Sam's V.O. starts telling us about how the world is constantly sending you signals. Apparently, Sam's V.O. lives in the 19th century, because her signals seem to come from the telegraph. Or she lives in a gay porn movie, because the signal we see is a man fingering his own crotch. Oh, my mistake -- it's a baseball catcher. You can see how I'd get confused. In any case, Sam is actually flipping through her mail -- most of it is junk or past due bills, but there's one handwritten envelope that she seems happy to see. On freeze-frame, I can see that the return address is Todd's. She opens it up and pulls out an invitation to Todd's show at the Rawlston Gallery. (Also, Todd's last name is "Deepler." So if they ever get married, she can be Samantha Deepler Newly, or Samantha Newly Deepler. It's destiny.) Written on the invitation, in bright blue ink, is a single handwritten "Hey!" Sam is perplexed, and spends a few minutes trying to figure out if this means "Hey, I missed you" or "Hey, I had an extra invitation," or even "Hey' I'm having a show. Do not come." And then Regina walks up to her and says, "Hey, ever since I got hit by a car I talk to myself an awful lot." Sam wants to know how long Regina's been standing there. Regina tells her that she sometimes sneaks around and watches Sam, out of concern for her possible brain injury. Sam asks Regina if she should go to the show. Regina: "Oh sweetheart, you can't go. But you have to go." Sam: "Your brain damage is a little bit different than mine, isn't it." Regina thinks that whatever Sam does, it will send a message to Todd, and she needs to figure out what message she wants to send. Sam crumples up the invitation, and Regina grabs it back from her because she plans to go herself. Sam decides she won't go, but that she'll tell Todd why she's not going so he doesn't think it means anything other than that she's moving on with her life.
And here's Sam, pestering Frank to find out if Todd is on his way down from the apartment. For some reason, Todd and Chloe have let Sam know that she shouldn't really drop by the apartment, notwithstanding the fact that she owns it. Frank thinks that might just be because Sam tried to destroy Todd and Chloe's relationship. Sam: "I don't know, I'm not a mind reader." She tells him about the gallery invitation, and he tells her that he was also invited. But he won't be there, since he teaches comedy traffic school that night. Sam tells Frank that she won't be there because she's over Todd. Frank: "Or maybe you love him." Sam: "Stop it, shut up!" The elevator doors open, and Sam shouts at Todd (who's the only person in the elevator). As she runs towards him, he furiously pushes the button to close the doors. But she gets there in time, and they act surprised to see each other. She tells him she's there to discuss the invitation, and he tells her that Chloe found out he sent it and asked him to make sure Sam didn't show up since Chloe thinks she's not over Todd. Whether to demonstrate that she is over him or just because it would piss Chloe off if she came to the show, Sam tells him that she plans on coming and bringing her new boyfriend with her. She also tells him that his name is Rance. She walks away as the elevator doors close, and Frank asks her, "Rance?" Sam: "I know." Credits.
Here's my piece of advice for the show -- if your plot requires Sam to do something that was last seen being done by someone on The Brady Bunch or Three's Company, you should probably just skip it. This show is at its best when it forgets it's a sitcom and shows us these slightly insane people dealing with Sam's amnesia and its after-effects. It's at its worst when it dips into fifty years of sitcom cliché and pulls out an old chestnut like someone making up a boyfriend. And that's the end of my lecture.
Sam's at the coffee shop with Andrea. She's beating herself up for being so stupid. If she's going to do my job for me, I'll give her a break. She thinks she should make up a plausible reason why Rance had to miss the gallery show -- maybe he got called into surgery. Because he's a doctor now. Sam's plan is to go alone, but Andrea thinks she might as well just go with a million cats. Sam thinks that sounds dandy. And then we hear a deep manly voice telling us that we'd never catch him at an art show. Hey, it's Chase -- he's sitting at the table, making out with Dena. Yay! I'm so glad they didn't just dump that after one episode. He doesn't like art because "it makes me feel things. I don't like to feel things." Sam is grossed out by the tonsil hockey, but Chase tells her that since he's the boyfriend, she's going to have to learn to put up with it. Andrea is even more creeped out, but Sam tells her, "It's not happening if you don't look at it." Andrea: "Like poverty." Sam decides that she's attractive enough to find a hot guy to bring to the show in one day. Dena thinks that bringing a hot guy would send the message that she's trying to make Todd jealous, but Chase thinks that bringing a loser guy is just an invitation to other guys (like him) to hit on her. Dena tells him that she will kill Sam if he hits on her.
