Only Urkel Matters, Episode 1.5
“Straight A’s”
Original Air Date: October 20, 1989
Last week, Eddie put on the worst magic show since Roy Horn got attacked by that tiger, and Carl only cared about Aunt Rachel’s loneliness because she was coming between him and his bedroom Olympics.
If you’d like to catch up on the episode before you read the recap, you can watch every Family Matters on Hulu. If you missed last week’s recap, you can read it here. Any “Only Urkel Matters” that you may have missed can be found here.
I was 100% ready to make a “more like Straight Ass” joke, but this episode turned out to be pretty good.
““Shit, does this mean I have to give that jacket back?” (Photo Credit: IMDB)
Cold Open:
Eddie is studying for a history test, and music blares in the background. I noticed that he did that thing where you cut a paper bag and tape it to the book to protect it from getting damaged. Do kids still do this? I remember doing that with every schoolbook I had until I made it to high school. Carl comes down the stairs, sees Eddie studying, and turns off the television. Music continues to play, however, because Eddie is also playing music on his boombox. For you younger readers, a boombox was what they had before the CD player was invented, which was invented before the iHome, which was invented before whatever it is young folk listen to music on. I’m sure that by now, there’s some sort of system that makes music come out of your buttholes. Anyway, to sum up the cold open, Eddie isn’t a good student.
Eddie’s Story:
After about four minutes of barely necessary information about how Eddie is stupid and Carl is worried that he won’t get into college, Carl is opening the kids’ report cards, which apparently came in the mail back then? I remember having to bring my bad news home myself in the mid-90’s, causing internal conflict within my brain. Should I just break the bad news now, or should I try to hide this this thing for a few days and enjoy what’s left of my week? It was like having to bring home a ticking time-bomb. Carl has a system where he reveals the kids’ grades while everyone sits on the coach and listens. He makes it almost like a game show, calling each kid forward and presenting them with five dollars for every “A” they received. This is definitely not going to give his stupidest kid (Eddie) a complex. Anyway, surprise, surprise, Judy got all A’s and B’s, while Laura got all A’s and one B+. She is upset that she got her first B. Spoiler alert, this is going to be the “B” story of the episode (pun intended, but understandably not well-received). He opens Eddie’s report card, and Eddie got straight A’s! No one can believe it, especially not Eddie. This will definitely stand, and no further drama will ensue. The next day, there’s a knock at the kitchen door, and it’s Eddie’s friend Rodney, fulfilling Family Matters’ contractual obligation to have a white guy on the show every couple of weeks. When will the white man finally get his due in Hollywood? Anyway, Rodney is one of my least favorite types of white men: a guy who loves pranks. Pranks aren’t funny, they’re just annoying, and Rodney is one of the best pranksters around. He walks into the kitchen and shakes Aunt Rachel’s hand, only to have the hand come off his arm. A classic fake-hand prank, which of course has never been funny, like every other prank. Rodney goes up to Eddie’s room and pretends to vomit on him (again, this has NEVER been funny) but it’s just Silly String. Luckily for Eddie, he just so happens to have a can of Silly String readily available in an open drawer on his desk, so he is able to shoot back. As it turns out, Rodney, amazing prankster and all-around hilarious guy that he is, sent fake report cards to all of his friends’ houses, so their parents thought that their kids got straight A’s. This is the funniest goddamn thing I’ve ever heard. Someone needs to put a bullet in Rodney’s head before he becomes a rapey frat guy.
Laura’s Story:
Laura is still depressed from the B+ she received, and she won’t let herself enjoy any of her favorite activities until she has straight A’s again. She wants to go to a top law school, and she thinks that B will stop her from getting in. She actually says, “I don’t want to end up at the University of Bubba.” Since Bubba is a lawyer, I wonder if he’ll be representing himself in the lawsuit that Eddie has against him for destroying his shirt in last week’s episode. Harriet teaches her a lesson using the chocolate cookies she’s been making: she pretends to throw away the cookies because they’re not all perfect. Laura starts to tell her how crazy that is, and realizes mid-sentence that it relates to her situation. She’s completely learned her lesson, and would like a cookie now. Thus ends this incredibly mediocre B-story.
Conclusion:
Eddie spends the majority of the rest of the episode trying to tell Carl that the report card was a fake, but Carl doesn’t give him a chance to get the words out. He keeps giving Eddie gifts, like a new Chicago Bears jacket. Eddie needs to talk to someone, though, so he seeks out Aunt Rachel on the magical porch that fixes everything. He tells her about the fake report card situation, and she laughs out loud. HOW IS THIS FUNNY? Pranks are dumb. She convinces Eddie that he needs to tell Carl what happened, but Eddie already knows this. He just needed to talk to someone about it. She tells him that he’s a lot brighter than people give him credit for.
Eddie goes to talk to Carl, but Carl gives him another present: a personal computer. PCs are still expensive, but imagine what this would have cost Carl back then, when it was a new technology. Eddie finally gets a chance to tell Carl what happened, and shows him the real report card as well. There are no A’s, but it’s still the best report card that Eddie has ever received. Harriet tells him that it’s good, and she’s still proud, but how does Carl react? By saying “and (there are) no A’s.” Eddie says, “Yeah, I guess I’m stupid,” and glumly heads upstairs to his room.
Carl goes up to Eddie’s room to apologize, as he should. He reacted poorly to Eddie’s grades, and he knows it. He tells Eddie that he’s proud of him, and that the only reason he pushes him so hard is because he and his own father never got to go to college, and he wanted Eddie to be the first Winslow to get a college degree. It’s a nice moment.
Downstairs, Carl assures Harriet that Eddie is fine, and that he’s going to stop putting so much emphasis on grades. He wants the kids to grow at their own pace. Rachel enters and tells Carl that there is a recruiter from Harvard there for Eddie. Carl forgot that he had asked him to come over, and says he better go apologize. Rachel tells him not to worry about it, because she wants to talk to the guy anyway. Harriet tells her that it’s way too early for Rachel to start thinking about colleges for little Ritchie, because he’s only nine months old. Rachel doesn’t want to talk to the man about Ritchie, however, she wants to talk to him about her, because apparently the recruiter is cute. I guess she’s finished with Alan, unless she’s just playing the field. I think it’s a good call. I didn’t think Alan was right for Aunt Rachel, on the account of him definitely being a serial killer.
That’s it for this episode. I enjoyed the amount of time we spent with the kids this week. Darius McCrary (Eddie) and Kellie Shanygne Williams (Laura) become fantastic actors, and it’s fun to see them start to grow as the show tries to find it’s footing.
Your Needs Urkel Meter (NUM) rating is: **
Join me next week as I discuss Episode 1.6, “Basketball Blues.” Since I’ve been so wrong in my predictions lately, I’ll be safe this week and just predict that someone will be sad as a result of basketball.
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