Season 2 is coming to an end. And while I’m sad to see it go, it went out with a bang with “Kegel the Elf” and “The Sacko Bowl” both in the same night.
“Kegel the Elf” takes us to Ellie’s school Christmas concert. Kevin and Jenny watch on with pride while Pete joins them because he is hot for teacher–Ellie’s teacher, that is.
After the singing is over, Miss Martin, Ellie’s teacher asks to speak to Kevin and Jenny alone. It seems Ellie’s been drawing “the flex,” otherwise known as Cadillac Williams during art time, runs incredibly elaborate three-way trades at lunch, and has started to act like the class bookie.
All of that would seem to make a father like Kevin proud, but Ellie’s also telling other students to “take a ride on her suck stick.” And that’s not exactly one to stick on the fridge.
Being the good parents that they are wish they were claim to be, Kevin and Jenny can’t figure out where Ellie’s gotten her foul mouth, but they bring in some reinforcements in the form of an “Elf on the Shelf,” a doll that parents use to make kids behave by tricking them into believing the elf is a spy for Santa.
When they first introduce the new elfy companion to Ellie, she continues to complain about bath time and finally storms off after demanding that they “stop busting my balls.” Kids really are the most innocent of us all.
At the bar, Ruxin and Kevin are in the heat of trash-talking battle. They’re facing off this week in the playoffs for a spot in championship game. The rest of the league isn’t nearly so excited about this week since they are already out of the hunt, except for those who are still trying to avoid the Sacko Bowl.
That honor includes Andre, who claims to enjoy not being in the playoffs. At least until Ruxin tells him he’s invisible. Pete doesn’t even notice the soy-recovering member of the league when he arrives at the bar.
Pete laments that he’s not getting any from Ellie’s hot teacher just yet because she just had a kid last year. Things get even scarier when Ruxin explains that Sofia and he didn’t have sex for six months because Baby Geoffrey “blew the church doors wide open.” In other words, “Baghdad’s not ready for the Olympics.”
Being medical and such, Andre suggests a vaginal weight specialist could help strengthen her vaginal wall for the sexy time, which leads to jokes about vaginal Strongman competitions pulling Mack trucks with labias. “This was fun. Now you’re making it gross.”
Back at his evil household lair, Ruxin gets a box in the mail, which he assumes is from Kevin, especially when it’s full of stinky, old eggs that make his son cry.
To carry out the most important Ruxin family value, revenge, Ruxin crafts a deadly chicken-milk stink bomb and disguises it inside a pretty Christmas package so that no one will suspect a thing.
Back at Kevin’s house, Ellie decides to name her elf “Kegel,” which isn’t exactly what Kevin and Jenny had in mind. But Andre claims that it was Kevin, and not he, who used “suck stick” in the league trash-talking.
It’s starting to look like Ellie’s behavior is poor parenting and not the bad influence of the league.
Pete asks Jenny to meet him for a drink to discuss Miss Martin’s confidence issue since Jenny has vaginal hubris.
And to make sure Jenny’s willing to talk to Miss Martin for him, Pete threatens to show Miss Martin Jenny’s latest video post on the league message boards, which would surely lead her to call another parent-teacher conference that might interfere with Jenny’s precious lineup tweaks on Sunday morning.
Having delivered his stink bomb, Ruxin gets a visit from Taco to ask if Ruxin had received his old eggs. Taco had planned on passing them down through his family until they became 1000-year-old eggs, and he sent them to Ruxin for safekeeping as his lawyer.
Taco’s ridiculous plotting aside, Ruxin now realizes his mistake and has to find some way into Kevin’s house to get back his stink bomb gift before it explodes. That wouldn’t really be a fair gift exchange for the wine-of-the-month club that Kevin and Jenny bought him.
Taking Pete’s deal, Jenny invites Miss Martin over to meet Andre and have him explain vaginal strengthening and conditioning. But Miss Martin’s already been working with Stu Beagle, a doctor with whom Andre seems to have a history. Something to do with a wine bar and losing a shirt, but that’s not important to Jenny.
