"Previously on Mike  Molly..." "I remember when I was a little girl working on my daddy's farm." "Oh, please don't tell me a story." "Let me tell you a story." "I was a meek little thing, scared of my own shadow and the sheep I had to castrate." "That's where you learned it?" "I had to pump my own water, make my own clothes, and if the crop didn't get in, well, we all went hungry." "Just when I thought my life couldn't possibly get any worse, a city fella in a '56 Rambler pulled up to the house and asked for directions." "Was that Mike's dad?" "Hell no." "This was a real man." "Wore a three-piece suit with hard shoes and smelled like a pine forest after a spring rain." "That's very poetic, Peggy." "What he did to me wasn't poetic." "It was filthy." "And I loved it." "Wait, wait, wait, wait." "Got to write it down." "Go." "MIKE:" "Look at you, writing again." "Yeah, a new story about a young girl coming of age on a hardscrabble farm at the base of the Mudlick Mountains." "Mudlick?" "Th-That's weird." "My mom grew up on a farm in Mudlick." "Aw, no!" "You know, we could write about my playmates growing up." "My best friend was a chicken." "Named him George Hamilton on account of he was just as handsome and just as brown." "Sure." "You know, a flightless bird is a wonderful pet for a child." "That is unless your father has a mean streak and a taste for cacciatore." "What do you think of this dress?" "Oh, for God's sake." "Can you not think about that party for ten minutes?" "Oh, I'm sorry." "Do you get invited to big literary parties every day?" "'Cause I don't." "Ah, who knows?" "I don't get much mail since I accused the postman of stealing the perfume cards out of my magazines." "Where are you going?" "To try on this dress." "We've done enough work for the day." "We haven't done a thing!" "Well, speak for yourself." "I found a dress." "(buzzing)" "Keep buzzing, you bastards." "Your reign of terror is about to end." "Don't tip 'em off." "Just smile and wave." "Hello, wasps!" "Just looking for the mail!" "All right, we got one chance to torch their nest." "You got to make sure you keep that match lit." "Hey, I got my end." "You just worry about aiming that Aqua Net." "Are you sure you don't want to call somebody?" "Or at least wait for a third stooge?" "Nonsense." "We got it." "Besides, Carl was busy." "(buzzing) (grunting, shouting)" "That's it." "I can't take it anymore." "Just give 'em the porch." "No." "It ends today." "You sting my bald head, I burn down your house." "It's the Chicago way." "Wait a minute." "Is that your dress for the big party?" "Yeah, it is." "It's a little... a little flashy for cocktail casual, but I thought, hey, you only come up once, so they're gonna see this up-and-comer coming." "What-what party?" "Oh, it's nothing." "It's just a stuffy get-together with a bunch of long-winded intellectuals." "Ugh." "Exactly." "I knew you'd hate it, and that's why you don't have to go." "Oh, no, I'm coming." "No, Mike, seriously, you are... you are off the hook." "Sweetie, I've been married too long to fall for that one, all right?" "That's the old "I don't need a birthday gift,"" ""Be honest about my haircut,"" ""Just tell me if you watch porn." "I don't care." Nah." "No, sir." "I will be at that party so you can show me off to all your highbrow friends." "Yeah." "The-the thing is you really don't need to do it..." "Bup, bup, bup, bup, bup, bup." "I am going, and that is that." "You ready to do this?" "I was born ready." "Joyce, get the door." "Go!" "Go!" "Go!" "(buzzing)" "VINCE:" "Oop!" "My match went out!" "MIKE:" "Well, light another one!" "My can's almost empty!" "VINCE:" "Too late!" "It was a setup!" "They knew we were coming!" "Aah!" "God, they're all over me!" "Should we do something?" "You're right." "I'll get the camera." "♪ La, la-Ba-Dee-da ♪" "♪ La, la-Ba-Dee-da ♪" "♪ For the first time in my life ♪" "♪ I see love ♪" "♪ I see love ♪" "♪ For the first time in my life ♪" "♪ I see love ♪" "Hey." "How's your patient?" "Well, for a guy who swallowed three hornets, he's doing pretty good." "Vince is a mess, too." "I mean, we still made love, but... oh, he was in a lot of pain." "Really?" "Do we need to know that?" "You asked." "Nobody asked." "Is Mike still gonna be able to go to your party?" "No." "He says he is, but I'm gonna encourage him to stay home." "So he can rest?" "Sure." "You don't want him to go." "W..." "I didn't say that." "Well, what are you saying?" "I'm saying that there's gonna be a bunch of stuffy, overeducated intellectuals there and he's not gonna have anything in common with them." "Because he's dumb?" "No." "Because you're afraid he'll say something dumb." "No." "What?" "Seems very familiar, you not wanting your "family"" "to go to your events." "Why-why did you air-quote "family"?" "I'm sorry." "Did I "embarrass" you?" "No." "Because I don't know what you're "doing."" "She's just pointing out that you have a history of hiding us bumpkins in the attic when it's time to meet