Frasier Recap: Ding-Dong! Your Unresolved Father-Son Issues Are Here!
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A busted door buzzer leads Frasier and Freddy to work on their busted relationship this week… but it may not be an easy fix.
When Freddy brings a girl named Nicole home — hi, Amber Stevens West! — she’s impressed by his lavish apartment. He admits he lives with his father, and she thinks it’s a elder care situation. (“Does he need help?” “He’s definitely needy.”) Frasier spoils that, though, when he returns home glistening with sweat after a vigorous birding excursion. Freddy plays it all off as a delusion of Frasier’s mind, and Nicole buys it, speaking loudly to Frasier and reminding him Freddy is his son. Frasier isn’t happy when Freddy clues him in, but he plays along: “I apologize for my outburst. I must have been sundowning.”
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Frasier is still fuming the next day, and when Freddy tries to tell him it’s hard to explain he lives with his dad, Frasier has a quick retort: “Couldn’t possibly imagine what that’s like.” Freddy just wants to pull his own weight, so when Eve complains that her face cream delivery went missing because the building’s buzzer is broken, Frasier enlists Freddy to fix it. The son makes short work of it, but he did have to open a (tiny) hole in Frasier’s wall to check on a possible plumbing leak — and Frasier can’t relax in his own home when there’s a tiny hole in his wall! Meanwhile, Alan has chased off all of the available T.A.s at Harvard, so Olivia assigns him David. He’s a little too eager (of course), so Alan whips up a new version of the T.A. handbook that allows him to put David to work trimming his cat’s claws and separating all the marshmallows out of his Lucky Charms.
Frasier doesn’t want to step on Freddy’s toes, so he hires a plumber on the sly — hi, Andy Daly! — to find the leak so Frasier can suggest a solution. When Freddy comes home early, Frasier tries to claim that the plumber is his teaching colleague at Harvard… even though he’s wearing coveralls with his name on them. The plumber explains that he’s exploring the preconceived notions associated with blue-collar workers (nice save!), but when Freddy suggests a costly plumbing error, the plumber gets mad and outs himself, and Freddy is upset that Frasier is treating him like a child. The plumber fixes the leak, but he left the hole in the wall, and Frasier insists he can take care of that himself — but then his knee gives out, and he crumples to the floor in agony.
He won’t admit he’s hurt, though, so Freddy leaves him alone with the refrigerator door open and beeping, and Frasier is forced to call Alan for help. While Eve helps Freddy realize that he can be very smug when he’s right about something, Alan helps Frasier realize that he doesn’t want help from his son because he doesn’t want to burden him since he wasn’t there for him growing up. Something clicks when David tells Frasier he doesn’t mind being ordered around by Alan: “It feels good to be valued.” When Frasier wrenches his other knee, he finally asks Freddy for help, and Freddy is careful not to be too smug about it. And hey, that girl Nicole comes back, and Frasier acts like an addled senior to back up Freddy’s story: “I was attacked by robots!” Well, it’s not a long-term fix… but it’ll hold for now.
Got thoughts on this week’s Frasier? And how excited are you to see Peri Gilpin back as Roz in next week’s finale? Hit the comments and make your voice heard: We’re listening.
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