Episode Transcript
Lindsay: Thanks, friend.
Michael: You’re taking it for the side effect, aren’t you?
Lucille: Michael?
Michael: Oh, God. Mother, not a good time. I’m having a meeting here.
Lucille: Look at what Buster sent from the Army.
Michael: It’s blacked out.
Oscar: Oh, the government. Keep... Yeah, keep reading.
Michael: “Sergeant Blank is treating me very blank, and it looks like I’ll be shipping off to blank in about a blank. I blank you, Mother. Buster.”
Lucille: I’ve done everything I can. I even tried to convince them he’s gay, but no one would believe that a woman like me would have a gay son.
Michael: Well, you certainly tried. You guys wore matching outfits till he was 12.
- Balboa Bay Window
- The “Magazine of the American Society of Ladies Who Lunch—A Lot” features Lucille and Buster, with an article “Why I want to marry my mother” by Buster Bluth, age 10.
Narrator: Even once in a magazine cover that had been mocked within the family for years.
Oscar: Lucille, I’ll-I’ll say it again. You never know what’s going to happen in the Army. Remember, Lucille?
Lucille: No, I don’t.
Michael: Please. Stan Sitwell’s coming over.
Lucille: That hairless freak is coming here? None of his hair is real, you know.
G.O.B.: You mean the guy we’re meeting with can’t even grow his own hair? Come on!
Michael: It’s called alopecia, and I’d appreciate it if we could all be sensitive to it, okay? He happens to be a very modest and generous man.
Lucille: Modest and generous? Then why is he always waving giant $10 million checks over his head every time some...?
Michael: Go ahead, Mom, finish the thought. Every time some children’s hospital needs funding?
Lucille: Nonetheless. We could get a giant checkbook, too. We’re just not that starved for attention.
Narrator: And later, Sitwell laid out his plan.
Michael: Sorry that my son couldn’t be here.
Stan Sitwell: Let me guess. Girlfriend. You know, it could be worse. He could want to marry your mother. (Laughs.) Oh, I’m sorry. Is your family not laughing at that yet?
Stan Sitwell: Okay, let me tell you what I’m offering. You got a wonderful piece of property here that’s going nowhere. So, what I propose is a co-venture with your Sudden Valley Development. The first thing you might want to change, though, is the name. You know, Sudden Valley conjures up the image of a sinkhole, no?
Michael: I told that to Dad. I told that to my Dad.
Stan Sitwell: I’m thinking, “Paradise Gardens.”
Michael: I swear to God I have that written... I want you to see that so you don’t think that I’m... I-I have that written down on my notebook.
Narrator: When George, Sr. was in charge, he had a habit of shooting down any idea Michael came up with.
Michael: ...and Sudden Valley just sort of implies that something awful could happen all of a sudden. You know? Plus, it’s on a hill.
George, Sr.: What, are you taking stupid pills? Come on. Save us some money.
Narrator: This was a management tool he used to keep Michael working for his approval.
George, Sr.: That was a hard one to say no to.
Stan Sitwell: The only thing I ask is, out of the 450 homes we build, one be given to a disadvantaged family from the inner city.
G.O.B.: That’s great. So the other 449 families live in fear? Is that what we’re saying? I mean, come on! Where’s your decenc...?
G.O.B.: What the hell just fell off your face? One-One... One of those guy’s eyebrows just fell in the bowl of candy beans.
Stan Sitwell: I always carry a spare.
G.O.B.: Well, I hope you also carry a spare bowl of candy beans.