the public." "That is not true." "Oh, please." "The last parent-teacher conference I even heard about was fifth grade." "That's because you would never wear underwear." "You'd sit in those little desks, showing it to the world." "You got straight A's, didn't you?" "Because I studied." "We'll never know." "Boy, those wasps really got me good, huh?" "Well, at least I'll have a fun story to tell at your party." "Oh, maybe you shouldn't tell that one." "Why not?" "Mike, you got your ass kicked by a bunch of wasps." "I know." "That's why it's funny." "Besides, you know, you get beat fair and square, you got to tip your hat to the victor." "Yeah, but are they laughing with you or..." "Hey, laughing's laughing." "And they're gonna love the part where I Aqua Netted Vince's eyelashes shut." "(laughs)" "I wish I could've seen that." "Yeah, so does Vince." "(both laugh)" "Oh, yeah..." "You know what?" "I-I don't think this is gonna be the... the kind of party where people are telling stories and..." "I thought it was a party for up-and-coming storytellers." "It is, it is." "But, you know, that's their job." "They're off the clock." "Let's give 'em the night off." "Well, I gotta talk about something." "Do you?" "What?" "What?" "No," "I'm-I'm just saying, these people are so full of themselves, they're gonna do most of the talking." "You just have to sit there and listen and just pretend to be interested." "That's it." "It's easy." "I do it with her all the time." "Ma." "No, she's-she's not wrong." "A little mean, but not wrong." "You know, these people just... they're always trying to one-up you." "It's not a conversation." "It's a competition." "I got you." "It's like when Carl starts talking about R  B music." "You know what I do?" "I rub my nose, hinting that he has a booger." "Then that's all he can think about." "Yeah, and then instead of going on and on about Marvin Gaye's dad, he's running for a napkin." "Yeah, I..." "I don't know that these are the types of people that you're gonna throw off with a phantom booger." "You know?" "They'll just assume you have one." "Which you kind of do, by the way." "Nah, that's just a big hair." "I'll yank it in the parking lot when we get there." "Oh!" "Thanks, Ma." "(quiet conversations)" "Oh." "Uh, no railing." "Very... very chic." "There's no way this meets code." "Ma, hold my arm." "I'm fine." "Not for you; for me." "This place is beautiful." "You think they got the game on somewhere?" "Mike, these kinds of people don't watch television." "If they ask, neither do we." "How about a fish tank?" "Anything to look at?" "Well, this has been fun." "Ready to go?" "No." "We gotta stick around until the new author announcements." "That's the whole reason we came." "Fine." "I got to get a few drinks in me if they're gonna parade me up and down like a shih tzu at a dog show." "I think that statue just moved." "That's because it's a real person." "No!" "Are you serious?" "Mike, leave him alone." "Remember the robot cowboy in the park?" "You kept blowing in his ear..." "he didn't like it." "Well, if you can't stay in character, don't paint yourself silver." "Oh, my God, I think that's Jean Thompson." "She wrote The Year We Left Home." "Well, this will be the year that I don't read that." "She's coming this way." "Maybe you should go find your mother." "All right, fine, but I'll come back and rescue you if she's as boring..." "Yeah, yeah, yeah, fine, fine, fine." "All right." "(chuckles)" "(exhales sharply)" "You're good." "Not so fast." "What have we got here?" "Baked crab on wontons." "Mmm. (chuckles)" "(loud crunch)" "(gags)" "Why didn't you tell me it was real crab?" "Oh, what do we have here?" "Real crab." "All right, keep it moving." "So this is your new crowd, huh, Ma?" "You kidding?" "I'm only here because I have to." "I got nothing in common with these poseurs, kissing each other's asses." "Wait a minute." "I think that's the lady who wrote Crock-Pot Confidential." "Oh, is that where you got that tamale casserole recipe?" "Yep, yep, yep." "Bye, bye, bye." "See, I didn't find the piece so much about desolation as loneliness." "Mm-hmm." "(crunches) I..." "I mean, what I..." "what I was saying is that, uh, underneath it all, it's really just a-a sobering account of the human condition." "What is?" "We were just discussing her powerful short story." "Oh, I love short stories!" "Better yet..." "a minute mystery." "Any of you guys ever write one of those?" "I mean, I know I'm a cop, but I'm always surprised by who did it." "Ah, you are such a stitch!" "(both chuckle)" "Is this your husband?" "(quietly):" "Mm-hmm." "Hey!" "Mike Biggs." "Nice to meet you." "By the way, if you guys like mini-hamburgers, highly recommended." "Kind of in the middle of a conversation." "Well, if you eat one of these babies, that's all you're gonna be talking about." "Anyway, uh, as I was saying," "I-I really, um... uh... it..." "I think sometimes..." "(groans, laughs)" "Now I don't remember what I was talking