Only Urkel Matters, Episode 1.21
“Bowl Me Over”
Original Air Date: April 20, 1990
Last week, Eddie tried his luck at politics, but in true Winslow fashion, quit as soon as it got tough. Also, Shitty Rodney was shitty.
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.
(Family Matters)
Cold Open:
The annual school photos have been developed, and Eddie and Laura are in the kitchen checking theirs out. Laura thinks she looks like a goon in hers, and Eddie can’t help but agree. Meanwhile, Eddie thinks he’s gotten better looking every single year. Urkel comes in through the back door, and he pesters Laura long enough to get her to agree to exchange photos with him. Apparently this was a tradition? I don’t remember this being a thing, but I mentioned it to a guy I work with, and he definitely remembered it. Maybe I just didn’t have any friends that were willing to trade with me. I wasn’t always a charming, devilishly handsome fella who writes Urkel columns every week. Anyway, Urkel says that he has to go outside to retrieve his pictures, and this immediately set off my “Urkel is about to do something ridiculous radar.” Naturally, Urkel comes back inside with this:
(Family Matters)
Laura has a quick line about not being able to fit the cut-out into her wallet, and then Carl walks in. He sees the cutout, and we get a priceless “Carl Reaction to Some Urkel Shit”:
(Family Matters)
He says, “Oh no, there’s two of them!” and walks away wearily. Urkel continues to grin away, and the scene fades into the opening credits.
The Story:
Carl comes home from a long day at work, and he’s exhausted, which isn’t surprising. What is surprising, is why he’s exhausted. He just spent two hours trying to talk a guy off of a ledge, but it turned out the guy was a window washer. How could this possibly have happened? Did someone see a guy cleaning a window and call the police? How did Carl never notice the dude washing the windows during the two hours he was telling this poor guy that he had so much to live for? Did the guy just think that Carl was mocking him? Bizarre. Laura and Eddie enter the kitchen from the living room, and Eddie is heated because his sister beat his score at Space Invaders. Eddie thinks that girls shouldn’t even be allowed to play video games, because they should be focusing on cheer-leading, “where they belong.” First of all, dickhead, cheer-leading isn’t a location, so no one can “belong” there. Second of all, she just proved she belongs by kicking your ass, so your statement makes zero fucking sense. Carl sees that the Winslow ladies are about to rip Eddie a new one, so he tells him to step into his office, which is just the Magical Porch That Fixes Everything.
Once on the Magical Porch That Fixes Everything, Carl tells Eddie that he thinks that Eddie isn’t upset just because he lost, but because he lost to a girl. Eddie is like, “No shit, that’s what I just fucking said,” and Carl explains to him that since it’s the nineties, Eddie has to be cool with women being good at things. Eddie reluctantly agrees to go back inside and congratulate Laura on her Space Invader score.
Back inside, Eddie tells Laura that he’s sorry for being a sore loser, and congratulates her on being the new champion. Laura, because she’s a petulant little shit, tells him that she didn’t just beat his score, she CRUSHED it. Eddie tells her that she’s right, and that as an enlightened 90’s man, he only wants to live in peace and harmony with her. If it was me, I’d have said that bullshit my father wanted me to, and then snuck out of the house to go beat her score. Instead, Eddie goes and barely adjusts a plate for no particular reason.
(Family Matters)
Prepare yourself, because the rest of this article is going to be GIF HEAVY. The whole family has gone bowling, as the title would suggest, and they’re having a great time. Carl mentions that he doesn’t know why they don’t do this every week (I’m saying) and Urkel walks in at that exact moment, a fine bit of comedy. Laura asks him, “What are you doing here?” which is a dumb fucking question. Steve is here to bowl like a champion and stalk his lady. Carl says, “Oh, so it’s kind of like a second home to you,” and Urkel says no, because Carl’s house is his second home. Damn it, I love this little weirdo. Steve somehow got the lane right next to theirs, so there’s a hilarious scene where Carl and Urkel go to bowl at the same time. Urkel lists all he knows about bowling etiquette, which suggests to him that Carl (being the bowler on the left) should go first, unless it’s in league play. I texted my buddy Ryan, who does play in a league (and is a former “King of the Palace” champion), and he said that the bowler on the right should always go first, especially in league play. Family Matters must’ve been like, “Screw it, the technology to look this up doesn’t really exist yet, let’s just say whatever the fuck we want.” Anyway, Carl tells Steve “just bowl,” and the second most Urkel thing that could happen at a bowling alley happens:
(Family Matters)
He gets a strike, but the GIF size limit on this website prevented from me having all of that greatness AND the strike, and I think we can agree that what I left in there was the most important stuff. After this beautiful display of Urkitude, Carl bowls himself (I wrote it that way intentionally. Did you read it as “Carl blows himself?” If so, let me know):
Dripping in swag. (Family Matters)
As you can see, Carl walks up there and sidearms that motherfucker like he’s Nomar Garciaparra. He knocks down nine pins, then misses the easy spare. He’s feeling pretty comfortable, though, because to beat him, Harriet needs to get a strike on every ball she throws for the rest of the game. Of course, she gets three straight, because girl power is the theme of this episode, but watch her goddamn delivery:
(Family Matters)
She has the worst form of anyone I’ve ever seen. She’d throw her back out in ten seconds bowling like this. Even Urkel can’t believe what he’s seeing:
(Family Matters)
Anyway, Steve gets right up in Carl’s face after the loss, really laying into him for shitting the bed here. He’s right to do so. They’d have been tied at the end of the game if he had simply just hit that easy spare. Carl demands a rematch right away, and won’t take no for an answer, even though everybody else wants to go home.
