Reviewed Monday, 28 February 2000
This episode opens in a foreshadowing way, with Eve screaming her lungs out. Gabrielle tries to quiet her to no avail while Xena bathes. Mommy returns and Eve instantly quiets. Gaby and Xena talk about motherhood, Gab sharing her fears that she'll never make a good mother. Joxer returns with baby-back ribs for Eve's meal. Gabby drags Joxer into town to show him how to properly shop for infants.
Said town has currently become a battleground for Aphrodite and Discord, however. Gabby offers her assistance to the goddess of love but winds up getting hurt in the crossfire, being knocked into the sea by a stray pulley after a painful blow to the head.
Illusia music, water imagery, and Gabby comes to with a hawaiian shirt-clad Joxer hovering over her. Her hair is long, as is the fin that adorns the tail that's where her legs used to be. Joxer informs Gabby that they're married and have three lovely children: a seal, an echinoderm and a mollusk.
Post-opening, Gabby is in a waterbed covered with pink satin sheets. Her legs have returned as she's no longer in water. Joxer comes in and gives her medicine to make her feel better. His name is either Agar or Hagar, I couldn't tell and can't be bothered to exert any effort to find out for certain, and he's pretty unsavoury in just about every way possible.
Agar (named for another unsavoury individual with the first name of John, perhaps?) further proves how unlikable his is by watching merfolk porn ... or just looking out of his window and getting his jollies, it wasn't altogether clear. Gabby complains about the condition of the house, Agar says that now she's better, she can start cleaning again. Gabby then gets strung up by a trap laid by her adorable little tykes, who reluctantly release her in the most painful way possible. The children are introduced: Seal boy is Flipper, spikey is Urchin and the squid is Roe. It's safe to say that they take after their father for overall likability.
A steamliner passes by outside ... No, wait, that's the doorbell. Agar goes to answer it while Roe attacks Gabrielle. At the door are two mermaids, Fran Drescher and her twin sister. Or is it Discord and Aphrodite? They ask about Crustacea running out on Agar, but see Gabby fighting off her "children" in the background and realize she's back. Agar then reveals the "plot" ... he's a politician and wants to get elected to some sort of position, but the council are high on family values. So when he stumbled on look-alike Gabby, he fed her some sort of amnesiac drug to keep her unaware of her true self and a wife at his side. He needs Fran and Fran to keep him stocked in the drug, though. They give it to him, despite obviously wanting such a delightful catch to themselves.
Gabby is mopping and having what I suppose passes for fun with Roe. He seems to be fairly keen on her, to the extent of wrapping his tentacles around her legs and refusing to let go when the doorbell toots. It's the two Frans again. They say that they're Crustacea's best friends, and take her out to "the club." I'm assuming this is supposed to be a Club Med for merfolks - lots of scantily clad people walking around in the sunshine. Sound about right to me.
In the pool, the girls talk while they "aquacise" to the instructions shouted out suggestively by their lifeguard/instructor. They tell her that according to what Crustacea's told them, she's incredibly unhappy at home and her kids are unbearable. They say they'll help her pack, but Gabby says if they're that bad, she owes it to them to stay and help them get better.
Jox--er, Agar gives a speech to the council, vowing to put schools for their fishes everywhere. One lounging member at the back makes a comment about Agar's homelife. The music tells us we're supposed to feel intimdated.
Gabby regains consciousness (when was she knocked out? Got me.) upside down again. Her children have once again strung her up and plan to feed her to a shark. Aren't they cute?
The children laugh uproariously at their wit ... or they have the flu and are hacking up their respiratory system, the sounds are quite similar. Before Gabby can become fishfood, though, her instincts kick in and she flips herself to safety. She grounds the brats, who blame each other, but get sent to their room anyway. Unfortunately, Gabby forget to get them to untie her first.
Dinnertime. Agar comes home from a hard day of schmoozing. He says he wishes he could be like Gabby and do all the stereotypical things she does all day, like fix her hair and make herself look pretty. Gabby hurls a knife at Agar and asks the kids to give them a few moments alone before she launches into a tirade about how the house doesn't clean itself, etc. If you have a mother, you've heard this at least once in your life. Agar talks baby talk. Gabby slaps him. She says they're both going to start raising the kids, because she won't have them treating their spouses like he treats her.
Agar is trying to read but someone keeps turning the lightswitch on him. We're spared the suspected "sexy" scene with the discovery that Gabby just doesn't want him to see her in the nightgown that she supposedly sleeps in. When she doesn't sleep in the nude, anyway. She asks Agar how they met. He relays the story. It has "Staying Alive" as background music and is supposed to be funny. I'll spare you the rest of the details.
Fran^2 are getting massages. They plan to involve Gabby in an accident accidentally on purpose.
Gabby is at the club with her adopted spawn. The Frans convince her to get her portrait done with Roe. Unfortunately, she doesn't notice the giant killer octopus that they've released into the swimming pool until it's knocked her in.
Lots of people stand around watching Gabby getting mauled in the pool. The water turns red with blood. And then Gabby emerges with a knife between her teeth. She takes Roe home after apologizing for him missing the Swimboree class.
