So, there's Dena, sitting in her little red car. And then Sam gets in the car. Holding a big-ass rifle. Sam: "Drive." Credits. Heh.
Dena is surprised to find the barrel of the gun hovering near her face, and tells Sam that whatever she did, they can work it out. Sam's only goal is to get to the store before it closes. Dena seems ready to go along with robbing a store, provided there's no kind of spree. Not even the candy Spree, Dena? And these two would make an awesome Thelma and Louise. But Sam tells her that the only crime she committed was trying to get close to her father. I think Al Capone tried to use that excuse. As they drive, the car starts to shimmy, and Dena tells Sam that since her car can't go over fifty, they'll have lots of time to talk. Just in case Sam has a nice, twenty-two-minute story she wants to tell.
A title tells us it's three days earlier. Sam and her parents are in an ice-cream parlor, where Sam is tasting samples of everything, trying to figure out what her favorite flavor is. The camera pans over the ice-cream case. There's one tub that's full of something that's fluorescent green, pink, and orange. What is that? It's like Neapolitan, if Naples were hit with a small atomic bomb. In her little notebook, Sam carefully notes that mint chocolate chip has skyrocketed to the number one position. Regina's surprised that Howard still looks happy after spending an hour watching Sam eat ice cream, but hunting season starts tomorrow, so he really isn't bothered by anything. Just when Sam thinks she has the ice cream nailed down, she realizes that there's such a thing as frozen yogurt, and she asks what it is. I'm not sure what it is, but I do know that it's cursed, comes with a free topping, and that the topping contains sodium benzoate. Before Sam can learn any of these things for herself, the Go-Go's "We Got the Beat" starts to play on the radio, and she breaks down in tears. As Sam cries about the sad, sad song, Regina takes her hand and pulls her out of the shop.
It's still three days ago, and Sam is...walking down the sidewalk with Todd, telling him about the crying incident? There's no real reason for them to be together (since he dumped her, and is apparently dating another woman already), but I'd rather have the show give me no reason for their scenes together than a bad one, so this is some progress. Todd asks her what the song was, and she tells him she didn't catch the words. Um, doesn't that song only have about four words? She's trying to figure out what the song meant, and asks him if it might have been their song. Todd: "We didn't have a song. Every time I suggested one, you laughed at me and asked if I was on my period." Are you really supposed to suggest a song? Shouldn't it be a song that is playing at some important moment and has some emotional resonance? Sam calls herself a bad girlfriend, and expresses a fond hope that Todd is the only guy she was mean to. And just then a guy sees her, freaks out, and runs away screaming, dropping groceries all the way. Todd guesses that he was not, in fact, the only man she abused as Sam takes off running after the man, trying to find out who he is. He yells back that she's supposed to stay a thousand feet away. Todd: "Restraining order. Why didn't I think of that?" It's still not too late, Todd. Anyway, the guy is clearly not stopping, so Sam picks up an orange that he dropped, throws it, and knocks him off his feet. Leaving his groceries and an innocent bystander on the sidewalk, he gets up and runs off. Commercials.
Back in the car, Dena is complaining about how restraining orders are just so unfair. Sam agrees, wondering how you're even supposed to measure 1,000 feet. Dena: "Fourteen telephone poles."
It's now two days before the present, and Sam is Andrea's office, complaining that Andrea didn't think to tell her about the restraining order. Andrea actually has Sam's legal files in her office, because she represented her in the restraining order proceeding. Sam thanks her, but Andrea points out that she didn't do it for free. If Andrea were just a little smarter, she would claim that Sam still owes her money for the legal work. Sam wonders what kind of obsessive things she did to merit a restraining order, and is pretty surprised to see that her misdeeds included kidnapping his dog, waiting for him in his tanning bed, and stealing his clothes when he was in a store dressing room and making him come out in his underwear and talk to her. A little bit of Bad Sam creeps out as Sam starts giggling and decides the last one is kind of funny. However, Sam decides the restraining order is no laughing matter, especially since the new her is 100% less stalky. Well, make that about 50%, as she decides that she absolutely has to track him down to make him understand that she's not stalking him. So she distracts Andrea by throwing a stapler at her, grabs the file, and quickly memorizes the guy's number. (His name is Nathan, by the way.) As she leaves, Andrea points out that he's likely to have changed his number to avoid the crazed stalker.
