Episode 8, Part 2; Doug on the Wild Side

This is a shot of a fantasy at the beginning where Doug imagines he has a normal grandmother. She brings them homemade pickled beets. She has a favorite rocking chair she sits in when she visits. She knits. This is what Doug wants. What Doug has is the only family member that actually tries to help him with some of his problems.

Grandma Opal shows up and ends Doug's "normal grandma" fantasy with her loud motorcycle. She's brought gifts for everyone. Judy gets boots.



She loves them. Phil and Theda get this shit...



They are nice about getting stupid shit they don't like. Doug gets a jacket he doesn't like.



He imagines wearing it. Guess who shows up?





Of course Beebe is a member of the fashion police, but Roger? The poor kid with rickets? Paranoid Doug is funny.

So anyway, Grandma Opal wants someone to give her a tour of the new town they live in. Doug excitedly volunteers and promises Phil they'll be back by 6:00 in time for supper. Grandma drags him and Porkchop out of the door.



It's like Doug and Porkchop weigh nothing, and don't want to go. They are hesitant about riding on the motorcycle at first. We quickly go into Doug's fantasy land.



Yeah, you'd be cool as hell on motorcycles. You'd wear bandannas and leather vests and skull t shirts and spiked bracelets, and you'd have a badass heart tattoo. Lets take a closer look at that sweet tat!



YEAH! Definitely wouldn't regret that. You either marry her and have her maiden name tattooed on your arm, or you don't marry her and spend the rest of your life telling everyone you fucking love a condiment to avoid having to tell how you never got to marry the love of your life and you spend each night seeing how much alcohol you can drink because of the constant reminder of your failure you have on your arm. Doug; you so crazy.

Of course, this fantasy is totally irrelevant anyway once you see that Doug and Porkchop are riding bitch sidecar.



Thank god she brought a helmet and goggles fit for a dog. At their first stop, some stereotypical bikers come along and frighten Doug. One of them pulls up next to Grandma Opal and asks if she wants to drag. What a fucking moron. Can't you see the sidecar with the kid and the dog in it? She declines and shows the guy pictures of her grandkids. This is particularly amazing since we only know of Doug and Judy, and Doug is sitting right there. Kind of pointless to show off pictures of him. Show him off instead. Surprisingly, the biker is impressed and shows off pictures of his kids, which we can assume live in different states with their mothers because he's a stereotype named Bubba (and we know this because of his shirt).



After this cool experience with that dirtbag, Grandma Opal says she's ready for lunch and pulls up to a sushi bar.



Porkchop is handling those chop sticks way better than can be expected of a dog. Grandma Opal tells Doug that sushi is fish. He asks, "like fried fish sticks?" "Well it's kinda like fish sticks, only it's raw fish." Uh oh, fantasy time...



The fish is begging for its life. Doug thinks raw means it's still alive. How cute/pathetic/retarded. Still, this thought is very terrifying for him.



I'd be terrified too, if my food was standing up like this, begging for its life and crying like a human. What is wrong with this kid?

Realizing that Doug is hesitant because it contains raw fish, she reminds him of the first time he ate ice cream. He loved it.



It made him stop crying like a little bitch. So, going on the basis that he liked ice cream the first time he tried it, he tries the sushi.



And loves it. He says he can't wait to tell Skeeter about it.

After sushi, they're driving around when they spy Mayonnaise outside of the library. Grandma Opal quickly picks up on the fact that Doug likes her and encourages him to go talk to her. Doug plays this out in two ways, of course.

"Hey Patti, you look good today!"



"Oh, are you trying to say I don't look good on every other day?"



She takes the compliment in the worst sort of way and Doug literally shrinks down to nothing. Or this interaction with Patti could turn out good...



WHAT!? Why are you suddenly Elvis!? This is how Doug sees this playing out? She's either going to be mad as hell or he's going to be Elvis. Fucking. Crazy.

So Doug says hi, tells her she looks nice, she thanks him, and that's it. No big deal. Doug and Grandma Opal make it home in time for dinner. Doug skips dessert to go try on his new jacket and do an Elvis impersonation.



Grandma Opal leaves and Doug makes his best attempt to adopt her catch phrase. "Life's a picnic, and I'm starving!"



Then Doug and Porkchop ride off into fantasy land.





What else is there to say about this episode? I guess it's good that Grandma Opal is trying to get Doug to stop being so introverted, but it won't last. It hardly works to begin with, and I think being pushed like that created the weird Elvis fantasy. Porkchop was crazy active in this. Of course, Doug is just lying to us about that. Porkchop didn't wear a dog helmet and goggles, he didn't master chopsticks, and he didn't ride a bike at the end like you see up there. Maybe Porkchop "did" all those things as a way for Doug to cope with having a pushy, edgy grandma instead of a normal one. If Porkchop can eat sushi without problems, so can Doug, right?