Mr. & Mrs. Houston such a beautiful couple!

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September 2nd

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Tia Mowry-Hardrict @ the Soul Train Lady of Soul Awards(1999)

Original air date: Oct 15, 1997

Okay, so we begin this infuriating episode with Floyd coming home and calling out for his biological children. None of them are home. Except for Mo. Mo broke into the house. No, seriously. He broke into the house and started eating somebody’s leftovers. Now in any other case, this would warrant a passionate ass whooping and a call to the parents of this child because what the fuck are you doing so wrong to have your son breaking into houses and not stealing anything except for food? However, this is sitcom world and Floyd just seems more annoyed than anything since Mo is always there anyway.

Mo tells Floyd he needs to be more careful about locking the windows. So linebacker ass Mo really needed to eat and somehow oozed through a window just to get food? Ok, I take back what I said about him needing his ass kicked. Mo is clearly malnourished even though he’s huge. His parents must be poor and therefore can’t afford to feed him. Holy shit was that dark. Moving on. 

Food and TJ’s brain are the reasons for his crime. His parents are going to kill him if he brings home another D. This is really helping me build a theory that Mo’s parents are abusive, so let’s assume his parents are literal this time about the kill thing. Floyd then realizes that Mo’s punishment would equal him not being over again to eat up their food and casually break in so he tells Mo that TJ joined the Marines. Nice, Floyd.

Just then, the rest of Floyd’s flock comes in babbling about who got what part in a play. TJ is naturally upset because he wanted a bigger role, still not getting used to the idea that he’s a 10 year old and unless he’s playing the role of a character with dwarfism, it wouldn’t make sense for him to have a huge part. TJ storms off in a huff. Typical TJ things.

The next day, everyone is atwitter over a test from their more over it than Lisa Simpson teacher. This man wants all of his students to fail. He hates his students. He’s a teacher and yet he hates teaching. Maybe this is the wrong profession for you, bruh? And it’s evident his ‘over it’ level is on a million from the way he comes in and tells his class to “get ready to hate me.” The deadpan, dry delivery was funny though. 

His first task is to give his students an assignment so hard that even he doesn’t know all the answers. Um, why? If you don’t know the answers, how are you gonna grade the tests? Isn’t this just creating more work for you, someone who already hates his job? Why the fuck does Piedmont hire such bad teachers and faculty, dammit?

Even TJ is intimidated by this test! Mo asks Mr. Bringleman why stuff from another chapter he previously said wouldn’t be on the test is on the test. He simply says he lied. This man is evil. I hated teachers who did that bitch ass shit. Yes, I only studied for what you said was going to be on the test because I have other classes too, ya know. I’m a teenager, not a machine!

I’m just gonna call him Mr. B for the rest of this review because fuck this most likely racist white man. His ass was listening to the boys talking about how hard the test was and then Mo says he wishes he could do to Mr. B what he does to all of them. Mr. B asks if he’s threatening him and Mo stammers. Then Mr. B insults his intelligence by asking if he ever has a complete thought. Before he can even fix his mouth to call him the N word, not Linda Ellerbee shows up to see what’s going on. Oh yeah, and she’s the new principal. She’s the third one so far and this is only the first half of the second season.

Anyways, she needs someone to cover a class and outright forces him to do it. Ha-ha. When the boys laugh at him, Mr. B says he’s going to grade Mo’s test. Nice, I just love seeing teachers bully students.

At the play rehearsal, TJ is still campaigning for a lead role. Mackey has to be the one to humble him, asking for duct tape. Marcus’s play related arc in this episode is pursuing acting seriously in case music doesn’t work out. His part has no lines so he’s trying to act with his face. He can just feel the SAG membership card in his hands.

Just then, Yvette bursts in wearing a Prince-inspired outfit and lets everyone know there was a fire in the chem lab. Dun du–pause. Why the fuck is she telling everyone? Wouldn’t they have had a fire drill? Are there no fire alarms in this blasted school? How the fuck did nobody know about it or smell smoke and why is Yvette bursting in like the town crier in this Purple Rain ass outfit???

All the students are happy until Linda Ellerbee hands Mo his charred playbook and asks him to come into her office. Dun dun dun. Later we find out that Mo was expelled. Because he is an abused child who only feels safe at the Hendersons, Mo has once again broke into their house and begun working out in their garage. Floyd is over it.

