Only Urkel Matters, Episode 1.7
“Body Damage”
Original Air Date: November 10, 1989
Last week, Carl got a NBA player to talk to Eddie, and Eddie subsequently quit basketball.
If you’d like to catch up on an 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.
This episode started slowly, but picked up so quickly that it was probably the one that I laughed at the most out of all the episodes so far. Here’s your recap.
“If anyone touches this car, I’m going John McClane on their ass!” (Photo Credit: IMDB)
Cold Open:
Carl and Harriet are sitting at the kitchen table, when Steve Urkel walks in from their living room. He’s wearing a shower cap and shower shoes (with socks on), which is an amusing sight. One of the reasons Urkel is so great is because you can dress him up in anything and it looks like something he’d wear. I would barely bat an eye if he entered in a full suit of armor. Anyway, Carl wants to know what he’s doing there, and Steve tells him that the water is off at his house, so Mother Winslow let him use her tub. Mother Winslow’s name is revealed to be Estelle for the first time, making me wonder when that was actually first revealed (remember, all of the Urkel cold opens we’ve seen so far were not there in the original run of the series). This will make things so much easier for me, because “Estelle” is much easier to type than “Mother Winslow.” Urkel remembers that he forgot his ducky in the tub, causing Carl to scoff at a kid his age still playing with toys in the tub. Urkel comes back in with an actual live duck, whose name is Mr. Quackers, because of course it is. Urkel then unleashes his signature laugh, which is “hee-hee-hee” followed by three snorts. The Urkel character essentially pissed money for this show.
The Story:
This will be a slight break from the normal structure of these recaps, because there was only one story this week, and everyone was focused on that one narrative. The show starts off by establishing two things: Aunt Rachel is learning to repair cars, and Eddie is grounded. Carl walks into the kitchen and proudly tells the family that he’s been named “Safest Police Office of the Year” and will therefore get to be the lead car in an annual policeman’s parade. The family is thrilled for him, and he asks them to step outside because he wants to show them something. Outside, there is an antique police car that Rachel correctly identifies as a 1936 Ford. It was driven by famous prohibition-era agent Elliot Ness, and it’s the car that Carl will be driving in the parade. Eddie wants to know if Elliot Ness was the cop who won the safety award last year. Solid joke. The family wants to take it for a spin, but Carl makes them promise not to touch it, and asks if they understand. Laura says that she does, but Carl might want to simplify it for Eddie. I’ll miss these Laura burns, but there just won’t be time for them once Steve is a series regular. Some things have to be cut so that Urkel can use his transformation chamber to turn Mother Winslow into a pterodactyl. After a completely unnecessary scene where Harriet and Estelle watch Carl sleep, Rachel convinces Harriet to go look at the car up close. They also make a great dick joke. No, really. Rachel says that some cars are like men; really flashy, but then there’s nothing under the hood. Great stuff. After admiring the car for a few more minutes, Rachel convinces Harriet to join her on a joy ride, and she promptly crashes into a tree, damaging the driver’s side fender. Harriet wants to tell Carl what happened, but Rachel convinces her to let her try to fix it using her newly-learned car repair skills, and to hide what happened from Carl in the meantime.
Later that night, Harriet sneaks down from bed to check on Rachel’s progress. This starts the sneaking around and scheming that make the second half of the episode so much more enjoyable than the first. Rachel is in the middle of welding, and they do a gag where Harriet keeps tapping Rachel on the shoulder, scaring the crap out of her. They do this three times, and it’s pretty funny. Comedy rule of threes, bay-bay! Eddie walks out and sees what they’re doing, and his initial reaction is to disavow himself of whatever it is they’re doing. Smart. Harriet asks him why he isn’t in bed, since it’s past one in the morning. Eddie says that his curfew requires him to be home by eleven P.M., but it doesn’t require him to be asleep. He’s on a roll. Rachel recruits him to help her with the car, and Harriet goes inside to check on Carl, who is fixing himself a midnight snack. He asks Harriet why she was outside, and she tells them that she went over to the neighbor’s house to tell them off for having such a loud party. She also explains away the body work sounds coming from outside as new, shitty heavy metal music. When Eddie comes in to tell her something, Harriet quickly covers for him as well, telling him that he’s grounded for two more weeks for breaking curfew, winking at him all the while. There some was very good comedic acting in this scene from Jo Marie Peyton, who plays Harriet. I don’t always give her credit, but she’s a pretty good actress. Everyone goes back to bed. The next morning, an exhausted Rachel comes in for coffee, and freaks out on Harriet when she asks if Rachel wants decaf or regular. Eddie makes Harriet sign a confession that absolves him of any wrongdoing from the night before. For such a “dumb” kid, Eddie is the only one making good decisions in this episode. Carl is ready to go to work early, because he’s a good man and a good cop, but Harriet pulls a button off of his dress uniform to stall him. As a military man, I can tell you that Carl handled this very well. It takes forever to get something like that ready, and if someone fucked it up on my way out the door, I’d lose my shit. Harriet tells Carl to get Estelle to sew the button back on, then heads outside to tell Rachel that they’re running out of time. Back in the kitchen, Harriet enlists the rest of the children to help cover up the mess, and they wisely blackmail her over it. Laura requests a bicycle, Judy wants a pony, and Eddie joins in looking for a dirt bike. The Winslow children are good kids, but when they spot an opportunity, they’re going to go for it. Carl comes back in, and his uniform is good as new. Mother Winslow is a champion seamstress. Everyone tries to stall, but Carl is on to them. Eddie finally panics, and yells “There’s nothing wrong with the car!” Carl heads out to inspect it, but fortunately, Rachel is done fixing the fender, and Carl heads off to the parade while the family celebrates their sneakiness. Unfortunately, their celebration is short lived, because the doorbell rings, and it’s Carl. He;s holding the fender, which obviously fell off almost immediately. He tells them to get their shit together, because when he gets back from the parade he’s going to tear them a new one.
Conclusion:
The family comes home from watching Carl in the parade, and they’re nervous as hell for Carl to get home, except for Eddie, who has his signed proof that he did nothing wrong. Carl comes in looking extremely heated, but before he can say anything, Harriet and Rachel apologize. Despite himself, Carl accepts their apology, because he knows that they feel bad enough already. He’s super disappointed that he didn’t get to yell, though. He’s also disappointed that they didn’t just come to him with the problem in the first place, because they’re his family, and he would’ve wanted to help them fix the problem. The family agrees that they from now on, they’ll work together to fix each other’s problems. Carl asks who fixed the fender, and Harriet tells him that Rachel did. Carl tells them that he accidentally backed into the Sons of Italy float at the end of the parade, and asks Rachel for her help in fixing that one. Rachel tells him that she’ll grab the blowtorch, and that’s the end of the episode. Of course, Rachel stayed up all night and she still hasn’t gone to sleep, so she’ll probably end up hurting someone.
This was a really good episode, which you could probably tell because I didn’t have that many jokes to make about it. Join me next week, when I’ll be breaking down Episode 1.8, “Mr. Badwrench,” which sounds like it could be porn. Hey, it wouldn’t be the first time that someone from Family Matters was in a porno.
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