Well, car rides never accomplish anything for the Heck family, and just driving around because you can, in a poor attempt to bond is a sure fire way to get your whole family angry at you.
For whatever reason, Axl (Charlie McDermott) has another break from school, and he and Sue (Eden Sher) get into a nasty fight about a sombrero that Mike (Neil Flynn) obtained from Gaitlenburg, though who knows why Mike went there without the rest of his family. Each say some crap about the other and Frankie (Patricia Heaton) is in the middle of it. Sure, she thinks Sue is acting crazy about something so little and petty but Axl is also being a huge jerk, refusing to simply drive up and look for it in his messy apartment. She just wishes that they would get along. But she foolishly takes Mike's advice and informs Axl that Sue is just relentless, which she absolutely is, but you can't say that. Of course, Axl agrees and turns around and tells Sue anyway. Naturally, Sue is furious and determined to prove Frankie wrong and starts writing down one hundred reasons why she is not relentless.
Frankie turns around and attempts to make her feel better and says that Axl is a jackass. Again, basically the same thing happens, she agrees with Frankie and when Axl returns home, she tries to rub the insult in his face. It ends badly, with both kids being mad at each and livid at Frankie, slamming their respective doors in her face as she tries in vain to mend fences.
Now, you might be wondering why Sue even needs that sombrero? She and Brad (J. Brock Ciarlelli) are planning on taking a senior picture on the cow of Orson. They need the sombreros because it is Senor Cow as it is their senior year. They are smart at the beginning, bringing a ladder and setting a timer on the camera, but it takes several attempts for the timer to get them at the right moment but Sue is foolish, not wanting the ladder to appear in the final picture so she kicks it out of the way, not figuring that they would need it to climb down. Which leaves them no choice but to call in reinforcements. For whatever reason, in order to finish out the plot and fix things, Axl is the only one available. He rescues them, only after insisting that they pay him.
Fortunately, he won't make Sue pay those ten bucks she promised him for his rescue. He feels bad because he believes that Frankie doesn't have an identity outside of being a mother and Sue laments that next year, she will only have Brick (Atticus Shaffer) to mother. Axl takes some pity on her and decides he will occasionally pick Sue up and take her home on the weekends so Frankie can get that mothering gene in her some time to do its thing. Sue is pleasantly pleased that Axl will actually see her on campus and he grudgingly admits that he does know a bunch of stuff about the campus, so yes, he just might help her out from time to time.
Frankie tries to have the last word, saying that she just wants them to get along and how stupid they are for the constant arguing. Mike is sick of hearing it and follows his own crappy advice, saying something fairly cruel about Frankie.
Brick gets the short end of the stick with a horrible plot line. He receives the award for being the student in the area of physical education, and Mike tries to get him involved in sports. It fails because, as it turns out, Brick's gym locker partner wears Brick's gym shorts and Brick wears his. This partner is a good athlete and as the teacher doesn't know names, Brick's shorts actually won the award.
This episode didn't do much for me. Sure, the ladder thing was hilarious, and Mike's line about finding nothing funny was great, this was only a mediocre episode for me. I normally love Sue and like her relentless spirit but she was just way too annoying this time, lacking her normal sympathy. And Frankie was also annoying, though not much more than normal. But I hated Brick's plot, plus they had already done something roughly the same way back in Season One, when Axl's test scores were mixed up with a smarter's kids and that had a bad reaction with the other kid, who stopped trying at tests. And I don't think that a teacher would really be that stupid and know the kids only by the names on the shorts. Oh well, at least Sue and Axl get along again. Grade: B
Side Notes:
-Brick comes home in his gym clothes because he couldn't find his pants.
-I can't believe the Hecks can afford customized gym shorts.
-Frankie doesn't want her kids to fight about the coffins she and Mike are buried in.
-Brad has a million hats but only one sombrero.
-Before Brick decides to play tennis, he reads several books on the subject including an Arthur Ashe biography.
-He spends most of his gym time faking a leg cramp so he can go to the nurse's office for a banana or hiding in the bushes reading a book he placed there earlier.
-On the beginning car ride, Mike doesn't stop for anything so the next day Frankie gets a double bacon cheeseburger she was craving since that car ride.
-Mike and Frankie used to buy amazing corn. But the stand went out of business.
-Axl is almost a grown up but he can't throw star darts in the house, probably a wise decision on Frankie's part.
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