Sam, Andrea, and Dena walk down the street. Andrea's all about checking out the hot guys so she can club one over the head and drag him back to her cave. Dena thinks they need to find an average guy, and the best place to do that is a bookstore. Her suggestion is to find a guy who's reading Marley and Me, since that's a sign a guy has a soul. Andrea's disturbed at the idea of cruising a bookstore, and she thinks Sam should just go with a guy she knows who's a vicious art critic. Bringing him to the show would result in the destruction not only of Todd's emotional well-being but also of his career. Sam: "I don't want to destroy Todd." Andrea: "Well then I'm lost here." Sam runs into the store while Dena chats with Andrea and rubs it in that she's dating someone and Andrea's not.
In the store, Sam sees a relatively attractive man and pretends that she can't reach a book on the top shelf. He ignores her until she asks him for help. And then he tells her that he doesn't work there and walks away. Sam: "Well that's too bad, because it was a book on manners." Dena sticks her head around the corner and beckons to Sam, indicating through her gestures that she's found the single guy promised land. Of course, that promised land is filled with a bunch of overweight, out of style losers, because the other name for that promised land is the science fiction aisle. Sam gives them all the Vulcan peace sign and wanders off. She runs into a fairly attractive guy and asks him what he's reading. He wordlessly shows her the cover of his book, which is Controlling Your Anger. Sam wanders off before her too-cute antics cause him to lose control. She ends up casing the last display copy of Marley and Me, waiting for a guy to pick it up. Instead, a woman takes it. Sam asks her to please leave the book there, and they end up scuffling over it. Which ends with Sam being kicked out of the store.
Sam wanders out of the store to the sidewalk. She hears a guy cursing, and sees that he's trying to break into a car. (He's played by Jerry O'Connell, by the way. I just have to hope he left his kangaroo at home today.) His dry cleaning is sitting on the roof, and he's pulled apart a wire hanger to get the lock open. Sam tells him he's doing it all wrong with his thingie, and he blows her off, assuming she doesn't know what she's talking about. So (of course), she uses a different hanger to open the door on the other side, letting him into the car before he even realizes she was trying. He looks nonplussed at having been beaten, so she asks him if he likes photography.
And we're cutting right to gallery show. Regina and Howard are there. She's thrilled to be hanging out with all these city people: "I bet someone here's a bisexual." Howard is unimpressed with the art. He wants to be challenged, and Todd's inoffensive black and white pictures of the city really aren't making him think as much as he feels he should after paying $12 for parking.
Sam walks in and finds Jerry O'Connell hanging out in a green pullover sweater. He asks her if he dressed the way she wanted him to, since her request for "casual average" left him a little confused. She approves, and takes him by the arm in a rather familiar manner and leads him on to the pictures.
Chloe is chatting with someone when she looks over to the side and gets a concerned look on her face. She walks over to Todd and whines about Sam being there. Todd agrees that it's awkward, but notes that there's not much he can do about it since it's his first gallery show. Chloe, not really picking up on the fact that Todd is the guest of honor at his own show, suggests that they just leave to avoid Sam.
Howard continues to criticize the pictures until he sees something that grabs his attention. Regina thinks that this would be the one he likes, since it's of a naked woman. We can see her from the shoulders down, lolling about on a bed and covering her naughty bits with her hands. Howard thinks it's not because she's naked but because there's a certain intimacy to the photo. Regina goes on about artists getting models drunk and having sex with them (calling on Titanic as her evidence), and then notices a mole on the model's thigh. She tells Howard that the naked woman in the photo is his daughter.
