Okay Tivo, I know you often like to pretend like a dream sequence is an entire episode. So lets see how this flies. Hopefully this write-up fares okay. I was distracted through this one thanks to tummy troubles. It MIGHT have to do with something I ate during the write-up for episode 139. Check that write-up out and see if you can put 2 and 2 together.
Frank is sick! I guess he has a cold, but it could just be brought on by him thinkin’ about his life. He’s supposed to build a swing set for Lilly, but can’t because he’s sick. Speak of the devil and a terrible child actress appears: Lilly enters and proclaims she found somebody else to build her swing set. Just then Jean-Luc enters dressed like the male-stripper version of Frank (a flannel vest, a pair of jeans, a tool belt, and a hard hat all completely brand new and clean). Jean-Luc does his talking-in-an-American-accent shtick and says something rude about a butt tattoo. Cut to commercial.
The other plot is JT, Sam, Dana, and Rich are all invited to a wedding full of dorks. It’s every annoying family member type wedding you’ve ever been to where you are pestered by Tim-Burton-esque parodies of suburbia talking in over-exaggerated mid-western accents and pestering everyone who isn’t married to get married. It’s like this is just a MARRIAGE IS GREAT CLUB that meets every week and it just so happens somebody got married at this meeting. Dana and Rich get stopped by the parents of the groom who pester them into tying the knot. Dana Darlenes out and explains that she has a law career she’s interested in first before she gets married. The father of the groom tells Rich “put a ring on her finger she’ll forget all about this career garbage!” Rich gets Dana outta there before she can get on her WOMANS LIB soapbox. Don’t worry guys, I can relate.  Frank and Jean-Luc are both building the swing-set, because Frank can’t trust frenchy with tools. Frank moans about his cold. Jean-Luc gives Frank some cold remedy. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that its alcohol. They get a little toasty. End scene.  Back to the wedding. Rich and Dana continue to get confronted with marriage at the wedding. They run into some friends who have recently gotten married unbeknownst to them. They have a pathetic story, sorta. The woman quit college because they are newly pregnant. It appears she’s giving up her own dream to go to law school (hey, that’s Dana’s dream too!). But its okay, the husband just got promoted to snack manager at the Piggly Wiggly. They are going to buy a trailer and live in her parent’s back yard.
When the bouquet is being thrown, Dana is invited to go catch it. “I’d rather french kiss Bob Dole” she says! I can completely relate to this. I was at a wedding once where they rounded up all the single guys to catch the garter, and I wasn’t far enough away to not be included in that. Some horrible woman was like OKAY GUYS AT LEAST PRETEND YOU DON’T WANNA BE BACHELORS ANYMORE HAW HAW” and out loud I said “oh fuck this” and left the banquet hall for a few minutes to COOL OFF. I was honestly enraged!
So anyway, the bride lets the flowers rip, and the bouquet lands in Dana’s lap (an old spinster comically dives for it and does a pratfall). Rich is extremely happy that they are next to get married. This prompts Dana to have a nightmare where she is pregnant as shit and has a boatload of kids, they all live in a trailer in Frank and Carol’s backyard. I need to stop the nightmare right there. Don’t people know it’s not a big deal to not have kids? Like she has SOME say in it; there’s no law saying you have to get married and have kids. Even if you get pregnant THERE ARE OPTIONS. Get it killed! This is AMERICA, and I thought you feminists liked abortion! This reminds me of someone I know who will remain nameless. She was a super-duper feminist who, upon hearing a mutual friend was pregnant, she acted outraged that she didn’t exercise her right to get it aborted. She then had to be reminded: THIS PERSON WAS TRYING TO GET PREGNANT AND WANTED A KID. But whatever, this is TGIF and TGIF is too scared of the ISSUES.  This nightmare also features a law-school-bound Karen, who since Dana couldn’t go to law school was able to get in. Come on Dana, you’re smarter than that. I don’t care if it’s a nightmare. Last night I had a nightmare that David Hyde Pierce and Paul Rudd were drowning and took turns making goofy faces at each other, and even that has more logic to it than Karen getting into Harvard.
Also in the nightmare are an elderly Frank and Carol. Carol is lookin’ hot for an old lady. She’s got old lady face but she’s wearing a Tennis Outfit. Frank is completely decrepit and bald, being pushed in a wheelchair by Carol. Dana asks Carol why she’s 82 but has the body of a 24 year old. “Two words: Thigh master!” oh Suzanne, you cheeky devil. One of Danas kids shows grandpa his newly lost tooth. “Hey grandpa, I lost a tooth! Can I have some money?” It’s a set up for Frank’s creepy “Hey Carol, could you reach into my pocket and see if there’s a quarter in there?” joke, but come on. What happened to the tooth fairy? I bet Dana couldn’t fucking wait to tell her children there wasn’t any Santa or Tooth Fairy or Easter Bunny or God. It’s the only reason she had so many of them. It’s her sickness. Frank keeps making the “reach into my pocket” joke until the very end of the scene, when they are going for lunch and he says “Carol, could you reach into my pocket and see if you can find a happy meal?” I can tell you where you can find my happy meal: it’s in the toilet with the rest of the lunch I lost.  Back to Jean-Luc and Frank. They are bombed (which is actually what Al says when she seems them: “Oh my god, they’re bombed!” I knew she was my kind of lady!) and falling around (“I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!” says Frank). Carol is shocked at this turn of events. “Have you been drinking???” She basically treats it like she caught Urkel with a cup of spiked punch in his belly wobbling around on the edge of a sky scraper. Frank’s a fucking grown-up. Is TGIF so fucking puritanical that it can’t have us believe that ADULTS DRINK and KNOW HOW TO BE DRUNK? “You coulda been killed!” Carol exclaims!
“I know we aren’t drunk” Frank explains, because “how could we construct such a fine swing set?” The swing set falls over. Everyone learns their lesson. Don’t drink, even if you’re allowed to.
We cut back to the Wedding so Rich can have HIS wedding nightmare. JT remarks that being married to Dana would be like being married to Cujo with a law degree. Rich then dreams that he is the emasculated male-half of a yuppie marriage. Dana is so obsessed with her law career that she’s forgotten their anniversary (“my secretary usually sends me a memo and buys a gift!” Dana says when she’s confronted with this). Dana begins apologizing to Rich and reassuring him that she still loves him. Just then her MOBILE PHONE rings, which she instantly answers and is called upon to go back to the office for some stupid reason. She’s basically Robin Williams in the first act of Hook.  Rich and Dana talk out their fears, and come to an understanding (thank goodness). Rich takes Dana’s hand. He says “I have a proposal.” You see the fear in Dana’s eyes. Rich begins talking eloquently and romantically, but pulls a switcheroo – he’s not asking her to marry him! He’s asking her to never drag him to another wedding for at least three years! She happily agrees. What fun!
The End: Elderly Frank and Carol (from Dana’s nightmare) get ready to bone (how typical). Carol puts down her thigh master and runs upstairs to put on something a little more “flannel” and Frank struggles to get out of his seat. Frank then forgets why he’s trying to get up. Then Frank forgets where he is. Then Frank forgets who he is. Then he asks: “Where’s JR?” Yeah, laugh it up, studio audience. Just because it has to do with a former credit I guess makes it okay to laugh at an elderly man’s slippery slope into dementia. We’re all headed there some day, and that’s if you’re fucking LUCKY. Brendon Watch: Brendon was busy printing up “START SEEING BRENDON” bumper stickers and did not appear in this episode. Mark Watch: Also not in this episode.
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