Hagar (I think I heard an H there) makes a romantic dinner for the family of clamburgers. Flipper can't hold them properly, being that his hands are ... well, Flippers. Hagar is manipulated into doing the dishes.
Fran^2 plan to help Gabby get her memory back so they can fight between themselves over Hagar.
Hagar brings Gabby to the Coral Garden, which is supposed to be "their place" or something. He seems to be genuinely fond of her and asks him to marry him again.
Grumpy Council Guy congratulates Hagar on having a ceremony to renew his marriage vows so close to the election. Fran 1 confirms with Fran 2 that she switched the drinks as Bridal Gabby comes down the aisle. Hagar looks stunning in his long white wedding shorts, black knee socks and sneakers. GCG is reading his sermon and starts by saying that trust is the cornerstone of a good marriage which makes Hagar feel guilty, so he says he needs to tell Gabby something. Gab is looking around at the decorations and notices a bizarre circular thing which looks like--you guessed it--a chakram. She has a memory flash of Xena. She sees two woman in the water and is reminded of Xena again with an armful of fish. The ceremony draws to a close, more memories of Xena, Gabby calls it off and says she's not Crustacea.
Hagars on the spot and confesses everything. The Frans try to convince him to pick one of them instead and resort to a cat fight. When it breaks up, they decide to kill Hagar instead. Gabby beats the snot out of them. Roe helps. Gabby flips off Discord/Fran. The Frans go at each other again until Jerry Springer bodyguards separate them.
Wizard of Oz style goodbyes from Gabby to the kids and then asks Hagar to go to his wife and show her the side of himself that Gabby saw.
Gabby kisses Hagar goodbye, then Hagar turns into Joxer who was giving her mouth-to-mouth. Gabby hits him. Xena is there and wonders what's going on with Gabby, and then threatens Aphrodite and Discord, so they run off. Eve starts crying again, so Gabby takes her. Eve stops, and Gabby says she has a new story for the baby. Xena follows Gabby with a bemused look on her face, Joxer painfully trailing.
I suppose I should've expected no better by my reluctance to actually sit down and watch this episode. Usually, at 4pm every Saturday, I have the TV on and have settled back for an hour's worth of entertainment. I was busy this Saturday, though, and tuned in late. What I saw didn't grab me immediately, so I decided to turn it off and come back later when I had more time to see the whole thing. Half an hour or so later, I flicked the TV on, just to see what was going on. Just in time to see poofy-haired Gabrielle talking to Aphrodite and Discord, with equally poofy hair with bad accents, and then I watched in stunned disbelief as she leaned over and kissed the Muppet that was in a wagon at her feet.
I decided to turn the set off again and come back later.
Usually I have the synopsis for new episodes done by Sunday or Monday, if I'm going into great detail. I watch the episode when it airs, then start gathering my faults, then have the episode running again while I do the synopsis and take notes. It's currently Monday, and I only just sat down to watch the episode for the first time two hours ago. My reluctance to, if you'll excuse the pun, dive into this sea adventure was palpable. And rightfully so.
What we have here in Married with Fishsticks is ... well, I don't even know exactly. It's obviously supposed to be a comedy, as well as a homage to that paragon of family values, Married with Children. I also heard that it was supposed to be a sequel to Fins, Femmes and Gems and while I've seen bits and pieces of it in clips shows and picked up a bit more in sound files, as of the writing of this review, I've not seen the episode. If it was anything like this one, I'm not sure I WANT to.
I got the feeling while watching this episode that there was a huge joke going on that I just wasn't privy to. Due to a lack of seeing the episode that spawned it, something else in pop culture that I'm unaware of, or just the fact that I simply didn't find anything in this show funny, I don't know. What I DO know is that I'm stuck with an episode that I am, quite frankly, EMBARRASSED to distribute. If it weren't for the fact that I need them to do reviews for it eventually, I think I'd hide it from Amy and Mike. You shouldn't feel ashamed of your favourite show, but that's what Fishsticks has done to me. This is bad, folks. Even Eternal Bonds wasn't so stupidly silly that I wanted to hide it from the world.
There are seven epiodes left in Season Five. At this stage, I think I'll be glad if I can make it through without having to change my Least Favourite Episode again.
One Budding Kalamari Buffet out of Five |
Did you see the same episode I did? Oh good, then you can answer this one yourself. And if you didn't see it, save yourself the trouble. I'm too dispirited about the thing to even bother.
Zip, zilch and zero. I'm not even a raving fanboy, so I didn't get the same kind of appreciation from watching Gabrielle spend the entire episode in a swimsuit. No, wait, I got one for you. The squid thing. Okay, it was dumb as hell, but amazingly, it didn't look anywhere near as stupid as Seal Boy, and managed to have more character than just about anything else in this episode. I guess it's the big eyes=cute thing, I dunno.
Ah, hang on, I just thought of another. Rather than the three to four days that a new episode review usually takes me, I was able to churn the entire thing out, from initial view through to posting, in two and a half hours. And most of that was in technical page creation.
Quote of the Episode:
Just one. What the hell were TPTB THINKING?!
Questions, comments or dramamine? Send them to JetWolf@jetwolf.com.