Season 1, Episode 14: Burrito Kings

Happy three months!  To the friend I said suck it to a couple weeks ago, double suck it.  In blog news, I’m going to put up a FAQ eventually.  It’s going to address why I know my episode titles aren’t necessarily the same thing as other people call them as.  The titles that people go with, in all fairness, tend to be the production titles, and I should probably be just like everyone else.  But then I wouldn’t be special.

Anyway, I hate this episode.  It’s not even the one I completely loathe.  I just find it to be uninspired filler and I’m 32% sure that a later episode will heavily borrow this storyline and “re-purpose” it.  I mean, Vicki Goodwrench and SuperSuds are the same episode, different device, and that’s off the top of my head.  It’s not like they only did that once.  And this is coming from a 30-year-old woman who admits she could never hate Small Wonder – as a series, of course.  Individual episodes can have individual opinions assigned to them.  Anyway, I guess I should get it over with.  I think the rest of the season is down right tolerable.

So we start with Vicki watering the plants, and Joan enters the room and makes sure to point out the ones Vicki missed.  Damn, Joan drank the Vicki slave Kool-Aid hard, and I don’t even know what pushed her over the edge – the technically knowing she can get a real job and leave this loser family, or Vicki actually acting like a little girl.  Ted comes home and Joan demands a kiss, which she gets.  Of course, Vicki is in the room and loves attention, especially if it’s positive, so she wants a kiss, too.  Ted, of course, isn’t a big Vicki fan, so he says no because you don’t kiss robots.  Vicki says “It couldn’t hurt,” and Ted somehow misses that this is an ominous warning.  If the robot wants you to love it, you love it.  Then when they take over, they spare you.  This is like, genre savvy 101 stuff.

Joan mentions her friend from New York wrote, and Ted uses this as a set up for a sex joke.  Sex jokes are definitely making it into the Small Wonder drinking game.  Joan finally admits that she wants a career instead of being a housewife.  Ted says she could be a teacher, which is actually supportive.  Joan really isn’t that into being a teacher, which makes me wonder why that was the career she was going after in college.  After some good natured misogyny, Joan admits that she wants to be a sales lady at a fashion boutique, and Ted’s like, “I don’t care, if you want a job, get one.  I’m supportive this episode.”  Then Joan wonders about how the cooking and housework would get done and Ted’s like, “Um, slave child, standing ten feet from you.  Remember?”  Ted says that Vicki’s probably trained from sitting around watching TV all day, and I’m wondering if I’m watching an alternate universe Small Wonder.  Vicki’s probably trained from being a slave all day.  Ted gets Vicki started immediately, even though Joan doesn’t have a job yet.  It’s probably because of how much they hate each other.  Joan asks if Ted really doesn’t mind, and he makes yet another sex joke.  Oh my gosh, guys, if we were playing the drinking game with this episode, we might die.

Jamie walks in while Joan and Ted are kissing and he makes a sex joke.  We are nowhere near the actual plot yet, and that’s three sex jokes.  Anyway, they greet Jamie while still attached at the lips and don’t bother stop going at it in front of their kid.  Wow, Joan is really grateful to be freed from that kitchen!  Ted has never been a good father, so, yeah, I can imagine he wouldn’t stop trying to get it on just because his child is watching.  Jamie starts bragging about a bike a neighbor kid got, and Jamie wanting something is a mood killer.  They tell Jamie to get a job because screw child labor laws, that 11-year-old needs to earn his keep.  I mean, I get saying to earn the money yourself, because I washed cars and raked leaves for cash when I was a kid, but he’s 11 – like, what, he’s just going to show up at McDonald’s and get minimum wage? 

After revealing to Jamie that Joan is getting a job, too, he worries about whose doing the cooking, and he’s relieved that it’s going to be Vicki and not Ted.  Again, seriously, when in the hell has Ted ever cooked anything?  He is alpha as shit – he won’t even take out the trash.  I can’t imagine him ever cooking, ever.  I don’t think he ended up cooking that one time they implied he did a couple episodes ago.  I think he got Vicki to do it.  I can’t prove it, but this is Small Wonder – that’s probably exactly what happened.

The next day, Joan is all nervous about her first day on the job and is trying to make breakfast at the same time.  Ted’s like, “Sit the fuck down, relax, and let our slave handle things.”  Vicki’s such a complete slave they plug appliances into her at the table.  We’ve seen the blender plugged into her before, but man… this is a new low.  Plus, I’m starting to realize we’re pretty far into an episode about burritos and nobody has ever even mentioned the word burrito.  This is bullshit.  Joan leaves for her job, but for some reason is worried about dinner at breakfast time.  Vicki’s like, “Don’t worry, I got this.”  I guess she’s remembering the good times from before Joan was as bossy as the rest of them, like that adorable time they made cookies together.