TJ comes home and talks to Mo. He is sad to learn that nobody thinks he’s innocent but says that TJ has to believe him because he has the “wide-eyed innocence of a child.” He follows this up with shitty examples of kids trusting adults who end up being assholes. Once they finally get on a good example, TJ is able to see that Mo is innocent and decides to help Mo get back into school.

The next day, TJ is in the principal’s office waiting for Linda Ellerbee. She has mice in her office because Piedmont is the worst public school ever and is resorting to playing the Spice Girls to get them out. Is that supposed to be a diss to the Spice Girls? Fuck anyone who disses the Spice Girls.

Sis is not budging when it comes to letting Mo back in the school. Sounds like a job for TJ’s cuteness and persistence! He gets her to agree to a mock trial where Mo would have to come back to the school. I…whatever. Order in the courtroom!

TJ is Mo’s defense. The opposinjg side calls Marcus to the stand so we already know this will end in disaster. It takes less than a minute for Marcus to admit that Mo threatened Mr. B. Ugh! Stupid Marcus. But he doesn’t even do the worst on the stand. Mo actually manages to fuck it all up! Marcus and TJ are trying to paint Mo out to be, what the kids today would call it, a “punk ass bitch.” Rather than play along and accept it, dumb ass Mo puts his stupid, fragile masculinity ahead of his chance to get back into school and says that he follows through on all threats. Once he realizes his gaffe, he immediately sits his ass down. Yvette is annoyed.

Vice principal Millitch, who will later replace Linda Ellerbee in one of the only sensical things I’ve seen regarding Piedmont, qualifies that Mo’s playbook was found at the scene next to Mr. B’s burnt gradebook. It was nice knowing ya, Mo. We know how the legal system works.

So then the loser teacher gets on the stand and tries to make it seem like he doesn’t intentionally make his students suffer by giving them ridiculously hard tests and lying about what’s even going to be on the test. To him, Mo is just a stupid, violent nigger so of course he’d want to commit a crime instead of studying harder. And then he lays it on thicker by insulting his intelligence again, explaining what the word combust means in the most smug ass, irritating way. It’s fucked up upon re-watch but at least it’s super realistic how predominately black public schools get racist white teachers often. They’re usually there for the tuition reimbursement.

TJ is now realizing that he may not be able to help Mo out of this jam. While eating dinner, Yvette comes in and apologizes for her lateness, saying the trial is over and now the school can continue with the play rehearsals. She tells an adamant TJ that Mr. B, also assuming the trial’s conclusion, was chain smoking cigarettes and humming “Don’t Worry Be Happy.” Floyd is appalled at the latter. TJ’s gears begin shifting. Side note but doesn’t Mr. B just look like a miserable ass teacher who smokes in the classroom?

TJ and Mo break into the school. Geez, so much trespassing in this episode! Mo isn’t even worried about being caught because what are they gonna do, “expel him from college?” Slapstick ensues while TJ collects samples from the gradebook. Mo, on the other hand, is battling a mouse trap. I was super high when I watched this last night but this scene had me in stitches. Omar Gooding is really good with physical comedy. Look, even TJ gets stuck to him when they’re leaving! Priceless!

At court the next morning, TJ calls Mr. B to the stand. He brilliantly examines him and exposes him for smoking in the classroom, which was the actual cause for the fire. This man is fucking evil! He was actually about to get away with very possibly ruining a teenager’s life until a fucking 10 year old stepped in and dug deeper. He could have seriously gotten him disowned by his parents, making him homeless, forcing him to turn to the streets for survival. All because he’s an asshole and didn’t have the heart to own up to what he did. Hell, it’s fucking Piedmont! I’m sure they would have kept him!

Seeing as he just gets sent to Linda’s office, he’s most likely getting a slap on the wrist and paid vacation leave. Oh well. Also frustratingly realistic. At least Mo isn’t expelled anymore. Too bad Mo’s unwashed hands are still sticky when he shakes the principal’s hand and the joke continues.

At the end, Marcus gets bumped up to the illustrious Juror #2. Gotta love a true thespian! Case dismissed. Bring out the dancing lobsters.

