't you forget it." I don't know too many guys who would argue with anything in that position. "You're not the boss of me," Rick says, and Lily retorts, "Oh yeah?" He points out that he's bigger, and to prove it, throws her off and rolls over on top of her. They make out. The thudding of footsteps is blissfully absent.
Cut to Grace climbing the stairs to the attic. "Hey!" she says, and then realizes she's looking at a shirtless Eli. He's unconcerned, but she's suddenly become a Victorian and doesn't know where to look. She sucks it up and finishes climbing the stairs, asking if his parents have ever "ridden" him like this before. He says "kind of" but he thought he'd "be out of danger after high school." Grace says, "Well it serves you right for not going away to school." Nice try at levity there. She says he could still go away to school, but he points out he'd actually have to get in somewhere first. He reaches past Grace for his shirt, and she almost passes out. She shyly admits, "I like having you here anyway." Eli thanks her for sticking up for him with the cop, and says that it was "cool." Grace is elated. The happy moment is interrupted by the sounds of fighting from the floor below. Grace rolls her eyes, and Eli chuckles.
Down on the front lines, Zoe is shouting, "Where is my spiral notebook? I gave it to you!" Jessie screams that she gave it back. Zoe yells that she didn't. Jessie spins and shrieks, "Yes I did you stupid little baby! I gave the damn notebook back to you! Do you not understand English?" There's a vein throbbing on her forehead. Zoe, unused to being screamed at like that, stands and stares. Jessie's got one more thing to bellow: "Now why can't you just shut up and leave me alone?" She storms into the bedroom. Grace and Eli have been standing in the background, watching it all go down. Agape, they exchange a look. Zoe spins around and slams into the bedroom.
Cut to the kitchen, a little later. Zoe bristles past Jessie, who's pouring the last of the orange juice into a glass. Zoe marches over to Lily at the table and asks sweetly, "Mom? Can I have some orange juice?" The little snot. Lily looks from her to Jessie and says, "Okay. That's enough." She says they're going to sit down with Rick later that night and figure out a solution.
They're interrupted by Jake, who knocks softly on the back door and cautiously pokes his head into the kitchen. "Good morning old girls!" he says cheerfully. Zoe glowers and stomps out. Jessie watches her, glares, and storms out, too. Jake stands there, wondering if it was something he said. He and Lily exchange pleasantries while he shakes the empty juice carton. She asks if he heard from the bank. "Oh, I always hear from the bank," he says. "You don't have an extra hundred thousand lying around, do you?" Lily gives him a worried, "Jake." He assures her it'll all work out -- it always does. She reminds him that he said the bank was taking over the restaurant. Grace rescues him from the hot seat, rushing in with a big smile and hug. "Let's get out of here!" she begs. Jake tells her to "round up the twisted sisters." Heh. Finally giving up on the empty juice carton, Jake grabs Jessie's abandoned glass and drinks from it. Once Grace is gone, Lily brings up the bank again. He says, "Well, I figure I have another month before the ax really falls." He chugs the juice gratefully while Lily stares at him, her stomach in knots.
Looks like Lily's finally realizing there may be a money crisis. We cut to Lily at the computer, looking for job prospects. Eli pokes his head in the bedroom door, asking why she's muttering about jellyfish. She explains she's looking at all the "weird" magazines people publish. He asks if any of them are hiring, and she sarcastically answers that she's "narrowing down a list." Eli raises his eyebrows and says, "Sure, sure." She insists that she's just deciding who to call. He insists that she's chicken. "Who are you to talk? What progress have you made?" Lily asks. Suddenly, Eli doesn't feel like joking anymore. He says, "Every job looks totally boring." "Except the recording studio," Lily says, sympathetically. Eli mutters, "I can't believe she's taking a stupid stand on this." Lily smiles and bites her tongue. She asks what Rick says. "He always takes her side," Eli answers. He asks what Lily thinks would happen if he took the job anyway. Lily gravely says that she doesn't know. He asks what she would do. Lily smiles knowingly and says she doesn't want to go there. Eli prods. She points out, "She's your mother. I'm not." Eli counters that Lily is his stepmother. She begs him not to put her in the middle. Eli makes a pleading gesture and asks, hypothetically, what if she were his mother. Lily takes a second to choose her words and finally says, "I don't think it would matter if I were your mother or not. Finally, you'd have to make your own decisions." In case Eli missed the point, she adds, "Part of being a parent is wanting your child to grow up and think for themself [sic], right?" The ass-pole isn't going to like this one bit.
Cut to Karen's place. She comes into the house, trailed by Jessie, who's begging to live at Karen's place full-time. Karen advises her just to be patient, but Jessie doesn't understand what the problem is. "You're lonely anyway," she says. Karen hugs Jessie and reminds her that she and Rick have a legal agreement, "and short of an emergency, [she] just can't change that." Guitar music wafts from the basement, and she looks up like a hound that's caught the scent of its prey. The ass-pole suits up for a confrontation.
