A deliveryman exits the elevator at Sam's office. He's walking in slow-mo, which made me think he might be carrying a bomb, or that he was about to engage in some Tarantino-style carnage, but he's actually just delivering some roses. Sam's V.O. tells us, "Flowers give every woman a taste of amnesia." 'Cause girls are stupid. Or rather, as Sam tells us, because they get all giddy and excited when they see the flowers coming and totally forget that their boyfriends or spouses are way too loutish and crude ever to think of something as sweet and romantic as sending them flowers. The delivery guy is still talking to people (in slow motion) to find out where the flowers go when Tracy (Sam's scared bunny of an assistant) runs off the elevator, panicked that Sam might have beaten her to the office.
Tracy, holding a cup of coffee in her hand, runs into Sam's office and is terrified when she sees that Sam is there ahead of her. Apparently, the coffee shop was out of the special variety that Sam likes, so Tracy had to drive across town to get it. As Tracy whimpers on, clearly expecting a beating, Sam tries to explain to her that she's no longer the same evil person who cut Tracy's bangs against her will, forced her to break up with her boyfriend, and, apparently, beat her. Sam suggests that they "forget about the whole 'boss, assistant' thing." Tracy: "You're firing me?" I would expect her to be happy at that thought, since she could get away from Sam and collect unemployment while she heals from her obvious psychic wounds, but she sounds upset. Sam's not firing her -- she'd just rather they treat each other more like girlfriends. Just then, the delivery guy enters with the roses, which are obviously for Sam. Sam's thrilled, but Tracy sees the roses and freaks out, leaping at the deliveryman and yanking all of the baby's breath out of the bouquet. Sam yells at her to stop, and then sternly orders her to come to Sam. She holds out her hands and tells Tracy to give her a hug. With obvious fear in her eyes, Tracy does so -- and then has a cathartic breakthrough while her arms are wrapped around Sam's waist, requiring Sam to forcibly extricate herself. Sam takes the roses and leaves Tracy to cry in her office.
In the hallway, Andrea sees Sam with the roses, but is upset when she hears that they came from Kevin (a.k.a. Hot Eddie Cibrian), whom she calls "the lumberjack." Sam walks to the kitchen to put the roses in water while Andrea grills her about the sex she must be having with Kevin. Sam is confused at first, and then faintly offended, because the idea of sex is obviously repulsive to a young woman of good breeding. When Andrea hears that they haven't had sex despite having been dating for two weeks, she decides that Kevin is a gay lumberjack. Just like Paul Bunyan. Sam reads the card that came with the flowers, and realizes that the embarrassing bit of doggerel written by Kevin is communicating his plan to deflower her after their date that evening. You know what that means, don't you? Shirtless Eddie Cibrian.
Dena and Sam (the latter carrying the roses in a large vase) enter the Newly home. Dena is very excited about Sam's impending sexification; in fact, the only person she thinks is more deserving of having sex with a hot lumberjack than Sam is herself. They enter the kitchen, where Regina is sitting at the table painting a ceramic chicken. (I love the completely unexplained fixation Sam's parents seem to have with poultry. On any other show, they would be making jokes about it -- here, they're content just to leave it in the background. I don't always love this show, but I do love that they're willing to abandon the formulaic, Two And A Half Men-style joke-a-minute crap that has been the staple of too many sitcoms for too many years.) Regina is very excited by the roses -- especially when she considers that she can use them to make Howard feel guilty for not getting her any flowers. And she's even more excited when she learns that the flowers are from Kevin, since it was entirely her idea to get Kevin and Sam together. Sam: "Yes, Mother. You set us up. If it wasn't for you, I would be nothing." Regina: "Oh, honey, don't be silly, you wouldn't be nothing. You'd just be less." As Regina starts planning which preschool Sam and Kevin's kids will attend, Sam tells her to slow down, since she's clearly not in love with him after three dates.
Regina leaves Sam and Dena in the laundry room. Sam is going through some just-cleaned laundry, looking for some lingerie to wear. Dena tells her that since it's the first time she's going to have sex with Kevin, "don't you think your carpet should match your drapes?" Did Sam forget that she's not a natural blonde? Sam has no idea what that expression means, and neither does Dena -- she thinks it means that Sam's bra and panties should match. All of Sam's matching lingerie is still wet. Faced with the choice of driving to Todd's to look through her clothes there or borrowing her mother's leopard-print underwear, Sam decides to take a drive.