Andrea walks by Sam and Jerry and Sam runs over to speak with her. Andrea approves of the hotness of Jerry, thinking that it will kill Todd. Sam thinks that if Todd is dead, he won't be able to notice how over him she is. Andrea doesn't really care -- she just wants Todd to pay in one way or another, so she went ahead and brought the vicious art critic to the show as her date. He wanders into the shot and complains about how the cheese isn't artisanal and then strolls off to savage the pictures. After the critic leaves, Andrea notes that Jerry looks kind of familiar. Sam freaks out, thinking that Andrea might have slept with him. Andrea: "Oh please, he's wearing a Swatch." Heh. And then Sam wonders where Dena is. Andrea innocently tells Sam that she gave Dena the address herself, so she has no idea where she might have gone.
And here's Dena wandering into a different gallery in which all of the walls are painted black. There's nobody else there except for a guy in a green body suit crouching down in a clear plexiglass box. Hanging over the box are the words "This Is Art." She says hello to him, and he shouts back, "It's limiting, it's confining, this is art!" She asks him if she's found the right gallery -- but whatever she says, he just shouts back another phrase about the constraints of art. And that's when Dena realizes that Andrea sent her to the wrong place.
Back at the gallery, Andrea is hoping that Dena didn't get lost. And then Jerry comes along and offers to take Sam's coat to the coat check. Sam thinks that sounds great, but she wants him to take her coat off of her at the exact moment that Todd is looking at her. Unfortunately, this results in her purse getting caught in the sleeve of the coat. They play tug of war with the purse until Sam has a flashback.
Bad Sam and Dena walk through the park at night. Sam is talking about how she's glad she slept with some girl's boyfriend since she was wearing such a trashy ankle bracelet. And then some guy runs up and snatches Sam's purse. She fights him over it since she just bought it. The guy is, if you haven't guessed, Jerry. Sam's not letting go until he tells her that he thought she was older. Calling her age into question causes her to lose her grip, and he runs off with the purse. She's pissed off, but Andrea's even more upset, since she had plans to borrow that purse.
Back in the gallery, Jerry has finally gotten Sam's coat off her. She snatches back her purse as he walks off to the coat check. Commercials.
Sam's talking to Andrea -- she can't believe she brought a mugger to Todd's show. Andrea: "Bad boys are hot. This'll kill Todd." Sam's worried that her mugger might just kill Todd. Her plan is to get him out of the gallery and then call the police when there's nobody around to be embarrassed in front of. Andrea: "It's gonna be hard to hear; you're probably not having sex tonight."
Sam leads Jerry towards the exit, explaining that they're actually on a scavenger hunt. The first thing to get was a glass of cheap wine from a gallery opening, and the thing is a policeman's cap. And then they run into Chloe and Todd. Sam acts completely stupid, and it's too embarrassing for me to describe. Let's just say that she conspicuously refers to Jerry as her "lovah" to make Todd jealous. Chloe's not buying it. Sam pulls Jerry away so they can go look at some more pictures.
Jerry is sensing that something is wrong, based partly on the fact that Todd and Chloe kept calling him "Rance." Now I know why he's called the smarter O'Connell brother. He asks Sam if she's mad at him, and she tells him that she remembers him snatching her purse. Sam: "So what do you have to say about that?" Jerry: "It's possible." Sam was all geared up to respond to a denial; she needs time to think of what to say now that he's admitted it.
Back at the crazy downtown gallery, the box man is continuing with his shtick while Dena complains about how badly Andrea treats her. She keeps cutting him off until he gets sick of it and breaks character, yelling at her to please shut up. He angrily gives her the address to the real gallery, and she sweetly thanks him as she leaves.