Later, the family gets home, and Carl enthusiastically walks through the door, because he won his rematch and is still the champion. He heads off to get a celebratory drink (soda pop, of course, alcohol is for degenerates) and Laura and Judy talk about how much they hate bowling. Eddie, however, LOVES bowling, because it’s a man’s sport. He theorizes that the balls are made heavier so that women will “know to leave it alone.” Yuck. Bowling is for everyone, jerk. The kids argue amongst themselves incoherently, and Harriet ends the argument by sending them up to bed. Rachel is glad to be home, because there’s never a time in her mind where she’d want to spend five hours in rented shoes. Harriet hopes that Carl will be done gloating for the evening, but he comes back into the living room (with his orange soda, which he’s poured into a glass like a gentleman) and declares that day an official Carl Winslow holiday. Rachel rolls her eyes and then leaves to check on Little Ritchie, which she only does when it’s convenient for her. Carl doesn’t know what her problem is, because he thought they all had fun. Harriet tells him that he was the only one who had a good time. Carl tells her she’s a sore loser, and she tells him, “You won the rematch, okay? Case closed.” She then storms off into the kitchen.
Carl follows her to the kitchen, and tells her that the foundation of a marriage is the truth. He badgers her incessantly to admit that he’s the better bowler. Eventually, Harriet snaps and admits that the only reason he won the match (I’m assuming these two only played each other and the rest of the family just watched, otherwise it would have been a game, not a match) is because she let him win, and that she’s been letting him “win at bowling” since before they were married. I hate the way she said that to him. I never like it when someone says “win at” like that. It makes me “cringe at words.” Rachel comes downstairs (don’t worry, Little Ritchie is still alive) and Carl tells her what Harriet just said to him, clearly expecting Rachel to take his side and find it ridiculous. Rachel, however, says, “I knew it!” Carl balks at this too, saying that of course she believes her, since she’s Harriet’s sister. Carl tells them that he’s not saying men are better at everything, but bowling is primarily a man thing. That statement (when taken after Carl has been acting like a douchebag for a few hours) might not exactly ring true in context, but this is one of those rare things that needs to be taken out of context. If you walk into a bowling alley right now, you’re not going to see more women there than men. Carl is right, bowling is primarily a man thing. However, what he meant, and how Harriet took it, is that all men are better than women at bowling. That part isn’t true, and Harriet is ready to prove it. She challenges him to another game, women versus men, winner takes all. RIGHT NOW.
They storm off into the living room, where Laura has come downstairs in her pajamas. She says goodnight to them, but they tell her to get her ass upstairs and grab Eddie, because they’re going bowling again. Laura is obviously annoyed (they did just spend five hours at the alley, after all), but she does as she’s told.
We’re back at the bowling alley, and there’s a thunderstorm raging outside. I wonder if that will come up later. It’s mid-game already, and the men are celebrating because Eddie just got a strike. It’s Laura’s turn next, but Eddie makes coughing noises as she’s about to bowl, and she rolls a gutter ball. Instead of rolling her second ball, Laura threatens to cut Eddie’s hair while he’s asleep and then sits down. I guess she’s satisfied with zero pins. It’s Urkel’s turn next (they could have picked him up for the game, but I prefer to think that he never left). Laura flirts with Steve a bit, and he freaks the fuck out. He starts hyperventilating, and imagining all of the pins to be Laura. Carl puts a bowling bag over his head and tells Steve that he needs to calm down, because they need a strike. Steve gets set to bowl. But he’s still wavering, and then Laura blows him a kiss. What follows is the MOST Urkel thing that could happen at a bowling alley:
Somehow, Laura’s reaction is MORE ridiculous than what Urkel did. (Family Matters)
We fast forward to the end of the game, and Carl needs a strike to win, but without one, his team will lose. These writes do know that there are more outcomes in bowling than “strike” or “not a strike,” right? Anyway, Carl gets set to roll his ball, with Steve and Eddie chanting, “Strike, strike, strike” and the women chanting, “Choke, choke, choke.” Just after he releases the ball, the power goes out in the alley. That thunderstorm came back into play, who woulda thought it?
Conclusion:
The Winslows are back at the house, and they’re still arguing over whether or not Carl bowled a strike. They are so loud in their disagreement that they wake up Mother Winslow, who reprimands them for such a childish argument. She tells them that the power went out not because of the storm, but because God wanted them to feel foolish. Because she’s a sassy old broad, they accept this as the gospel truth. She tells them to apologize to each other, but to do it quietly, because she has a six o’clock karate class in the morning. For those of you keeping track, this old lady plays hockey and does karate. She’s quite a gal. Laura and Eddie admit that all of this competition was stupid, and then race each other up the stairs, which makes sense for their characters. They consistently never remember any of the lessons they’ve learned for longer than two seconds. Carl and Harriet agree to call the game a tie, and Carl tells Harriet that she should never have to do anything less than her best to protect his male ego. I love that he said, “male ego” and not just “ego.” Women don’t have egos at all. Carl thinks he pulled a muscle throwing that last strike, and Harriet immediately tells him that it wasn’t a strike, because it hurts her ego to let him think otherwise. Carl tells her that if she can get the kink out of his neck, she can call it anything she likes. That’s how the episode ends. Girl power.
Join me next week, when I discuss the Season One finale, “Rock Video.” Please, please, PLEASE make Urkel the front-man of the Winslow band.
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