Only Urkel Matters, Episode 2.16
“Do the Right Thing”
Original Air Date: January 18, 1991
Last week, Rachel tried to pawn her parental responsibilities off on Carl, which almost resulted in Eddie moving out. Her selfishness is getting out of control, you guys.
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.
Only Urkel Matters is on Instagram! Check us out for the best Urkel content on The Gram (including sneak peeks of columns!) You should obviously like 7th Evan on Facebook. Following my personal account on Twitter seems essential as well, doesn’t it?
(Family Matters)
Cold Open:
Rachel walks into the living room to find New Little Ritchie attempting to steal a piece of candy. It also happens to be just before dinner, which makes this attempted theft a Class A felony. Rachel tells NLR that since he’s a big boy now (and honestly, it seems like he’s a different kid entirely from a year ago), he’ll have to start listening to the voice in his head that tells him when something is wrong. NLR asks her what about the even louder voice in his head? You know, the one that tells him to kill. Just kidding, we’re talking about the one that tells him to eat that candy. Rachel laughs, and is not at all concerned with the amount of voices in her child’s head. Guess we know how Judy dies!
The Story:
At Rachel’s place, Steve brings a bag of sugar to Laura at one of her tables. She starts pouring the sugar from the bag into a sugar shaker. That’s when a handsome young man in a letter jacket walks into the restaurant, causing Laura’s hormones to go haywire. She doesn’t even notice when she begins pouring the sugar all over the table, which is a trope used by sitcoms to express teenage horniness. This letter-jacketed hottie (who we find out is the new transfer student, Todd Helms) is interested in the vacant waiter position at Rachel’s Place. Laura directs him to a table where several other gentlemen are all filling out applications. That’s when Rachel calls for one of the applicants, Mr. Sniplitsky, to come over and interview with her:
I LOVE THIS GUY. He does more with one line than most people can do with four. I like to think that the last time he says, “You have a lovely hat!” he really means, “What are you up to later tonight? Wanna grab a drink?” I hope he comes back. I don’t even want to know if he does come back, I just want to keep the Sniplitsky dream alive. I also like that two people leave after Rachel tells the applicants that they need to be able to speak English to work at her restaurant. If they couldn’t speak the language, they wouldn’t know what she was saying, so they clearly left because they didn’t want to work for a bigot. They’re good people. Rachel has one more run-in, and it’s with a jerk who doesn’t do anything interesting enough to warrant me writing about him (except for the fact that he’s wearing a Yankees shirt, which means he’s an even bigger jerk than I originally thought). Left with no other options, Rachel hires Todd. Urkel sees the way Laura looks at Todd and becomes worried that he’s losing her. He decides that the only reason this could be happening is that Todd is taller than he is. Yup, that’s it, pal. It couldn’t be because Todd isn’t constantly smothering her with attention. Urkel decides to buy some stilts to win her back over, which cracked up both Rachel and me.
Back at the Winslow house, we get an actually well-crafted series of jokes:
I love how horny that old lady is. Carl comes in, and he tells the ladies that they won’t believe what he found while jogging in the park. Harriette already doesn’t believe it, because there’s just no way Carl would have been jogging. Carl admits that he was chasing the ice cream truck, then shows them what he found, which is a diamond bracelet. He tells them that if no one claims it after thirty days, they can sell it (Carl had it appraised, and it’s worth more than $15,000) and go on a cruise. Estelle finds an inscription on the bracelet: “To my precious Poopsie.” Carl says that doesn’t help any, because the city is filled with Poopsies. Sorry, Chicago, but he’s right. You can spot them pretty easily too, because they all have giant C’s on their shirts.
That’s right, I threw shade at both the Yankees’ and the Cubs’ fan-bases in this blog. I’m doing God’s work.
Later, Eddie and the Urkman (a fantastic name for a buddy-cop spin-off) are on the couch, doing curls for the girls:
Classic weak nerd comedy. Urkel tells Eddie that he’s in a bit of a conundrum: Todd is having trouble in Geometry, and is in danger of flunking off of the basketball team. If he gets kicked off the team, his father will ground him (I don’t know why he’s getting grounded for getting kicked off the basketball team, and not for flunking geometry; one of those fathers I guess) and he won’t be able to date Laura. All of this is good for the Urkster, but Todd has asked Steve to tutor him, and Urkel is having a hard time figuring out what the right thing to do is. Eddie offers him literally no advice.
Later, after some completely useless Judy/vegetable humor (lots of filler in this episode), Carl comes home and asks Harriette if anyone has called to claim the bracelet yet. When Harriette tells him no, they celebrate, until Harriette discovers that the ad that Carl had placed was not, as they had agreed, in the Chicago Chronicle (shout-out to my boy Larry Appleton), but in the much-less read Amish Almanac. Harriette tells Carl that he has to put in an actual effort to find the owner, for his conscience’s sake. Harriette leaves, and Carl has an honest-to-goodness mental breakdown:
You may have noticed that I named the video, “Who Are You?” The reason I named it that is because that sentence was the most ridiculous part of what was clearly a fever dream of some sort. You’re telling me that you can’t recognize your own face?
Back at Rachel’s Place, Laura makes an impassioned plea for Urkel to help Todd. Urkel tells her that he’ll think about it, and then he has a breakdown of his own:
Why can’t they recognize their own faces? I’d be like, “Damn, Devan (Devil Evan), you’re making some good points!”
A month has gone by, and Carl comes home with the bracelet. They all start to get excited for the cruise that they’re going to take off of the profits they make from selling the bracelet, when the doorbell rings, and it’s this lady:
(Family Matters)
She’s come to claim her bracelet. The Winslows ask her to describe both the bracelet and the inscription, which she does to a t. Carl is honor-bound to give her back her bracelet. As a reward, she gives him $20, which, adjusted for inflation, would be roughly $37.67 in 2019. I tell you this so that you will understand that this broad was cheap even by today’s standards. As she leaves, this rich old bag lets slip that the bracelet doesn’t even belong to her; it belongs to her kitty-cat (her words, but also mine). Carl, who at this point has to be wishing that he didn’t listen to his conscience, weeps softly into his wife’s shoulder.
Conclusion:
Later that night, Laura has something she’d like to discuss with Steve, so she calls him up:
When the producers of this show find something that works, they go to the well as often as possible. I’m sure you remember a very similar scene in Episode 2.9. I enjoyed the call-back, and look forward to many future scenes of Steve rushing over to the Winslow house with something weird on his body. Laura tells Urkel that Todd mustered a B on his Geometry test. Urkel pretends to be happy for her, but becomes legitimately happy after she tells him that she and Todd broke up. I didn’t even know they were official. Urkel asks what happened, and she tells him that Todd only wanted to talk about basketball, which is how all of my dates must feel when I only want to talk about Urkel. Urkel is excited because this means that Laura has finally realized that she wants a brainy man, but he forgot that she probably also wants a man who doesn’t chase her around like a little bitch. Laura tells Steve that she wants a man to have something going on upstairs, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t want a well-built staircase. That’s a pretty good line. Steve, trying to prove that he can do it all, tries an old-fashioned Hulk Hogan flex. Unfortunately, he hurts himself, and has to ask her to carry him home. Laura dead-lifts his scrawny ass out the door, ending the episode:
(Family Matters)
Join me next week, when I break down Episode 2.17, “High Hopes.”