Karen stops halfway down the basement steps and says, "Eli, I thought we had an agreement." She's got an odd definition of "agreement." Eli thinks so, too. "No music until you have a job," Karen says yet again. She should get herself a parrot and save the wear on her vocal chords. Eli says he has a job. She asks, "What do you mean? You found a job?" Eli grits his teeth and forces himself to look at her before answering, "No. I already have a job. I told you." The ass-pole cannot believe this insubordination. "Eli, we talked about this," Karen grates. Again, she has an unusual concept of "talking." Eli thinks so, too. He says he has his own opinion about the situation. She flies down the rest of the stairs, demanding, "Can you even possibly understand that the decisions you make now will have an effect on your future?" Yeah, he gets it. We get it. Everybody gets it! He points out that when Rick was twenty, he joined the Merchant Marines. "For a month! And he hated it," Karen cries. "Yes, but that was his decision," Eli says. He adds that Lily left school to hitchhike around Europe. Karen takes a deep breath and patronizingly says that Lily was "very nice to help [him] get this job, but she had no idea" what Karen and Rick had talked about. "Well, she knows now," Eli says defiantly, and adds, "And she thinks I'm right." Karen is rendered speechless. She just stands there and blinks a lot. Eli adds a parting shot, "I'll try not to succumb to the evil influences of the world of music," before slipping out the basement door. Karen's still standing there, agape. The ass-pole wants to know what the hell just happened. Karen sets her jaw, turns abruptly, and races up the stairs.
Cut to Karen and Jessie pulling into Lily's driveway. Karen asks Jessie to send Rick out. "Hey, what's up?" Rick says affably as he comes down the walk. Karen pops out of the van and slams the door, demanding, "Did you know he took the job?" Huh, wha--? "Well, he did," she fumes, "because Lily told him to." She says Lily's name like it's a bad word. Rick insists, "That's ridiculous." Inside the house, Lily creeps up to the window by the front door. She can hear Karen's raised voice bitch-bitch-bitching. Outside, Rick says he can't believe that Lily would do that without talking to him first. Karen says it's "obviously an uncomfortable situation," but she thinks that Eli should stay with her "full-time." Rick is stunned. "He needs supervision, Rick," Karen says. Rick is justifiably offended. Karen storms, "This isn't about what you resent; this is about --" She's interrupted by the slamming of the front door. She and Rick turn to find Lily marching down the walk. "Hey Karen. How ya doing?" Lily says forcefully, arms swinging. Oooh, catfight! Karen forces a smile and says she's fine. An uncomfortable silence descends. Karen actually looks to Rick for once, waiting for him to put Lily in her place. He suddenly finds his shoes fascinating. Lily says, "Okay. Well, just wanted to say hello." She turns to head back inside. Karen calls out after her and asks, "Did you tell Eli...er...advise Eli to take the job at the recording studio?" Lily stands firm and says she didn't. Karen says Eli seems to think that she did. Lily says with a steely smile, "I told him that eventually he'll have to make his own decisions." Karen says he interpreted that as permission to take the job. "Oh," Lily says with an unconcerned shrug. Karen points out that she and Rick already decided that Eli shouldn't take the job, so she's "confused" as to why Lily would say that. Lily doesn't see why her advice was so wrong. Karen says that Eli's just trying to avoid facing his responsibilities, and Lily counters that he's also got a really strong passion for something. Rick, apparently, has no opinion. We can't see him, but I bet he's standing there making his damn guppy face. Karen politely not-in-so-many-words tells Lily to butt out. Lily is taken aback by this, and says bluntly, "You want me to keep my mouth shut?" like she can't quite believe it. I have to wonder how Lily would react if the roles were reversed, and it were Karen advising Grace to disobey her. Or better yet, Tiffany. I don't think she'd be so cool about it, anyway. Oh, here's Rick. And he is looking from one woman to the other with his guppy face. Way to go, tiger! Karen says, "Well, when you put it that way, for the moment -- yes!" "Then consider it shut!" Lily grits, and storms away. Karen spins on her heel and slams into the van. Rick just stands there, continuing to look befuddled and wondering whatever happened to that backbone he was starting to sprout last season.
We return from commercials to find Eli in the attic, angrily stuffing a duffel bag with clothes. Jessie's slumped in a chair, complaining that he "can't leave [her there] alone." Eli's a little short on sympathy at the moment. She suggests that he take the money from his new job and get his own apartment. "Okay, fine," he says. "But I don't have the money yet. Besides how would that help you?" "Oh, yeah," Jessie says glumly. He ruffles her hair.
Cut to Rick in the hallway. Lily approaches, and he pleads, "Lil, can we just talk about this for a minute?" She stops and angrily says, "A minute? Is that how long you think this will take?" She glares and says she promised Jessie and Zoe they'd deal with their problems. "How about I join an ashram, and Jessie stays here with you?" Rick asks. Oh, shut up.