When Joan comes home, she reveals that she sold herself two dresses at work in the first hour, which… is horrible.  I mean, that’s what pay day is for.  Anyway, Jamie says he’s been helping Vicki, which is suspicious, but he’s wearing an apron and everything, so I trust him.  He’s also invited Reggie over for dinner, and Ted’s like “careful Reggie doesn’t get suspicious!”  Dude, seriously, Reggie so figured that shit out a long time ago, he just doesn’t want you to find out.

No surprise, Vicki made burritos for dinner.  The kids set the table up nice and everything, which is sweet.

Then Vicki did this to Ted, which is awesome.  I love their dynamic now.  The burritos are a smash hit, but it turns out Vicki’s made a few extra – like, 62 extra.  After dinner, Reggie says they should do the dishes so they can do their homework, and Jamie’s like, “Fuck this we shit, get on it Vicki.”  Reggie calls Jamie out on pushing his sister around, and Jamie says that detergent turns Vicki on.  Um… there’s so much wrong with that.

Anyway, we know that Vicki actually hates doing the dishes and rebels in her own Vicki way.  Reggie decides they should help Vicki anyway because he’s not an asshole, and Jamie gives in.  Reggie wonders what’s going to happen to the 62 extra burritos, and Jamie says he’ll give them away, but quickly changes his mind because of how good they are.  Vicki believes Jamie wants to eat 62 burritos himself, and Reggie makes a fart joke.  At least it’s not a sex joke.  Fart jokes are fine for 11 year olds.  Sex jokes… can wait at least two years, right?  Anyway, Jamie reveals he’s going to sell the burritos.  Jamie and Reggie become 75/25 partners, and Reggie feels ripped off.  Reggie feels ripped off?  Vicki made the burritos and she’s not getting a cut!

So, while Vicki’s home alone the next day, she does some housework.  Then, Reggie and Jamie come home from school and Reggie and Vicki start flirting with each other.  Not even kidding.  I know I ship Jamie and Harriet hard, but this… was adorable.  Jamie tells Reggie to get over himself because Vicki just overheard it on television.  Seriously, how much TV does everyone think she’s watching?  Slaves don’t get a lot of downtime – and when they do, it’s to sleep in their cabinets.  And then Jamie makes Vicki clean the kitchen.  First he cockblocks his friend, then Jamie tells Vicki she’s not being a good enough slave.  He has serious problems.  Vicki agrees to clean, but not without commenting on how much she hates her life.

It turns out that the burritos sold out fast because Jamie and Reggie sold them for a dime a piece.  They think they’ll be rich in no time, and Jamie quips that they can even hire someone to go through puberty for them.  That’s half a sex joke, for those who have decided to risk their liver on a drinking game anyway.  Harriet comes over, and not for normal Harriet reasons.  She heard about the burritos at school and wants to buy one, but the boys are sold out.  Harriet threatens Reggie with fists and everything!  It’s an adorable little psycho moment.  In all fairness, Reggie did take her dime.  It turns out, however, buying a burrito wasn’t all Harriet had in mind, and Jamie makes another sex joke.  Oh, my, gosh.  This is a show children watch.  Harriet means business, however, and wants to franchise and sell burritos to her classmates; the boys decide to cut her in for a penny a burrito.  Jamie decides that they should call their business IBM – International Burrito Makers – and then it turns out that he and Reggie have a secret handshake?  That’s a first.

The boys come home from school loaded (as in cash, not loaded like you drinking game players are), and I’m wondering like how many days long this episode is.  It’s been like five different days already.  Sitcoms are not supposed to cram one week into one episode. Anyway, that night for dinner, Vicki is making chocolate chip pizza.  She has just given up.  Well, Jamie reveals that a diner has put in a big order, so the boys will have to make burritos after the parents go to sleep.  Are they selling burritos or drugs?  Why so much secrecy?

The kids make an assembly line to make burritos, but Vicki turns out to be the slowest at folding them.  Irony?  Harriet smells the burritos and gets hungry, so she comes over, and they end up making her help.  Ted hears the kids, though, and decides he’s going to beat them to death with a golf club for waking him up.  Or he thinks they’re a burglar – I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d known it was the kids the whole time.  He is a bit of a sociopath.

When the kids get caught, Vicki decides they’re either in trouble, or they have two more workers available.  See, she really is a normal kid.  These are kid conclusions.  When the Lawsons lay into them, Harriet tries to play it off like she has no idea what was going on.  Vicki and Jamie live there, and Reggie was spending the night – she’s the only one who actively had to come over.  At least she doesn’t pretend to be fake sleepwalking.  After finding out about the business, Ted finds out that Jamie’s been undercharging, but decides to roll with it – since they bought everything anyway, they’ll make twice as many burritos and raise the price.  That was actually logical.

And that’s it.  It took them forever to even mention burritos and then it’s over out of nowhere, but they managed to cram in like 4 or 5 sex jokes.  There are worse episodes, but this one is still pretty pointless.

Firsts: Jamie and Reggie’s secret handshake