Sam and Jerry are sitting on a bench. He's just told her that he woke up one day and decided to stop mugging people. Although his real motivation was that Sam held on to her purse so tightly that he wrenched his shoulder, putting a crimp on his snatching activities. He expects her not to believe that he's changed, but as he gets up to leave she tells him that she does believe people can change if they want to. So she asks him if he'd like to stick around with her at the opening. He seems happy, even after she ruins the moment by asking if it was his car that she helped him break into.
And here's Howard, standing in front of the sexy picture of Sam and shepherding people (especially men) past it so they won't see it. The critic comes along and calls the photo transcendent, causing Howard to threaten him with a punch in the nose. Regina can't believe what Howard is doing. Howard: "I protected her body on her prom night and I'm going to protect her now." Regina starts to tell him that he didn't do such a good job of protecting her on her prom night, and then thinks better of it.
And now we see Chloe and Sam each fakely laughing at their respective dates' non-jokes. Jerry leaves to get her some more wine, and Andrea runs up to ask why Jerry is still there. Sam tells her that it would be pretty hypocritical of her not to give a guy a chance when he's trying to change. And then a burglar alarm goes off and Sam starts screaming that her date is a thief. But it turns out he's just a guy like dear old dad, because Howard is the one who set off the alarm when he tried to take down the picture of Sam. Jerry returns in time to hear Sam outing him to the world, and he hands her a glass of wine and walks away. Commercials.
Sam is running after Jerry, trying to get him to forgive her. But he thinks it's probably better if he dates people he hasn't robbed. He leaves, and Sam notes that he never did apologize for stealing her purse. And then Regina and Howard walk up to the coat check. Regina is mortified that her family embarrassed her in front of the entire Chicago art world. Regina leaves, and Sam commiserates with Howard, calling it "a pretty humiliating night for both of us." Howard: "No, just you."
A gallery worker is rehanging the naked picture of Sam while Chloe yells at Todd for including it in the show. He tells her that he was just trying to sell the picture so he could buy her a present. She tells him to shut up, because it's painfully obvious that he still wants Sam. He denies it, but she thinks that if he really didn't care about Sam he'd have a naked picture of Chloe up instead. That logic is escaping me, but it's apparently enough to set her on a rant that ends up with her ripping open her shirt and flashing her breasts to the world. That was kind of tired, but I did like how they added in the sound of her buttons hitting the floor. Chloe realizes what she's done, covers herself up, and leaves.
Sam is sitting on a bench staring at the picture of herself. Todd joins her, and asks, "You brought a mugger to my show?" Sam: "Yeah, I was going to bring a serial killer, but his van broke down." Heh. Sam admits that she's not actually dating Jerry, and then points out that Todd was kind of stupid for including the picture in the show. He tells her it's his best picture, and he wanted people to see it. Sam notices that there's a red dot on it; she's not happy at the thought of someone buying the picture. Todd tells her that nobody bought it -- he put the dot on it so nobody would, because he decided he didn't really want anyone else to own the picture. And then they both realize that they still have feelings for each other. But it's less of a happy moment and more of an "uh oh" moment.
An angry Dena pushes her way into the gallery. She sees Andrea, who tells her that she missed all the fun. Dena tells her that she brought her own fun. Dena's fun is Chase, who's pretty much everybody's fun. But he's especially fun right now -- he tells Andrea to come to work early in the morning so he can show her the new office he's picked out for her. It's ever so convenient to the copy machine. Dena and Chase walk away, and Andrea follows after: "Okay, so you don't like practical jokes. It's good to know, that's how a friendship grows."
Todd laughs at the sight of Andrea getting hoisted by her own petard. He offers to walk Sam to the door. Her V.O. tells us that while some signals are open to interpretation, others (like her ex-boyfriend putting a sold sticker on the nude picture of her) are crystal clear. Todd asks Sam if she has her valet ticket. She reaches for it in her purse, and accuses Jerry of having stolen her wallet... until she finds it and realizes she's being an idiot. Credits.