Miss Martin tells Jenny that she is speeding through Dr. Beagle’s program and is “stronger than she has ever been.” She asks Jenny not to share this info with Pete, and Jenny not surprisingly agrees. Why would she give Pete a heads up that he’s about to enter the jaws of life?
Ruxin goes into Mission Impossible mode to infiltrate Kevin’s house and find his stink bomb.
Inside, he is quickly discovered by Ellie, but she thinks he’s another Elf on the Shelf. Ruxin promises a crap-ton of ridiculous presents–pony included–if Ellie will retrieve the one present he dropped off.
But when she returns, he also does a good deed for Kevin and Jenny by giving Ellie some straight talk about how she’s been a dick and needs to man up and behave. Not wanting to be a dick, she agrees to change her ways. But sadly, no one will ever know how Ruxin did something nice.
Soon after her promise to change, Kevin awakes and hears Ellie talking downstairs. Ruxin falls out of a window trying to escape and lands right on his own stink bomb. “I’m forever unclean.”
Meanwhile, Pete finally gets to experience the full power of Miss Martin, and it’s more than he bargained for. Her jaws of steel end of crushing his little man.
Sunday comes, and Jenny quickly secures her spot in the Shiva Bowl thanks to the three hours Pete had to spend in the hospital getting realigned instead of setting his lineup.
Ruxin’s forced to watch from outside Kevin’s house because he still stinks from falling on his own stink grenade. But he’s still in it, winning by just one point in his matchup with Kevin.
Akers is the only player Kevin has left, and as the Philly game winds down, the Eagles line up Akers for a kick, which (if made) would give Kevin 3 points and a spot against Jenny in the Shiva Bowl.
Fully aware of the suspense of this moment, Taco announces that he’s set up an egg nativity scene in the front lawn to celebrate Eggs-mas, and Ruxin follows him around to the eggs to blame Taco for his stink bomb suicide and to wish a pox upon Taco’s eggs.
In typical Ruxin fashion, seconds later, he’s praying to all the gods he can name that Akers’ kick misses, sending him and not Kevin to the Shiva Bowl.
Given the inevitability of this moment, Pete starts to lament the all-MacArthur Shiva Bowl since Akers is a top kicker with no wind…but that’s the jinx.
The kick hits the post.
Kevin’s sent into a spiral. Taking it outside, he rants about the trouble the league puts him through each season as commish, trouble he puts up with only to lose every year.
He takes out the anger on anything in sight, including Taco’s precious eggs. But he puts the worst on Ellie, his own daughter. “Look me in the eye, Ellie. There is no Kegel. And there’s no Santa Claus, and there’s no Christmas. There’s no God. There’s no Easter Bunny. There’s nothing. Nothing! Nothing, nothing, nothing…nothing!”
He takes it pretty hard. But I can’t blame him. Being one point away from any victory is horrifying, but a one-point loss that would have put you in the championship game? That’ll make you sick.
Having endured the weekend, Kevin and Jenny get called in to see Miss Martin for another parent-teacher conference.
This time, she’s got the video evidence Pete turned over of Jenny describing her metaphorical destruction Pete’s vagina and asshole that week in the league, which explains Ellie’s bad influence once and for all. It’s Jenny.
Memorable Quotes from Episode 12:
KEVIN: “I knew we were going to have a dick kid. I knew it!”
RUXIN: “No, you are fading away like that photograph in Back to the Future. And until McFly screws Caroline in the City…you’re gone!”
ANDRE: “Oh, like you didn’t like that Iron Man 2 replica mask.”
PETE: “Would there be such a thing as a vaginal Strongman?”
PETE: “It is decided. It is decided. It is…decided.” (of course, with the voice Pete used)
KEVIN: “I’m an elf. I’m Santa’s wartime consigliere.”
PETE: “I wanted firm, not Terminator.”
PETE: “You know, they couldn’t even identify it. It looked like goddamn Joshua tree.”
RUXIN: “I gotta say, I feel like I just won twice.”
[ Jump to Episode 13, the Season 2 Finale: “The Sacko Bowl” ]
3 comments