Cut to Sam, standing outside Nathan's apartment door and begging him to speak to her. He refuses to open the door. After she begs and pleads, he tells her through the door that he guesses people can change and that he's very glad she came to speak to him. And as she gratefully accepts this quasi-forgiveness, we can see him (holding his dog) creeping out onto the fire escape and, um, escaping.
Back in the car, Dena tells Sam that she made an effort and that there's really no way to force Nathan to listen to her. Except that Sam had an idea. Cut to Nathan in a parking garage getting into his car. Sam pops up from the back seat and tells Nathan that running away from her was kind of rude. So, New Sam is 0% less stalky than Bad Sam. Nathan screams and wonders how she broke into his car. She seems pretty surprised to discover she had that ability as well. Anyway, Nathan is freaking out and trying to call a neighbor to check on his dog while Sam tries to explain the amnesia to him. He tells her, "Amnesia doesn't exist. It's just a cheap and lazy storytelling device." Oooo, very meta. I mean, Mehta. Zubin Mehta -- he always likes to make jokes about the music he's conducting. Sam explains the amnesia thing, and Nathan actually starts to believe that maybe she's really no longer a crazy stalker woman when a convertible pulls into the parking garage with "We Got the Beat" playing on the radio. Sam's sudden flood of tears undermines the calm, sane façade she's trying to project, and she runs away before Nathan calls the police or hits her with some pepper spray.
Back at home, Regina is sewing a quilt while Howard cleans his gun. Neither one of those things is a euphemism. Samantha has just told them the story, and Regina is just a little upset that Sam liked Nathan enough to stalk him but never introduced him to her parents. She also seems a little unclear on the fact that Todd has dumped Sam. Although I can't really blame her -- they spend more time together than I spend with my boyfriend. (Okay, he's not yet my boyfriend. But he hasn't gotten a restraining order yet, so that still puts me ahead of Sam.) Regina, depressed at the thought that Sam is so lousy at romance that she's never going to give her grandchildren, packs up her sewing and leaves. And then Sam and Howard talk, except that Sam is talking about her problems while Howard is talking about how much fun hunting is going to be, and neither listens to a word the other has to say.
Sam and Andrea are sitting at a table in a bar, talking about how hard it is for Sam to kick the stalking habit. Dena's voice pulls us back to the car, as she complains about Sam and Andrea going out for drinks without her. Sam reminds her that she was at swing dancing class, and cuts back to the bar scene. Sam says that she only stalked Nathan because she felt an overpowering compulsion to make him pay attention to her. Which is precisely the reason that Bad Sam stalked him. Andrea diagnoses Sam as having daddy issues. Which is an official diagnosis in the DSM-IV (or so I've read on the forums). Andrea thinks that Sam didn't get enough of daddy's love as a child, which is why she's so hungry for attention from men now. Oh my God, it's like looking into a mirror. Ahem. Sam thinks that Andrea's crazy, because she has a great relationship with her father. In fact, they just had a fantastic conversation in which he responded to not one thing she said. Sam doesn't want to have daddy issues, but Andrea thinks that being damaged and fucked up is how the two of them get men. Sam decides she's had enough damage, and runs away to find a gun because she's going to go hunting. Commercials.
Back in the car, Dena inexplicably screams at another driver. Sam decides to put the gun in the back seat to keep it away from Dena and her rage issues.
In the past, Howard and his ugly camouflage tip-toe into the kitchen, where Sam scares the hell out of him with a cup of coffee. She's dressed in camo pants and a lovely black tank top, and her hair is pulled back and looking very serious. And hot. She's kind of got an Aeryn Sun thing going on. Without the scary Australian accent. She explains that she's going hunting with him, and he emphatically tells her that she's not, and that while he'd be happy to spend time with her in the future, hunting is his time to be alone. He tells her to go back to bed, and she gives a fake yawn and runs away in a manner that is calculated to raise the maximum amount of suspicion.
In the driveway, Sam and her rifle sneak into the back seat of a car and hide. Howard walks out of the house, puts his gear in the trunk, gets in the car, and backs out. And just as I'm calling bullshit on him not seeing her as he turns around to back out, we see that Sam's hiding in the back of the wrong car. And maybe it's just because my righteous critical rage was interrupted, but I laughed out loud at that gag.