about." "We're talking about these burgers." "No, you were talking about the burgers." "We were talking about her... powerful and moving short story." "MIKE:" "Hey, I got a story." "Any of you guys ever go toe-to-toe with a porch full of wasps, huh?" "You ought to see my back, man." "It's like a strip of bubble wrap." "Goes all the way to here." "Mike!" "Stop it!" "Don't be stupid." "I mean..." "I mean silly." "Yeah, I know what you meant." "Mike." "Excuse me." "You were saying about my story?" "I don't know." "I didn't read it." "Here." "What's this?" "It's the valet ticket." "You and Molly take the car." "I'm heading out." "Oh!" "There you are." "Yeah, I'm just leaving." "Oh, come on." "Look." "You don't want me here." "I've already embarrassed you enough." "Just enjoy your party." "But we're good, right?" "He'll be fine." "By the way, don't bother poking her ass." "She's real." "Yeah, and it was a real snobby party, too." "Real crab, fake people." "I prefer it the other way around." "And Molly was putting on airs like... like she was buying into the whole thing." "If it was just us, she would've been making fun of it, too." "See, I just can't believe she called you stupid." "Bossy." "Blowhard." "Cheap." "Moody." "But not stupid, okay?" "Molly's got to understand that words hurt." "Thanks." "You guys are really cheering me up." "And sarcastic!" "That's another one that you are." "Just giving you a heads-up." "I might be writing a book on cabbage with that Crock-Pot lady." "I'll honor our deal first." "I just wanted to put it out in the open." "Okay, for the record, I did not say he was stupid." "I was saying don't be stupid." "Big difference." "One is being mean, and the other is keeping him from being stupid." "So, it was him you were worried about?" "Yes." "What a good wife you are." "I'm sorry, but those people out there are judging us on every word we say and every move we make." "What do you care what they think?" "Because this is part of the world we live in now, Peggy..." "Chicago's literary elite..." "and if we want to be successful, we better play the game." "You play, I'll watch." "Fine!" "This is a party for up-and-comers?" "Well, here I come." "Molly?" "What?" "Go get 'em." "Thank you." "All right, this is the final question of the round, gentlemen." "This deadly Twin is their all-time home run leader." "Harmon Killebrew..." "573 home runs." "(dings)" "(both grunt)" "That is correct!" "See?" "That big head isn't just for big hats." "(laughs)" "Yeah, I might not know about books or art, but I can name every Cub since 1954." "I can also rebuild any American-made car." "And I can quote practically every line" "Al Pacino has ever said on film." "What about Serpico?" ""I'm a marked man in this department."" "(all laugh)" "I've never seen it, but I'm sure that's right." "Yeah!" "Hey." "Hey!" "Hey!" "Hey!" "Hello." "Can we talk?" "Go ahead, but just so you know, we're in the middle of a pretty heated trivia game, and-and believe it or not," "I'm the brains of the group." "Well, it doesn't surprise me." "It shocked the hell out of us." "You didn't think I was too smart at that party." "Oh, I wasn't too sure of anything at that party." "And after you left, it took a pretty humiliating turn." "And that's before I fell off the stairs on the way out." "At least the stairs didn't call you stupid." "No, but the statue did when I knocked him over." "Those guys have no sense of humor." "I'm sorry!" "I-I was an idiot." "And I just got nervous and intimidated with those people." "And I put it all on you." "I get it." "You forgive me?" "On one condition." "Anything." "Can you join our trivia team?" "We're getting our asses handed to us!" "Like I said..." "I'm the smart one of the group." "Hey, that's because my category has not come up yet." "Okay, uh, my area of expertise is music." "Specifically R  B." "Did you know that Marvin Gaye's father was an ordained minister but never loved his son?" "Hmm?" "And you know..." ""Sit..." "Sittin' on..."" ""Sittin' on..." "Sitti" on the Dock of the... the Dock..." Excuse me." "Hey, that works like a charm." "Every time." "(mutters quietly)" "Nah, I'm just kidding." "Oh!" "(laughs)" "Another party." "Are you sure you want me to go to this one?" "I am big." "I am oafy." "I like mini-hamburgers." "And I like talking about them even more." "You can't embarrass me." "I don't care what those people think." "Well, you should know I'm planning on uncorking some new jokes that I heard at work, and the ones that aren't toilet-based... real dirty." "Mike, you're going to this party." "Damn it." "It was a lot easier to get out of these things when you were ashamed of me." "Look, I know this party is gonna be horrible, but I wouldn't want to share my misery with anybody but you." "That's sweet." "Oh, by the way, save Saturday night for Carl's birthday." "We're gonna watch all three Godfathers." "I'm gonna karaoke all of Al Pacino's lines." "You don't have to go tonight." "Hoo-ha!" "Stupid like a fox!"