Things I noticed:

-Stinky Steve is Mr. B’s defense.

- Piedmont has no respect for their students’ time. The mock trial began at 8am. Assuming that their school day begins at 9am, I bet the play participants probably hate TJ for forcing them to get up an hour earlier than normal, on top of having to do the play after school.

Original air date: April 9, 1997

The “switcheroo” plot is one of the many television tropes that grinds my gears because it is so tired. Nothing annoys me more than a character (usually male) with shitty communication skills who would rather pretend to be two people than simply reschedule. Or a character so indecisive that they can’t even pick a life. 

Anyways, this is the show’s crossover episode. Tahj guest starred in Sister, Sister. Now his twin sisters are doing the same, but in their younger brother’s show! The twins are there to give Marcus something to lust over while TJ’s brain is being appreciated.

Marcus is in the principal’s office trying to switch classes because his teacher is boring although he’s halfway through the semester. Suddenly, Tia Mowry walks in, excited to be joining the class he’s trying to leave. Marcus shoots his shot and succeeds, then starts doing his “happy dance.” Meanwhile, TJ’s brain is being picked apart by Principal Dowling, who needs help understanding how to hook up the school’s internet. Clearly, they have no IT department, or even one or two guys working freelance. But then again, they also don’t have AP classes, so i guess I shoudn’t be shocked.

After Marcus scores the digits, we cut to Floyd at home being greeted by two white men in suits with briefcases. He assumes TJ is in trouble when they ask for him and when one of the cops guys asks why he thinks that, Floyd brilliantly replies, “Two white guys show up at my door in FBI suits, what am I supposed to think?” Loved that line. This show was so unapologetically black.

Luckily, no Fred Hampton situation happens here. They just wanna talk to TJ! However, instead of greeting this obviously gifted black kid the way they would greet a gifted white kid, they resort to the painfully cringeworthy attempt to relate to him by trying to seem “hip” with their watered down Ebonics. “You got a phat crib here, mah man!” TJ’s expression sums it up perfectly.

Floyd walks away from secondhand embarassment. 

TJ, a ten year old black kid from Washington, D.C. is schooling these grown men about internet mumbo jumbo when Kenya Moore shows up. No, seriously.

Floyd begins acting like his son, letting the whole world know that this woman is making all the blood rush to his penis. But Kenya is not there to be their stepmom. She’s there to persuade TJ to work for their company and bribes him with a bigger hard drive so that he can play a computer game. Floyd already knows where this is going.

TJ runs into both sisters the next day at school, meeting the brainier sister in a 70s getup. See, she’s smart because she dresses anachronistically, reads Tolstoy for leisure and wears glasses. Marcus and Mo, now besties, approach the other twin and proceed to make her uncomfortable. Okay, Mo mostly does that, but she accepts it from Marcus because she likes him. Marcus even shoos Mo away from shooting his shot by telling him that someone was leaning on his Pinto. Mo is not letting anyone fuck up his $300 death trap. He takes off. 

Marcus sets a date with Tamera and becomes conflicted because he wants both of them. To do this, he tells Tamera that he is a twin. Thusly, Marcus begat Marquise, who is Marcus if he wore a lace front goatee and a beret. Blah blah, Marcus is manipulating women by pretending to be “deep” and TJ is under the table playing Cyrano, blah. This is honestly one of the few episodes of Smart Guy that I don’t like to rewatch.

After successfully playing the twins, one of them comes back because they desperately want the D. The other one joins because she too, wants the D and they start fighting, recalling childhood infractions. I think this is how Tia and Tamera actually argue. When Marcus reveals that Marquise doesn’t exist, the girls make up because regular degular Marcus is not what they wanted. He’s actually upset by this. Who knew that pretending to be someone you’re not to date two different people could have negative consequences?

Mr. Henderson and Principal Dowling force TJ to choose a company after he continues to accept more bribes. He mentions the other company just gave him a keychain that turns out to be keys to a Jag. Floyd then throws out all of the wisdom he was trying to teach TJ, tells him to accept the company’s offer and high-fives the principal. I love that even Floyd can’t turn down free shit. 

Stuff I noticed:

- Marcus was hinting at a threesome.

- Marcus’s lace front goatee, brought to you by Tyler Perry Studios.