Sam has dragged Regina out of bed and is insisting that she take her to where Howard hunts. Regina thinks Sam will shoot her own leg off, but Sam claims that she's prepared, having bought a pretty new rifle and practiced at the shooting range. Not to mention watching The Deer Hunter, "which really wasn't very helpful at all. Have you heard of Vietnam? Do people know about that?" She did all that since leaving Andrea at the bar the night before? (Also, I'm glad to see that Sam still doesn't have her impulsive shopping under control.) Regina tries to dissuade Sam, but Sam really wants to connect with Howard. Regina: "You want to connect with someone? I'm right here. Connect with me." Sam thinks they connect enough, especially in light of the unfunny and highly doubtful incident in which Regina tried to do naked Tai Chi with Sam. Sam tells Regina that it's a one-hour drive to the lake where Howard hunts, and that she'll let Regina talk about whatever she wants to on the drive. Regina's not convinced, until she realizes the lake is near the outlet mall.
Sam and her camo and her bright orange safety vest run through the forest to Howard's hunting blind, which is really more of a cabin and not actually a blind at all. Howard's upset, but agrees to let Sam hunt with him. And of course, after about five seconds of being quiet and waiting for a deer, she starts talking and won't shut up. She yells at him for never talking to her or sharing a single feeling with her. And then her phone rings. It's Regina, calling to ask Sam and Howard questions about the clothes she wants to buy for them. Sam hangs up, the fight continues, and Sam runs off into the woods, yelling that she doesn't need anything from any man. When a shot rings out, she runs back to the blind for the one thing she does need -- her orange safety vest.
Dena's car has finally arrived at Cappy's sporting goods, where Sam is planning to return the pretty little rifle. But as she stands on the sidewalk ranting about how horrible all men are, she runs into Nathan. He sees his stalker with a rifle, screams, and runs. As everyone hits the deck, we hear distant sirens. Commercials.
And now Sam's in the police station, sitting with a row of juvenile delinquents. One little hoodlum asks Sam what she's in for, and she tells him she tried to win her father's love. She conveniently leaves out the rifle and the restraining order. He tells her that he broke into a car. She's thrilled to be able to tell him that she knows how to do that, and then quickly points out that she never actually would. Unless a man she wanted to speak with was in the car. A cop tells her that her ride is there.
Her ride is Howard, which pisses Sam off since she asked Regina to come get her. As Howard backs out of the parking space, he reminds her to put on her seatbelt. That was a perfect dad moment to capture. He asks her if she minds if he turns on the radio, and she gives him a sullen, "Whatever." He turns it on, and the song triggers a memory for her. Teenage Sam, not played by Christina Applegate, stands on the sidewalk in front of a salon with a really, really bad '80s haircut. I don't even have words to describe it, except to say that my stepsister and half the girls in my high school had that haircut in 1986, and I will probably have nightmares about it for the week. Teenage Sam is quite pissy with Howard, acting embarrassed to be seen with him and then complaining about her awful haircut. Except that she's just complaining about the bangs and not about the entire soul-destroying mess. (I'm serious -- that haircut is responsible for the first Gulf War.) She starts a high-pitched teenage whine about how awful her life is. And then "We Got the Beat" starts playing on the radio. Sam: "Oh. My. God. I hate this song, and I hate this car, and I hate your shirt, and I just..." She breaks down into tears while Howard wonders exactly what is wrong with his shirt. Back in the present, Sam realizes that she was kind of a horrible kid, and that she bears at least as much blame as Howard for the state of their relationship. Howard tells her that when she got all crazy and adolescent (which are usually the same thing, in my experience), he didn't know what to say to her anymore and just stopped saying anything. She tells him that she'll stop trying to make him be a different person if he'll agree not to give up on her.
Sam is back at Todd's, for no reason other than to tell him the story. He's making a sandwich, and she yells at him, "Will you put the baloney down, because I'm trying to tell you why I don't need attention from men anymore." The lesson he got from the story was that she was crying over a bad haircut.
Samantha leaves Todd's building so that Frank can have his weekly scene. He starts to hail a cab, but she tells him that she's actually going to meet her father. She asks him if he has kids, and he tells her he has a daughter. She asks him if he tells his daughter that he loves her, and he says he does, although he didn't that day because she was still asleep when he left for work. Howard walks up, and he and Sam sit on a bench right near the door of the building. He has ice cream for her -- mint chocolate chip. Frank sees their loving relationship and feels guilted into calling his daughter to tell her he loves her. And that's the end.