Sam is pawing through a drawer filled with delicates when Todd sneaks up on her and asks what she's doing there. So, you know, Sam's all worried that his feelings will be hurt when he learns that she's going to have sex with another dude, and he's kind of worried that his current girlfriend will think he's a secret cross-dresser if Sam walks away with the set of his girlfriend's lingerie that she's holding in her hand. Sam is wondering what another woman's drawers are doing in her drawer. Todd doesn't point out that his rent includes the use of all drawers; instead, he just tells her that his girlfriend was spending so much time there that it made sense to give her a drawer. Although, Todd, you're supposed to give her a drawer of yours, not a drawer belonging to your ex-girlfriend who still keeps her underwear in your bedroom. Also, what kind of low self-esteem does Todd's girlfriend have if she's willing to hang out in a place filled with the clothes of Todd's ex?
Cut to Sam and Kevin bursting into the door of his bedroom while furiously making out. He asks her how to get her dress off, and she freaks out. And then she remembers that she's going to have to get naked to have the sex. Well, that's one way of doing it. Sam demonstrates that she's suffering from serious brain damage as she asks Kevin to turn out the lights before he gets naked.
Cut to a post-coital Sam, lying open-eyed to a sleeping Kevin. I'm sorry, I meant to say a sleeping shirtless Kevin. Thanks, show! Sam quietly picks up the phone, dials, and says, "Dena, guess what? I'm in love." Oh man, it's 1986 in Brazil all over again. Credits.
Regina is sitting at the kitchen counter knitting when Sam comes in. Regina is worried sick about Sam, while Sam is radiant with the glow of having had sex with Eddie Cibrian. Her happiness convinces Regina that she's whacked out on extacy. Sam thanks Regina for fixing her up with Kevin and gives her an enthusiastic hug, making me think that Sam is high. Regina starts to tell Sam all the plans she's made for her life with Kevin, and Sam interrupts her to declare that she's in love.
Office elevator. Andrea is telling Sam (who has two cups of coffee in her hands) that she's not in love -- she's just confused by the thrill of sex. Sam won't listen to her, and hands a cup of coffee to Tracy as she passes her desk. (Tracy: "Thanks, sweetie." Heh.) Andrea continues to explain to Sam how all people think they're in love the first time they have sex. Andrea finds time in her rant to ask if she really just saw Sam bring coffee to her own secretary. Just then, Tracy pops in to tell Sam that she's sneaking out to buy some boots. Sam tells her to have fun, and Andrea is totally nonplussed: "Okay, don't take this the wrong way, but parts of this new Sam make me really hate you." Sam cuts her off to ask her whether she realized there was a website where you could send someone a little bear. Andrea runs away from the unironic cuteness as Sam threatens to send her a bear. I almost think that was a Bad Sam sighting.
Eddie Cibrian is lying in bed on his stomach, with the top of the sheet just resting at the curve where his back turns into his butt. I could live in that curve. He's woken up by the sound of Sam opening and closing drawers. She's realized that he has a drawer that's practically unused, what with being full of nothing but socks. And then she invites herself into his drawers. I mean, into his drawer, singular -- she suggests that he give her a drawer. Oh, Sam. She leaves to pick out a coffee mug in the kitchen, and Kevin gets a panicked look in his eye.
Todd's apartment. Sam is stuffing a suitcase full of clothes when Todd sneaks up behind her again and startles her. He asks if she's finally getting her clothes, but this tiny suitcase is only big enough to hold some of them. Todd is surprised to hear that Sam already has a drawer at Kevin's. He thinks he should give her some advice as a friend, since they decided to be friends; Sam interrupts to tell him, "I do think on some level we were just saying that to keep from being hurt." Todd: "I wasn't." Sam, much too quickly: "Neither was I." Anyway, Todd thinks things are moving too fast with Kevin, and he's worried that Sam is going to smother him -- perhaps literally, given her history. Sam rejects this wisdom and staggers off with the overstuffed suitcase, rejecting the further sound advice that she use the wheels on the suitcase.
And now we're at a bar, where Kevin breaks up with Sam. Which is totally obvious to everyone watching the scene, but absolutely not obvious to Sam, who has forgotten everything she ever knew about human interaction. Commercials.
Sam is at her desk, crying and begging Andrea to teach her how to be dead inside. Well, she's come to the expert, I'll give her that. Sam is doing all the things a sixteen-year-old does when she gets dumped -- blaming herself, questioning her own desirability, making a creepy card for the dumper covered with photos of the two of them in happier times. Actually, that sounds like what I do when I get dumped. Except for the card. (Well, okay, but it was just that one time.) Of course, Sam doesn't have any pictures of her and Kevin, so she cut his head off the picture on his business card and glued them onto pictures of her. Andrea is freaked out, and drags Sam away from her desk and out of her office, offering to pick up a bottle of wine and get her drunk. Sam reminds Andrea that she can't drink because she's an alcoholic. Tracy -- sitting at her desk with her feet up, ordering something out of a catalogue -- tells her, "No, babe, you're not." It turns out a judge made Sam go to an A.A. meeting after she got drunk before a flight and caused a commotion on the plane. Sam realizes this must mean that she's afraid to fly, but Tracy tells her that she's only afraid to fly in Coach: "You even forced me to come along to serve you drinks so you'd feel like you were in First Class." Hey, I like that idea. I wonder if my secretary would go for it? But the best news that Sam gets out of all of this is that she's not an alcoholic, so she can go to Andrea's and self-medicate with booze. Just like an alcoholic.