Cut to Lily, Rick, Jessie, and Zoe in the girls' room. Jessie says she doesn't think there's a solution. Zoe asks whether Eli is still moving back to Karen's. "I don't know. We're still thinking about it," Lily says. Which appears to be news to Rick. He shoots her a sidelong glance and says, "For a little while, he's moving, yes." Lily's head snaps around so she can glare at him. He almost forces himself to meet her eyes. Zoe says that Jessie should move up to the attic while Eli's gone. They all consider it for a moment, until Lily says, "Fine," and walks out.
Cut to Lily and Rick in the bathroom. "Go ahead," he says, preparing himself for the barrage. She says she can't. Then she spits, "It's wrong, and you know it's wrong." Rick says he doesn't know much of anything right now. "You don't know your son?" Lily demands. Rick says he doesn't know if it's an "emergency" in Eli's life. Maybe they have to treat it like it is. "Do you think it's a good or bad idea for Eli to move to his mother's right now?" Lily asks. Rick evades. Lily repeats the question more forcefully. Rick says she's being ridiculous. Lily says that Karen wants to treat Eli "like he's five." Rick counters, "He's acting like he's five." Lily tries to make him see that Eli's "acting like a scared eighteen-year-old who needs some help and guidance. Who should follow his passion! He doesn't need a jailer!" Rick argues that Eli almost went to jail. Lily tries to get Rick to see it from Eli's point of view, and imagine what it would be like to live under the ass-pole's regime. "I didn't get busted for dope," Rick cops out. "No, you just drank yourself silly," Lily retorts. Go Lily! Rick asks what she's saying. She says he knows what she's saying, but he doesn't want to admit it "because then [he'd] have to stand up to [Karen]." Lily says she knows she's "just" Eli's stepmother, and she doesn't know what that relationship is supposed to be, or whether she's messing it up, "but [she] won't keep [her] mouth shut just to spare Rick and Karen a little discomfort because there is too much at stake for that boy!" Rick stares at her with love in his eyes and fear in his belly. He takes her in his arms and says, "I despise you." No he doesn't.
Cut to Eli and Rick pulling up in front of Karen's place. Eli moves to get out of the truck, but Rick tells him to wait there for a minute. As usual, Karen's been standing with her eyeball plastered to the peephole, and she bursts onto the porch as Rick walks up. From the truck, Eli can hear their raised voices and see a lot of arm-waving. Rick holds up his hand placatingly, and says he thinks it's the right thing. Karen shakes her head adamantly and spits, "No, this -- this comes from Lily!" Rick denies it. "Oh, come on!" she snarls. She says she's sorry if it puts him in the middle, but she's Eli's mother. "And I'm his father," Rick reminds her. Rick says they've always made their parenting decisions jointly, and they're going to now. She whines that now it seems to be a democracy, and she's outvoted. "Karen," Rick starts. Karen has a flash of Jessie as she stomps her foot, eyes flashing, and fumes, "Don't 'Karen' me!" Rick is temporarily stunned. "He is my son!" Karen cries, pointing to the truck. This snaps Rick to attention, and he shouts, "Our son! He is our son!" Karen actually shuts the hell up and cowers a little. Rick says if she wants to change the custody, she'll have to take him to court. She chokes out that it isn't about court, since Eli's eighteen. "But he is still my baby, and he's falling off a cliff, and there's going to be nobody there to catch him." Oh, get off the melodrama. Rick's offended that she thinks he won't be there. Eli climbs out of the truck. "He's going to be fine," Rick whispers as Eli approaches them. Karen doesn't look so sure. Eli apologizes and slips between them, muttering that he has to use the washroom. Karen stops him to tell him that the living arrangements will stay the same. Eli asks if he stays at "Lily's tonight, or here." Rick suggests that he stay with Karen, to keep her from going completely around the bend. "Sure. Come on, I'll take you to a movie," Eli says. So we know he'll be fine, because burned-out, delinquent drug addicts don't take their mothers to movies. He disappears into the house, and Karen watches him, finally smiling a little.
Cut to the kitchen at Manning Manor. Lily's back at the stove again in yet another tank top. Zoe and Grace amble in, Zoe still bitching about Jessie. Jessie comes through a different door, and Grace gives her a bright "hey." Zoe glares in Jessie's direction and says pointedly to Grace, "I think we should continue this discussion of living arrangements in this house." Rick enters and overhears her. He announces that it'll all be fine: Eli's going to move into the garage. Everybody thinks it's a good idea. Zoe thanks Lily, who modestly says that it was Rick's idea. Eli comes in clapping his hands to get them moving for school. Jessie asks if he knows he's moving into the garage. He does. In fact, it was his idea. Lily playfully glares at Rick, catching him in his lie. Eli sidles up behind her at the stove and whispers "thanks" in her ear. "Anytime," she answers. Then she stares off and smiles as everyone behind her zooms around doing that sped-up-film thing. It worked better on Gilligan's Island. Lily beams to herself over the fresh round of familial bliss. We'll just have to wait and see how long it lasts. In the meantime, I've got a hankering for a little Cypress Hill, circa Black Sunday.