Sam is at Andrea's, singing along to "I Will Survive" as Andrea and Dena look on. So she's moved on from the reaction a sixteen-year-old would have to getting dumped to the reaction a twenty-one-year-old would have. It's like watching the Seven Ages of Man. Sam is in love with the song, and decides that Gloria Gaynor was looking straight into her soul. And then she uses the remote to play the song again. Andrea: "Oh, my God, I will be so happy when you finally re-experience everything and the spark of wonder goes dark in your eyes again." Sam throws herself on the couch and announces how happy she is to be spending time with her two best girlfriends. And her mother, because Regina is also there, making catty (drunken) remarks to Andrea. Sam toasts to forgetting the son of a bitch, and then gets upset when Dena calls Kevin a son of a bitch, asking her why she would say such a thing. Dena: "I think I heard it somewhere." Regina throws herself a pity party about how Kevin has ruined all her plans for Sam's future, most of which seem to have involved purchasing vacation homes Regina and Howard could use. Sam tells her that the breakup was Sam's fault, since she's unlovable. Regina, Andrea, and Dena all try to convince her that she's not unlovable, since they all love her. And Dena reminds Sam that Todd loved her. Sam gets a hopeful look on her face.
Drunk Sam is standing on the sidewalk outside Todd's apartment building, screaming his name. Doesn't she have a key? Frank is standing by the door, watching Sam yell. He tells her, "It might interest you to know, this isn't even close to the most embarrassing thing I've seen you do on this sidewalk." Heh. He asks her why she's screaming, and she tells him that she wants Todd. Frank: "The 'who' is no longer a secret to anyone on this side of the lake." He wants to know why she's screaming his name. It's because she needs to know if Todd really loved her. Frank takes pity on the neighbors and drags Sam off to get some coffee. As they walk away, she drunkenly tells him the good news that she's no longer an alcoholic. And then she falls over. Commercials.
Sam and Frank are in a coffee shop, where she's telling him the story of Kevin. She tells him that she's never going to fall in love again. Frank knows, as do we, that she will fall in love again and will get her heart broken again. Because otherwise, the show would get kind of boring. Frank tells her that whatever happens, she'll survive. Sam: "Oh my God, you speak the words of Gloria." Frank tells her that he karaokes with his wife, and Sam gets emotional at the thought that Frank has someone who loves him. She cries, and Frank tells her, "Someone once said, 'The joy in life is not in hearing the words "I love you," but in being lucky enough to say them.'" Sam asks who said these beautiful words. Frank: "The lead character in my screenplay." Ha! Frank tells her that some people never express their love. Sam wonders what kind of freak wouldn't be able to express love. And then she has a flashback.
Bad Sam is applying false eyelashes in the bathroom while Todd stands in the door and acts like a big girl, asking Sam if they live together. She tells him they don't, because even though he has a drawer and a third of the closet, he's not paying half the mortgage. Todd agrees that's never happening, but he does ask if it's okay if he keeps hanging out and sleeping in her bed every night. Sam: "If you stopped, I'd kill you." Todd: "I love you, too." Bad Sam gives him a not entirely Bad look.
Good (drunk) Sam is wondering if she might have never told Todd she loved him.
Cut to Sam standing outside the door of Todd's apartment, screaming his name. He throws open the door, and she asks him, "Did I ever tell you that I loved you?" It turns out she didn't, although she did leave malicious graffiti to that effect on his car. Sam tells him that she wants him to know that she did love him, and she wants to pretend that it's the past so that she can tell him that she loves him. "Then. Not now." And with that, she wanders away. Todd goes back into his apartment, where his poker buddies all make fun of Sam for her declaration (which they overheard). Todd, clearly hurt, tells them to shut up.
Sam walks out of the building and tells Frank that she expressed the hell out of her love. She's decided that, from now on, she'll only tell guys she loves them after she doesn't actually love them anymore. That sounds a lot better than my plan of telling guys I love them before I've even met them. Sam is about to make an exception to her policy of only telling men she loves them until after she doesn't by telling Frank...something. But he shuts her the hell up before she embarrasses us all.
Sam exits the elevator at work, while her V.O. tells us that love is a battlefield and hell is for children and we belong, etc., etc. The trick is finding the balance between being dead inside and being too open. And then Sam proceeds to yell at Tracy for slacking off and not doing her job. As Sam walks into her office, she almost looks resigned to being Bad Sam. And then she runs back to Tracy and tells her that she meant to yell at her with a "please" and a "thank you." Which is really all any abused underling can hope for.